topic Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po in General Credit Topics

Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward points

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 13:00:06 GMT

Please give advice...

I have not used my Fidelity rewards card for months and today I learned that Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward points.

They claimed to have sent me a letter asking for information and I did not respond. In fact, I never received that letter.

I have close to 200,000 rewards points over ~10 years.

Simply can not let it go. I spoke to regular rep, supervisor, supervisor's supervisor and all said they can not do anything about it...

Any advice is appreciated.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 13:11:03 GMT

I am afraid there isn't much you can do now, 2000 bucks gone, thats hard to swallow for anyone.

See if any other more experienced MFers have any input.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 13:13:05 GMT

Small claims court.

They have to prove they notified you. Make them prove it.

Likely they will settle.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 13:37:04 GMT

In reading my card terms and conditions, got the impression that the lender could do whatever they wanted with rewards. My take on it was cash the rewards out as you go along or risk loosing them. Now it is only my impression and only on reading a few lenders Terms & Conditions?

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

CreditInspired — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 14:46:56 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Please give advice...

I have not used my Fidelity rewards card for months and today I learned that Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward points.

They claimed to have sent me a letter asking for information and I did not respond. In fact, I never received that letter.

I have close to 200,000 rewards points over ~10 years.

Simply can not let it go. I spoke to regular rep, supervisor, supervisor's supervisor and all said they can not do anything about it...

Any advice is appreciated.

Hi and welcome to MyFICO

This is really a blow to the gut and I can't imagine losing $20, much less $2K. So I ran through some scenarios because I just can't wrap my head around their nonchalant attitude regarding this. So, first, did they tell you what the letter said and did you ask them to email you a copy of the so-called letter pronto.

Now a few questions on some reasons why an account may be closed or rewards confiscated:

Were there any late payments?
I know you said you used the account months ago, but exactly how long a period of inactivity?
I don't know anything about Elan but was wondering if the rewards expired?
Did you return several items that had earned rewards?
Could Elan have thought you were gaming the system somehow?
Is it possible the CC issuer changed the reward program structure and you missed it?

These are only questions off the top of my head.

I learned a very valuable lesson from your post. I definitely won't be allowing any of my points to accumulate for any length of time.

Thanks for sharing and I really hope you get some type of satisfaction from this.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

FinStar — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 14:12:46 GMT

Sorry to hear about the closure and rewards points forfeiture. Unfortunately, not much that can be done even if escalated to their EO.

Their CCA and Fidelity T&C pretty much addresses some of these situations. So, even if any legal avenues are pursued, if ELAN produces evidence of such correspondence/notification, this may not play in your favor.

Was there anything that prevented you from cashing out or redeeming these points from your Fidelity account? Also, it sounds like the ELAN CC account may have sat dormant without use for a long period of time before the notification was sent.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 14:59:56 GMT

Thanks! I am thinking about taking this route...

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:02:58 GMT

I never thought about transferring points... paobably because I never expect to lose them...

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:04:19 GMT

They said it as because of credit risk. Probably because of the dispute between my former landlord and me...

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:17:07 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I never thought about transferring points... paobably because I never expect to lose them...

Hope you can get the points back. But....

As a general PSA, certainly amplified by this: In general, NEVER keep cashback points with an issuer, for two reasons.

1) You never know when something like this can happen, either because of some genuine concern, or because of a mistake. Fighting for them back will take effort and may anyway be unsuccessful

2) You earn no interest. Much better to cash out whenever you can (min redemption for example) and place in an interest bearing account if needed.

(Some people like to keep the rewards separate for various reasons, this can be done by placing them in a new account)

The exceptions is when there is some benefit in redeeming a certain larger amount, e.g. additional discounts on $100 gift cards. If that is the route, redeem when you reach the needed figure!

For convertible travel points, UR/MR/TYP while the first concern is still there, and devaluation is a bigger risk, you may need to keep them with the issuer unless you know you will certainly redeem them for a particular partner. (And even then, the risk of 1 might be less critical than the wish to retain flexibility)

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 16:00:52 GMT

I wanna thank everyone for weighing in. This is not an easy news to digest. I have not told my wife about it. She might freak out... $2000 is not a trivial amount for us. To answe the question of why I kept all these points: it's sort of watching your savings grow. However dumb that may be now with the hindsight, it did feel that way.. in those many years we used the card, we used it for everything and never claimed any benefits, travel delay insurence, baggage damage, car rental insurance, etc. We just put what we earned on the card for our spending.

I understand the T & C thing.. but my problem with that is, I really did not get any letter.. I would 100% reply to whatever question they need us to answer.

I am not a politician or a political mind, (Mod cut/edit - not here please. The 5 Things We Don't Talk About). They get to set the t & c, ask us questions, close my card and takes my points, aka assets..

Sorry if this feels like rambling. I am not willing to let it go easily.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Credit-hoarder — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:39:43 GMT

Sorry to hear this happened OP--I would be devistated if I had that much money just go straight down the drain!
I know this is a moot point--but how on earth did you manage to accumulate that many pts. on a 2% card? Over 10 years you must have litterally put ALL of you expenses on it to get to that amount.
I hope you can get this resolved in your favor.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

CreditInspired — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 15:49:34 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
They said it as because of credit risk. Probably because of the dispute between my former landlord and me...

How is this related to Elan? Or, is there a collection reported on your CR? If there are negatives on your credit report, then according to a credit cards' TOS, they can and will take this type of action--closure of a CC and forfeiture of rewards.

No matter though, this is still a heartbreaking story.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Aim_High — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:13:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote: "They said it was because of credit risk. Probably because of the dispute between my former landlord and me..."

Until you said this, I was in favor of the small claims court route.

Now, it sounds like they may have had grounds to be concerned per fine print T&C.

If you lose, small claims court would just set you farther back (attorney fees.)

Probably best to let it go; lessons learned for you and all of us.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Aim_High — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:15:46 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
As a general PSA, certainly amplified by this: In general, NEVER keep cashback points with an issuer, for two reasons.

1) You never know when something like this can happen ...

2) You earn no interest ...

The exceptions is when there is some benefit in redeeming a certain larger amount, e.g. additional discounts on $100 gift cards.

For convertible travel points, UR/MR/TYP ... devaluation is a bigger risk, you may need to keep them with the issuer unless you know you will certainly redeem them for a particular partner.

Some excellent points here. That is one reason I am skeptical about cards that have minimum redemptions, even $25. They can take your money at any time and I'm sure people lose rewards more often than people think for a slew of reasons in the "fine print." Many issuers are not paying anywhere near the advertised cash-back or rewards rates by the time you add in lost points and fees people pay for interest charges, late payments, etc. And human nature is to think that those things will never happen to US, only to OTHER PEOPLE.

I considered that Fidelity card but researched ELAN FINANCIAL services and saw they had shady reviews with some clients. That turned me off. Over several decades of credit-seeking, I have learned that the customer service practices and reputation of any financial institution I'm going to deal with are just as if not more important than the financial details they promise such as benefits, fees, and rates. You have to be able to trust they will honor their commitments and not be a pain to work with.

I'm surprised Fidelity has kept them around because a card issuer can taint their parent company's reputation. Just wondering ... have you considered contacting Fidelity about the issues to put pressue on ELAN from the other side?

Also, I'm not familiar with this card's inner workings, but I thought the points usually got transferred to Fidelity investments. (I have read that you can also cash them in but for much less value like 1% instead of 2%.) Were you just letting them build up for some reason before transferring them over? If you had transferred them, ELAN couldn't have had access to them, could they?

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:20:35 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
I wanna thank everyone for weighing in. This is not an easy news to digest. I have not told my wife about it. She might freak out... $2000 is not a trivial amount for us. To answe the question of why I kept all these points: it's sort of watching your savings grow. However dumb that may be now with the hindsight, it did feel that way.. in those many years we used the card, we used it for everything and never claimed any benefits, travel delay insurence, baggage damage, car rental insurance, etc. We just put what we earned on the card for our spending.

I understand the T & C thing.. but my problem with that is, I really did not get any letter.. I would 100% reply to whatever question they need us to answer.

I am not a politician or a political mind, (Mod cut/edit - not here please. The 5 Things We Don't Talk About). They get to set the t & c, ask us questions, close my card and takes my points, aka assets..

Sorry if this feels like rambling. I am not willing to let it go easily.

I can definitely understand this. I had the similar feeling when my 1600USD dell xps gone dead just a couple weeks out of warranty period. It's like a gut punch. I went everywhere I can and bad mouth them for 2 weeks.

Although hope is not high, you can try filing a complaint to CFPB, and keep calling Elan ask to escalate to EO.

I am sure a lot of us learned a lot of valuable lessons from your DP, for that, we thank you, and hope things eventually work out, one way or another.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:22:17 GMT

Oh man, my heart aches for this loss!

That’s really awful and it sucks that rewards aren’t guaranteed. They can change the value of points, discontinue programs, refuse to pay out rewards any time. What a horrible lesson to learn.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

CreditInspired — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 18:04:50 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Oh man, my heart aches for this loss!

That’s really awful and it sucks that rewards aren’t guaranteed. They can change the value of points, discontinue programs, refuse to pay out rewards any time. What a horrible lesson to learn.

And OP's post today made me cashout these tiny amounts from:

AmX Magnate - $51.18 (statement credit)

Disco - $5.80

NFCU cashRewards - $6.10

It's too bad I couldn't cash out CitiDC (haven't reached $25 redemption yet) and CitiCostco (they payout in Feb)

It's so ridiculous but that $5 buys a Starbucks Venti coffee and I earned it. And that is what's so sad about OP's story. He already earned that money. It seems so unfair. It's kind of like--you worked a 40-hour week and got fired at 5pm on Friday; and employer said, oh yeah, we're not paying you for the hours you worked because you did so-and-so and we fired you. Yeah, we can imagine how that would go over.

Yeah, I know, I know--the do's and don'ts of employment law and credit cards terms of service are spelled out, but I just had to use an analogy.

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 17:56:15 GMT

@CreditInspired wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Oh man, my heart aches for this loss!

That’s really awful and it sucks that rewards aren’t guaranteed. They can change the value of points, discontinue programs, refuse to pay out rewards any time. What a horrible lesson to learn.
And OP's post today made me cashout these tiny amounts from:

AmX Magnate - $51.18 (statement credit)
Disco - $5.80
NFCU cashRewards - $6.10

It's too bad I couldn't cash out CitiDC (haven't reached $25 redemption yet) and CitiCostco (they payout in Feb)

It's so ridiculous but that $5 buys a Starbucks Venti coffee and I earned it. And that's what so sad about OP's story. He already earned these monies. It seems so unfair. It's kind of like--you worked a 40-hour week and got fired at 5pm on Friday; and employer said, oh yeah, we're not paying you for the hours you worked because you did so-and-so and we fired you. Yeah, we can imagine how that would go over.

Yeah, I know, I know--the do's and don'ts of employment law and credit cards terms of service are spelled out, but I just had to use an analogy.

Unfortunatly, to me it's more like you stashed part of your wages in the "Active Employees Only Holiday Savings Plan"! OP was given the points and had the chance to redeem them, the problem was assuming that that would always be the case!

I am sympathetic, I once lost about $2500 in Amex cash back when they closed my card. This was one month rewards from MS, and so was much more my fault that the case of the OP!

Re: Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward po

Aim_High — Wed, 31 Jul 2019 18:16:50 GMT

@CreditInspired wrote: "It's too bad I couldn't cash out CitiDC (haven't reached $25 redemption yet) and CitiCostco ..."

I have the Citi Costco and generally have liked it. I don't have the DC.

But after joining MyFico and as I have looked over Citi's fine print in their DC and other cards, I have decided they put too many minefields in the way of redeeming points at the value that you expect to get. That applies to pretty much every card I studied so far. Basically, I don't trust them as much as I used to. It's almost like you have to be an attorney and watch every move you make to get the advertised rewards rates you expect to get.

For example, in the past, I have made the mistake of using my cash-back certificate at Costco towards purchases instead of just cashing it. FAIL!!! I just lost the 2% back on whatever the amount was that I purchased since I didn't use my card. (It's the same trick with how you lose 1% when you pay on the DC if you use rewards towards statement balance credit.) Citi has a lot of other caveats in their agreements, such losing all your accrued DC rewards if you have 12 months of inactivity on the card. And many other clauses that they hope people won't take the time to read and notice.

Bank of America used to have a $25 minimum redemption on their Cash Rewards card, but they dropped that. And rewards don't expire as long as the card is in good standing with BoA, Capital One, Discover, Chase, and most reputable card issuers. And for those that have expirations, four or five years is typical, not 12 months.

For anyone looking at any type of rewards card from any issuer, I highly suggest you take the time to make sure you read the fine print yourself (dont' just trust others recommendations), make sure you understand how the programs work, what their limitations are in relationship to other reward card options, and know how to avoid getting burned.