Bustout & Experian - Yet another "victim" of Chase closures, and nearly lost my Amex cards same day

[Anonymous]

Y'all, I nearly cried. (Nearly. Because lets face it, this is just a credit card after all... It isn't THAT horrible.... )

I made the mistake of checking my email when I woke up WAY too early on 5/15.

Found notices that my BELOVED CSR card, my Business Platinum Amex card, AND my Bonvoy Brilliant cards were all fubar'd at the same time on the same day.  Chase card closed. Both amex cards suspended.

That is NOT how I wanted to start my day at 5am.  Guess I am NOT getting back to sleep now.

After I stopped hyperventalting (that Platinum card is my *MAIN* business card), I checked the notices from Chase:

Reasons for the closure:

TOO MANY ACCOUNTS OPENED RECENTLY
TOO MANY REQUESTS FOR CREDIT OR REVIEWS OF CREDIT

With Amex and Chase both freaking out at the same time, this smells of some of Experian's bustout "scores..." as both are very heavy Experian users...

Maybe this is just coincidence - would love input....

Here's a little backstory:

App'ed on 5/8 for CFU - BLACK star solid APR pre-approval in the Chase website.  I figured "you don't turn those down - they don't come very often!"

Other than that app, I've been VERY careful with my Chase relationship and my CSR.  It was TRULY my favorite card.  Revolved a balance one month, otherwise PIF.  Util right at 10%. No large purchases, no gift cards, etc.

After apping, I called in to verify identity.  All good, right? Calling in status lines for a week, after 7 days of a 30-day message, I received the dreaded 7-10 day message at about 7pm on day 7. Figured I'd wait until the next morning to recon.

Found a notice in my email the next morning - my CSR had been closed.  A few hours later, received a message that CFU was denied - the dreaded "Previous Unsatisfactory Relationship with Chase."

My gut felt like it hit the floor.

The recon call went extremely well, or so I thought.  The guy all but promised me it would be handled. No joy.  Phone call 7 days later, card will remain closed.

I'm thinking I hit a bustout score with Experian or something, and I am seriously wondering if Experian doesn't notify other issuers when certain criteria are met, because *LITERALLY* the same day Amex reviewed my account and locked my business platinum and my Bovoy Brilliant cards down.  Now, a phone call fixed it with Amex THANK GOD (I _JUST_ moved all our business CC spend to the amex platinum.  Holy crap that would be a pain)... but literally BOTH card issuers took AA on me on the SAME DAY?  

The thing that kills me - my scores are up, balances are down, I *should* look like less of a risk now than I did several months ago.  Unless you consider Experian's bustout scores.  Several accounts opened, not a lot of activity prior to... no mortgage, no auto loan, perhaps the credit file looks synthetic... thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I think you might be over thinking it and either way you'll never know what caused the interruption in lending.  I'm sure I've opened plenty more accounts than you have in the same time period and not a whiff of an issue from any of them.  

Since it was primarily your business cards with Amex could be more business related?  Did you pay a vendor that's closely related to you with one of the cards?  

For the CSR I would give it 6 months or so and go grab it again and leave your Chase exposure at that for awhile.

[Tito1183]

Sorry to hear that. How long did you have the CSR?

[FinStar]

When did you obtain or get approved for CSR? What were the reasons given when you spoke to AmEx regarding the closures?

On the upside, the AmEx relationship was salvaged, but Chase definitely took a good hit, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I think you might be over thinking it and either way you'll never know what caused the interruption in lending.  I'm sure I've opened plenty more accounts than you have in the same time period and not a whiff of an issue from any of them.  

Since it was primarily your business cards with Amex could be more business related?  Did you pay a vendor that's closely related to you with one of the cards?  

For the CSR I would give it 6 months or so and go grab it again and leave your Chase exposure at that for awhile.

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Amex locked down my entire profile - both my personal bonvoy brilliant and my Platinum... so no, it was *unlikely* to be business related.  And, upon speaking with them, they asked nearly the same questions Chase did... 

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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Amex locked down my entire profile - both my personal bonvoy brilliant and my Platinum... so no, it was *unlikely* to be business related.  And, upon speaking with them, they asked nearly the same questions Chase did... 

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Well, my thought is if your business is tied to the accounts as a source of income/assets it might trigger something since it involved both personal/business accounts w/ 2 institutions.  So, for the bust out theory it's going to take a bit more info to pin down.  The BO takes into accounts, spreeing, balance escalation, etc. 

Depends on how far down the rabbit hole we want to go...

[Anonymous]

Sorry to hear about all that.

Would you be able to share some data points.

What other cards do you have and what are their ages?  Their limits?

What's your oldest account, average age of accounts, newest account?

What accounts have you applied for or opened in the last 12 months?

Are there any negative factors like late payments, delinquencies, bankruptcy, etc?

I would not think that the CFU was the big deal. It may have been a straw that broke the camel's back or that caused them to look at things, but other factors in the last 12- 24 months are probably a bigger factor.

[Anonymous]

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@FinStar wrote:
When did you obtain or get approved for CSR? What were the reasons given when you spoke to AmEx regarding the closures?

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Yeah, see that was my mistake on the chase card.  It had been open 93 days.  I _SHOULD NOT_ have app'd for the CFU.  Like at all.  But I didn't want to miss the pre-qual black star offer on the chase site.  Shame on me.

Amex is a little funny regarding their NSPL cards, I've found.  They gave multiple reasons, one of which was that I was above the NSPL limit... Which was a wee bit of hogwash since it was about HALF of what I had been running through the card.  We've been cycling 30k through that card monthly, and it was at $15k.  So something triggered their system and caused the NSPL limit to drop down... AND lock my personal card at the same time. The other reasons they gave were the same as Chase... a few new accounts, and too many inquries (5 total in the last year on EX, TWO were amex and TWO were chase).

I was likely a little too aggressive at thickening my credit file in April.  Thankfully it only cost me the CSR. My business and I both *bank* at Chase, so their "Previous Unsatisfactory Business Relationship" freaks me out a bit. Others have reported checking account closures... so I'm making contingency plans.   This is why you should always have backups...  (and, in part, is *GOOD* reason for thickening my file last month... because I can shrug and pull a different card out of the wallet.  Hey guess what, Bonvoy... you just got upgraded to EDC...).

[Anonymous]

Diversification helps.  I don't think 5 accounts would be enough to trigger things though.  Shifting 30K/mo from one bank to the other could do it though if both banks report at the same time the escalation in debt.

[Remedios]

@Anonymous   Your wife recently got balance chased. Do you have high utilization on any of your cards?