I am seriously annoyed.
I've been rebuilding credit for a while, inching my way back from a couple of collections 5 years ago and a few years of not enough income. Now financially back on my feet, and reently paid off a chuck of CC debt with my tax refund, dropping my utilization and adding about 20 points to my scores. Yay!
So I started looking to replace some of my crappy subprimes with something better that I can grow with. Chase has literally turned down every CC application I've ever submitted in the the history of ever, despite the fact that they gave me a $30K car loan with no questions asked a few years back, which I paid on time every month and paid off completely about 3 years ago. I've also had checking and savings there for about 12 years.
So I apply for an Amazon Visa and get the whole "we're gonna have to take a closer look, we'll let you know, you'll get a letter" thing which I assume will ultimately be a decline. Cool. So at the same time, I try for a Slate because I think it might be easier. Booyah, approved, but only for $500. Ok, at least I'm in the door with Chase and I can finally get rid of that crappy MIlestone card that I hate.
Card arrives last week, but I forget about it for a few days. Then tonight, I get an email saying I'm approved for the Amazon card, it's on its way, $2500 limit. Yay! So I get home, realize I haven't activated the Slate yet and go online to do so. Website says all accounts are activated. I log into Chase and both Slate and Amazon say Account Closed. I call to ask if this just means it hasn't been activated yet or something, and I'm told that they have CLOSED my accounts. Ummm...what? I literally got an approval email from you people 4 hours ago. You took your time processing my account, which means an actual person likely looked at it. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?
She gives me a number to call in the morning for an explanation, but says the accounts will not be reopened. HUH???
So are these going to be reported to the bureaus as closed and ding me even though in reality they were never open for me at all? I'm not sure what I should be asking them for when I call.
If I was a paranoid person, I'd think they were spying on me when I opened a new checking account with a local CU on Saturday with the intent of getting rid of my bank accounts with Chase. Shady AF.
EDITED TO ADD:
Here's what happened. I called the number I was given that was supposed to be a direct line to the people who could give me information and was immediately told I had to be transferred. And then I was promptly discinnected. Called back, same thing happened. Third time, finally got to someone who left me on hold for 10 minutes to "research my account history". WHAT history? It was never open!
She came back and told me I'd been scheduled for a random automatic review. I asked why they would choose to review an account that hadn't even been activated yet and had zero history, she said they do that all the time. Let me repeat, THEY DO THAT ALL THE TIME.
She said they didn't like that I had several inquiries in the past few months and had opened too many accounts. I suggested to her that if they'd simply called and asked me, I could have explained that I had been looking for and opened a couple of new accounts this year so that I could replace some old, subprime cards with something better, and she said "Well we have no way of knowing that". To which I said "Sure, if only I'd provided you with some sort of number with which you could contact me... Also, none of these things happened in the past few days, so all of these inquiries and accounts were on my credit at the time you approved me. And you took a week to approve the Amazon Visa, so that wasn't a computer, it was a human looking at my report. If this was a problem, that would have been the time to address it. You should have declined me."
She says "Well this is basically the same thing."
Me: "Is it? Does that mean you're not going to report these accounts to the credit bureaus as opened and then closed by credit granter? Because that's actually a negative impact on my credit simply because you didn't do your due dilligence at the front end."
She then tried to tell me they had no choice and I would have to deal with the bureaus to get something removed, that they couldn't do that. I reminded her they could choose not to report inthe first place, since the cards were never activated and the accounts were never open to me. She then told me that it's exactly the same as an inquiry, and they it would just say opened and closed by credit grantor, with no negative history. I told her that is most definitely negative history and that I was done talking to someone who didn't know the difference between a closure and an inquiry.
I also told her I'd be closing my bank accounts as soon as I transfer my direct deposit this afternoon. I get the feeling she hears that a lot, because she just sighed and thanked me for calling.
I'm officially done with Chase forever. I've worked too hard to rebuild my scores to play with a company so careless with negative reporting.
