@ashjt2011 wrote:
Felt rewarding being able to cancel out a couple of my Barclay accounts this morning! I was going to buy a new iPad but Barclay had dropped my CL down to 1k. I didn't want to go purchase an iPad on the Apple card and have it all of a sudden go from 0% utilization to 75%. Bad for my credit. So I called the portfolio department to ask them about it.
The girl was nice, but didnt make sense. She looked at my unsecured loans. I have 2. One I got a year ago for 11k and I have it paid down to 4,200 already. It will be completely paid off in October. Another was originally for 3k - paid down to 1900. I had surgery and had lower limits at the time so I didnt want to max one of my credit cards. She told me they needed to see the balances paid down in order to be comfortable to raise my limit. I told her I've had 100% on time payments, I already have the 1 loan almost paid off after 1 year, on a 4 year loan. She replies "Well yes, we see your payments have always been on time, but we need to see the loans paid down more." My income is 122k, DTI with all debt is right around 32%, this includes car, mortgage, etc. I asked her if my income supported the debt I had and she replied with a generic answer and once again circled back to how they would like to see my unsecured debt paid down. She told me they didnt want to lose me as a customer, thats why they decreased my limit instead of closing the card... I told her respectively that I understand what she is saying. I told her I had cards with 15k limits and that a 1k card and an 1800 dollar card were doing exactly nothing for my profile. I asked her to close the cards and she did.
I got the Rewards Mastercard as a rebuilder card almost 4 years ago and I got the Apple card for the 0% about 2 years ago. Paid off my purchase in 8 months. Dont need either. Barclay doesnt make sense to me and they seem to be a little to quick to CLD their members. I am so glad that due to this forum, that I am in a place credit wise where I can start weeding out the bad cards!
I also got the Rewards MC, but 5 years ago, as a rebuilder card. I got an NFL card in 2015, but strickly for 18 month 0% BT to pay off a Prosper loan & save hundreds on interest. In 2016 I got the Cashforward card and closed NFL & moved the CL to Cashforward. I've never had any problem with Barclays, several auto CLIs and never any adverse action.
But I'm also looking forward to saying Bye Bye Barclays, for two reasons: 1) I've outgrown their 1.5% reward Cashforward, 2% rewards on everything on my Penfed Powercash is now my minimum rewards, with 3% on gas & groceries with BoA Cash Rewards & Amex BCE, and 5% when the category is right with Discover and 2) They keep closing down their "good" cards and are so heavily into travel rewards co-branded cards, and I rarely travel. I like the Rewards MC as I haven't used it for anything other than 2% rewards in years - utilities, gas & groceries, and Barclays is so "loose" in coding that any purchase at Family Dollar & Walmart always gets coded as 2% groceries while BoA & Amex code them as 1% "other" purchases.
When Barclays tries to shut down my Rewards MC into something else will likely be my motivation to say Goodbye and close both Rewards MC & Cashforward.
Coffee all around
