Fingerhut Decreased Credit Limit

[Anonymous]

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@dcastillo68 wrote:

I'm beyond belief right now.  Helping with my husband's credit and noticed that fingerhut decreased his limit for no reason.  His limit was $3800 and they reduced it to $3000!  Now this has impacted his scores.  His balance is $1,071, but he is planning to pay it and close that account.  He was never planning on maxing out the card at all, but this hurts his utilization.

I don't like when a company can control you like that and for no reason.  He has been steadily paying more than 3x the minimum due.  SMH

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@I have seen this happen with my room mate and 2 customers of mine.  Fingerhut likes to send out promo offers, buy so much and they'll increase your limit by so much.  My room mates limit went from $3600 to 1850 last month when she didn't buy anything from their promotional offer that came in the mail.  Seem's they will decrease even more than the promo when you don't throw money at them.  When I look at her limit history on Fingerhut, it's moved quite a lot over the last 2 years, sometimes a few hundred, occasionally a thousand or more.  She never has more than a $300 balance, and pays at least $100 a month on her account.  She's had Fingerhut for ages, and said they do this a lot.  My customers have complained in the past, that their non-acceptance of a promo offer led to a much smaller limit.  Not sure why Fingerhut does this, unless they are trying to make you think if you don't buy something, your CL will be slashed.  That's all I know about Fingerhut.  I have an account, but only used it once, and it's been sitting for several years since @$250CL.

[ddemari]

Like someone else stated, did you get a letter from FingerHut offering a temporary credit limit until a certain date? When I had that card, I received multiple auto CLI's.

Then I received a rather big one of $1600.00. About two weeks after noticing the CLI, I received a letter saying that I need to make a purchase of at least 800 dollars to keep the full CLI. If I dont, they will let me keep $300 of CLI and take the rest away. 

They took it away, I closed the card and moved on. 

[sreneesa]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Credit card issuers don't decrease limits for no reason. There's something about his profile or recent activity that tripped their risk meter.

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Fingerhut does. 

They have extended credit to me two times and when I didn't use it, they took it back. They are notorious for doing this.

So after I pay this off and sock drawer it, I'm sure they will eventually lower my limit. lol

[CreditCuriosity]

Credit is meant to be used..  Lenders will scale back your credit if they see you opening other cards and not using theirs anymore.  At least it is always a possibility.  They aren't worried about your utilization, unfortunately that isn't their concern.  They prefer to lend the money to other people that will use it.  Guessing sup-prime lenders such as finger-hut although never had them would be more inclinced to do this.  Also that is a pretty big finger-hut CL from what I have seen.

[ErikaC1]

When I had my Fingerhut account they would send me offers to increase my limit to a certain amount if I spent a certain amount. It was a temporary increase, if i didn't use it they would keep it as it was before the offer. They did this several times a year.

[dcastillo68]

All good answers and good reasons provided.  This is the price to pay for using subprime lenders.

We will pay the balance and pull the plug on them, before they pull it on us.

Our goal is to improve our credit and move forward.  No looking back now.

Thanks everyone for your responses.  Much appreciated

[Anonymous]

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@dcastillo68 wrote:

All good answers and good reasons provided.  This is the price to pay for using subprime lenders.

We will pay the balance and pull the plug on them, before they pull it on us.

Our goal is to improve our credit and move forward.  No looking back now.

Thanks everyone for your responses.  Much appreciated

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I doubt they will pull the plug on you. Actually I think it's fantastic how they do business to respect of credit limits. No spend, No increase. Low spend? Decrease.

[ddemari]

Fingerhut would give you the cli without telling you why they did. so u think auto cli. then a few weeks later they send you a letter stating they will take away the cli if you dont spend 1500 dollars. To some people who are paying down a large balance, u dont want to take on 1500 dollars more to keep your cli. 

It would be one thing if they sent you a letter with a promo code accepting that cli if you make the spend. but that would be way to advanced for them. Instead they give, hope you rack up more money and then you can keep the cli. I didnt like that. 

[Anonymous]

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@ddemari wrote:

Fingerhut would give you the cli without telling you why they did. so u think auto cli. then a few weeks later they send you a letter stating they will take away the cli if you dont spend 1500 dollars. To some people who are paying down a large balance, u dont want to take on 1500 dollars more to keep your cli. 

It would be one thing if they sent you a letter with a promo code accepting that cli if you make the spend. but that would be way to advanced for them. Instead they give, hope you rack up more money and then you can keep the cli. I didnt like that. 

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It is a fair trade off (even though their prices are not), You get a bigger credit line to finance a purchase, they make a sale. You don't buy, you don't keep the bigger credit line. They are not responsible for your credit file ultimately and frankly one hopefully isn't dependant on a variable credit line(s) for utilization purposes.

[ddemari]

Right, they are not responsible for your credit file and your utilization, they dont care. I wont agree on liking Fingerhut or their temp. credit limit tactics but to each their own.