I closed my Aspiration Zero card today

[lgtwriter]

I just wanted to create a thread in case anyone is looking for information on the Aspiration Zero Card or Beneficial State bank. I have had this card over a year and a half and got it at the height of when it was a "flavor of the month" card. The card had a $25k credit limit and I knew Beneficial State Bank was a very small bank, but that didn't bother me as long as I didn't have any issues with the card.

Yesterday apparently, someone tried to make two small charges at a gas station on the card (in a state far away from where I live). Beneficial bank apparently blocked my card immediately and I only found out about it today (24 hours later) when I got an email that was so poorly written and so unprofessional looking, I thought at first it was a phishing email. Literally.

I spent over two hours trying to get a Beneficial Bank person on the phone to issue me a new card or tell me what was going on with the charges. The attempted charges didn't show up in the iphone app or the website. I had no no information about the fraud except that weird email, and I could only get their third-party card customer service front-line support which only was able to send me to the same voicemail that was not being answered.

I closed the card immediately. I was shocked that I could not get a hold of the credit card fraud or operations department to deal with the matter. I had no problem with them blocking the card. In fact I wanted that. I DID have a problem with them not having any way for me to reach a person who could actually help me. 

No more flavor of the month cards for me.   Lesson learned and end of story.

[RootDet]

This card has been by far the worse, everything is death by ticket. I be curious if your account actually gets closed, or if that is a unanswered ticket too. I haven't called to close mine yet, been sick. But I suspect I will need a CFPB complaint just to get it marginally done. 

[FireMedic1]

Well with the poor customer support. Be glad they caught it before real damage would have been done. How'd you close it without getting thru to a CSR?

[lgtwriter]

@FireMedic1 I got through to the third party level one support and made them stay on the phone with me until they reached someone at the actual bank. I then had them stay on the phone with me until the account was closed and I escalated to their manager to send me an email from cc-operations at the bank stating the account was closed. Both apps just show it "blocked" still. Who knows when they will report it closed to the credit bureaus. Luckily, I paid off the small balance (under $200) when I closed the account, so having a large credit line with no balance reporting still as open won't hurt my score lol.

[FireMedic1]

Sheesh. Seems worse than closing Credit One from the posts here about making sure it really is closed when it isnt. Minus the sweet talk to keep you as a customer. Best of luck getting it over with. Keep us updated!

[Credit12Fico]

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@lgtwriter wrote:

No more flavor of the month cards for me.   Lesson learned and end of story.

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Pardon my ignorance but what would have made a 1% cashback credit card with an annual fee a "flavor of the month"? 

[FinStar]

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@Credit12Fico wrote:

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@lgtwriter wrote:

No more flavor of the month cards for me.   Lesson learned and end of story.

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Pardon my ignorance but what would have made a 1% cashback credit card with an annual fee a "flavor of the month"? 

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A variety of individuals were drawn by the allure of high CLs, especially for some who couldn't get into the X1 invitation list (not many X1 approvals these days are there?💀). I would almost guarantee that aside from the AF, most folks who applied for this particular card weren't doing it for eco-friendly reasons, to combat climate change or zero-out their carbon footprint.

That said, and for those of us who still benefit from this card and/or its mission, plenty of folks have selfless reasons to do so if a product aligns with such a vision.

As per one of the FAQs outlined on their site:

"Aspiration doesn’t invest in or fund the fossil-fuel industry. We aim to combat climate change and instead invest your money in organizations that support that."

[lgtwriter]

@FinStar @Credit12Fico The high credit limit was exactly why I applied. I applied for this and the X1 card at around the same time. I liked the idea of planting trees, but that certainly wasn't why I applied at the time  (I still have my 29k X1 card and use it frequently so that period of app spree wasn't a total wash for me) If there hadn't been fraud, I would have kept the card as a "once in awhile" card and never given it much thought. 

But Beneficial State Bank is DEFINITELY not equipped to handle fraud, or any issues with this card that require actual person to person conversations. Given that my card number somehow got out there (I have never used the card in person anywhere, so it must be from some sort of hack somewhere) I didn't want to ever have to call Beneficial bank again if fraud ever happened a second time, so I closed the card.

[BeneficialStateBank]

Dear lgtwriter,

  We are sorry to hear about your experience and frustration with the Aspiration credit card. For further assistance, we'd like to investigate this matter and find a solution. Please contact our support team.

- Credit Card Operations Department

[lgtwriter]

@BeneficialStateBank if you re-read the thread, you will see that I called support numerous times, and that I was transferred to credit operations which dumped me in a voicemail box and never returned any of my calls even though I left a return phone number.

Anyway, this thread is a record of what my card experience has been like. Thanks for reaching out on my thread, although to be honest, returning one of my numerous calls or emails would have been a more proper response to this situation.