SEVERE credit limit decrease HELP

[Jesi]

Long story short I missed a payment on my Synchrony Gap card. My balance is $471 and I missed a payment of $25 on March 8th due to a horrible wind storm a tree fell in my yard and knocked my power out for 6 days. I couldn't move my car for 3 and the closest Gap is over an hour away. There was nothing that could be done. I got a late fee, no big deal. I also noticed that my credit line 8 days later, on March 16th, was lowered to $490. That's not even a number that makes any sense and I KNOW it's because of the account being late. The thing that's aggravating is now my credit score has now decreased quite a bit because my card is now nearly maxed out. They are literally ruining my credit at this point. I called to find out why it was decreased and all they did was remove the late fee, which I wasn't even trying to do. The letter that says why my credit was decreased is vague and all of the reasons were already there when I got the Gap card almost a year ago. "Delinquent account" which is my car loan that was late over 2 years ago, etc. Nothing is new or different, just one late fee, and I've never been late before. I'm disgusted and appalled at this point how I can be treated like a criminal and have my credit ruined over a payment that was only a week late, which wasn't my fault to begin with.

I tried calling credit solutions, I just keep getting bounced around and even getting some of the same representatives and they all say "there's nothing we can do" and that the account was not decreased due to the late payment. If that was the case my 15 other Synchrony cards that all have $5,000 and higher limits would have also been decreased. It's VERY obvious why this was decreased and it would have been lowered to some more even like $500, not $490, that was their way of making my account not over the limit but decreased enough to give me no available credit. I would honestly close the account but I don't have $500 to pay it off today, I also don't want to close it with such a tiny credit limit, but it's ruining my credit now and I was trying to buy a house this summer. I'm sick to my stomach and trying not to vomit because I'm so upset about this. My usage has now also gone WAY up due to the card showing as being basically maxed out. Is there anyone else I can call, I don't know a ton about contacting anyone other than customer service or credit solutions and they all tell me there's no one I can call and nothing anyone can do. I just don't believe that to be true.

[Discover2016]

Sorry to hear that they CLD'd you, one thing to remember is that they are not ruining your credit, as soon as that balance is paid off your score will return to where it was before.

[Discover2016]

What other accounts do you have that are not synchrony? Maybe you can BT that balance to another card?

[Anonymous]

This is not meant to irritate you but I just had to say it in regards to your comment of "nothing could be done."  There are numerous things you could have done.  I'd walk through hot coals to make my payment on time if came down to it. 

The other thing, if you have 15 other cards with 5k limits then a maxed out $500 card isn't going to hurt you.   Did they report the late payment?

I would just find a way to pay it or bt it and close the account.

[Dalmus]

 Sorry that happened, OP.

 Often, a creditor will lower your available credit to just above your current balance, so that would explain why it's an "odd" number like $490.

 The late payment probably triggered a FR on that particular card, and an analyst with a different set of  guidelines or having a bad day looked at your account and decided to slash it.

 Now you know better... Synch is a little touchy sometimes!   Could you have paid by phone?  Might have been a fee involved, but that's always better than taking a late!

[Anonymous]

I do have to ask whether you couldn't have logged on to your account from another device if you have one (phone, tablet or laptop) from a place with a working connection to pay that bill?

[Jesi]

Sorry, my power was knocked out for 6 days and my car was blocked in for 3. I certainly wasn't going to "walk through hot coals" over a $25 payment, I had no idea they would be so testy over a $25 payment. I was happy to pay the late fee as my bill wasn't paid but that was absolutely no reason to decrease my $5000 credit limit to $490, that's laughable and I'm so irritated by it I'm pay it off as soon as I can and not using it anymore. Thankfully I hardly shop at Gap but did a lot of my Christmas clothing shopping for the family there this year. If I do that in the future I'll just use another card.

To answer about balance transfers no, the credit cards I have are all retail cards with really high limits, $5000 to $8000 limits. The only "real" credit cards I have are Capital One and Credit One, really small limits, not even over $1,000 and they won't give me increases. I can't get cards with Discover or Citi or anything like that, none of them will approve me and I've never had any of them in my life. I'm stuck in a rut apparently, I posted about it a few weeks ago and no one responded. I would love to get a consolidation loan or something to lump all of the real credit cards together to get them clear of balances in hopes that I'll be able to actually get a card other than Capital One but got no insight about it.

Seems the thing haunting us is a car loan we got late on 18 months ago due to my husband's company that he worked for closing, we fell behind and didn't qualify for any help until he was out of work for almost 2 months and even by then, the amount of money we were getting wasn't enough to cover the bills so the car payment started to get behind, we made regular payments but because we got behind they were showing as late. It's First Investors who is the WORST, and now we're in an upside down loan on that car so no one will refinance either. Horrible interest rate and the late payments on that are what are hurting us... Oddly almost all of my credit cards with the high limits were all acquired after the car loan debacle so that's why I don't believe their generic letter of why my Gap card was decreased because all of the reasons given for the decrease were showing on my credit report when they gave it to me initially and increased up to $5,000 in the first place. 

I know my score will go up but that still doesn't help my utilization right now, I'm fearful that now with my utilization showing at nearly $100 on this card and my credit card usage on credit karma has gone up because of it basically showing as maxed I'm afraid that other cards will decrease in limit because that's what Synchrony is giving as a reason they do a "review" every 3 to 6 months and decrease people's limits. If that IS true then they're going to decrease more, which hardly any of my retail cards have any balance but it still can't be good that my cards are all decreasing. I also have a high number of inquiries from getting all of these cards and requesting credit limit increases, some gave me hard pulls for that.

[Jesi]

Again, I don't live near any family, my power was knocked out for 6 days, I was more concerned with saving the food we had in the fridge and keeping my pets and children from dying in the cold, it was still winter and even though it's spring now, here in the Buffalo, NY area, it's freezing still. I wasn't going to walk in a tundra 10 miles to I don't know, a library just to pay a $25 credit card payment. Payphones also no longer exist. I planned on just paying the fee and worrying about it when I had power again. I mean it was national news that the northeast dealt with this and our lovely politicians sent all of our plow people to NYC to take care of them instead of us. We got slammed with this wind storm and then 2 days later we got pounded with snow, which is no big deal since we're Buffalonians, but we still do need plows and they weren't plowing at all. So once the tree and debris was removed there were travel warnings and bans, the malls were all closed on the following Monday and Tuesday because of the snow so I couldn't have even driven to a Gap store at that point to pay it. My only option was phone which was dead due to no power. I'm just grateful that the house and car weren't damaged badly enough to completely ruin my life, thank god for insurance. I could see if this was several months late but it was my first late, ever, and it was $25 which seems incredibly meager to me and silly to decrease the thousands I had to less than half of $1,000 over it.

[SecretAzure]

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@Jesi wrote:

Again, I don't live near any family, my power was knocked out for 6 days, I was more concerned with saving the food we had in the fridge and keeping my pets and children from dying in the cold, it was still winter and even though it's spring now, here in the Buffalo, NY area, it's freezing still. I wasn't going to walk in a tundra 10 miles to I don't know, a library just to pay a $25 credit card payment. Payphones also no longer exist. I planned on just paying the fee and worrying about it when I had power again. I mean it was national news that the northeast dealt with this and our lovely politicians sent all of our plow people to NYC to take care of them instead of us. We got slammed with this wind storm and then 2 days later we got pounded with snow, which is no big deal since we're Buffalonians, but we still do need plows and they weren't plowing at all. So once the tree and debris was removed there were travel warnings and bans, the malls were all closed on the following Monday and Tuesday because of the snow so I couldn't have even driven to a Gap store at that point to pay it. My only option was phone which was dead due to no power. I'm just grateful that the house and car weren't damaged badly enough to completely ruin my life, thank god for insurance. I could see if this was several months late but it was my first late, ever, and it was $25 which seems incredibly meager to me and silly to decrease the thousands I had to less than half of $1,000 over it.

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Maybe this isn't the answer you're looking for...if you're even looking for an answer at this point...so please take it as a suggestion and not a criticism. You should invest in a car charger for your phone. This is a horribly inefficient way to charge your phone (as you would waste a lot of gas to give a phone power) but having a charged cell phone can save your life...and in this case, maybe even your credit limit. You  could have just turned your car on for 5 minutes, logged on (assuming you have reception), and paid. But I would think a car phone charger would be a "just in case" item, not something you'd get for this one purpose.

[Jesi]

Yeah I have a car charger, I guess I should invest in hulk hands to get the tree and power lines off of my car next time too.