@CreditJourney007 wrote:Got this email, too. My card has a $5200 limit that I used for padding, ugh.
Wonder why it's closing. More information would've been helpful...
Their primary business in the US was a partnership with Sprint. With the T-Mobile merger finally completing, the contract obviously wasn't going to continue. That's the only thing I can think it would be.
@dunsplus wrote:i got notice yesterday this will hurt i had 5k limit and once its gone my total utilization will def take a hit which sucks aince my score was starting to move up slowly.
ps question can i still use my card today to make purchases? im thinking of using it for a rather large purchae of 1.5-2k
TI
You have until midnight central time if you are going to do any purchases on it
@Anonymous wrote:Will the card be closed altogether or any mention of transferring it to another product? It sounds as if the issuer/product is so narrow that closure is the only option.
Midnight central time all purchasing will be suspended, and at some point all cards will be closed. I suppose they did that to give themselves time to sell the portfolio if possible.
Received same email today. Account holder for 16 months. I went ahead and took the pleasure of spending my 10297 accumulated points and then cut her up.
TCL=$544K
@Anonymous wrote:I think what's worrying me more is if this is the start of a domino effect like we saw back in '08-'09. One bank decides to reign in the credit or close accounts, the next thing you know, the other creditors who monitor your credit each month see the huge drop and they reign it in too.
I'm thinking the Home Credit debacle is a mixture of the Sprint merger, the COVID-19 stuff, and the markets taking such a huge hit along with the near zero interest rate.
For me, back in '09 it all started with American Express. Just closed my a/c without any warning even though I had stella credit, no missed payments or anything. Then Chase bank dropped my CL to about 50 bucks above the balance. So I freaked out and paid a chunk on it and they immediately dropped the CL again. Then BOA did same, followed by all other banks I had cards with. So I had done everything right to build a great score over several years by paying bills on time and doing the right thing. And through no fault of my own, the banks literally and collectively killed my score within a few weeks.
Home Credit was always seen as a sub-prime servicer that used a small U.S. based bank to back their cards, which was then acquired by The Bank of Missouri, and the intro offer was cut back from 0% for 12 months to 0% for 6 months. Then there was no continuing offers. It was an experiment for Home Credit to try to enter the US market, and I think it failed.
When the merger was announced, Home Credit rushed to create a card that wasn't tied to Sprint, and from the outside, it looked ok. But they kept it to invite only, the biggest mistake. Then after the December 1st VS 3 score update, they never updated my score again, which I assume happened with most everyone if not everyone. They really didn't have a viable product being a subprime card for Sprint users.
After the initial wave, most Sprint stores stopped pushing it (if they ever pushed it in the first place), and there was no major incentives for Sprint employees to push it to more customers. Sprint sent out a few emails promoting it, and would put it on the last page of customer bills, but most people don't receive physical bills in the mail anymore, so that was a waste.
Also, I really don't think the Fed rate hitting 0% really had any impact on their decision. I'm thinking it really has 90+% to do with the merger. I'm really hoping that they find a company to assume the card portfolio. The Bank of Missouri uses Elan to issue their customers their own cards, and Elan as we know is owned by US Bank. I wouldn't be surprised if Elan/US Bank agreed to purchase the portfolio or not. I'm kind of surprised that The Bank of Missouri hasn't already agreed to assume it, and then sell the portfolio to someone else.
As of now, our cards are just suspended. So I do think they gave themselves time to find a buyer. At least I hope that's why they suspended first to close later.