Synchrony account closure

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@AverageJoesCredit wrote:

Just spitballing here but anyone mention their geographic area? Maybe a factor in their decisions ie living in a bad area or lower income area. Im sure if they looked me up being where i live, they might close me out on the not being able to repay bit as the economy here is real bad. Heck if you guys dont here from me in near future most likely ive lost my job. Hopefully not but its that sketchy here.

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What you are describing is illegal actually and has been for over 45 years. Your individual credit worthiness...individual.
Unfortunate as it is so far I have not seen anyone who's shutdown seems that surprising. Searching for answers when a pattern has already developed:

10-15 cards.

$60-95k in limits across cards

Unused credit.

Perhaps agressive with CLI request and not using the limits (this one is less conclusive)

Yes Chase and the primes will let you have a 30K card and never bother you if you only put a few thousand on it a month....but Synch and banks on the other end of the spectrum tend see you at you as risk when you do that.

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The illegality of it would be important if banks never engaged in illegal behavior, but they do all the time!   They do generally know better than to use explicitly disallowed reasons ("bad zip code, too many minorities" for example!) but can find other criteria to do similar things.

That said, I do agree that there are believable legal reasons for why these sets of shutdowns occur.

[Anonymous]

Just a quick update....all accounts have been updated to Experian so far....the ones with 0.00 balance report as "Paid Loan"..the 2 within 0 int promo report as "Closed by Credit Grantor"...no hit to my score so far.  Also, in a prev post it was mentioned the change to Vantage 4 from FICO.  I noticed all my Synchrony scores took a drop of  62 points in January..went from Fair to Poor.  I knew this was incorrect..So last night enrolled in my Sams Credit account score..it now went back up 74 points.  Not sure with the change in scoring models if it was a glitch and may have been a trigger.  Who knows at this point.  Just a heads up!

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Just a quick update....all accounts have been updated to Experian so far....the ones with 0.00 balance report as "Paid Loan"..the 2 within 0 int promo report as "Closed by Credit Grantor"...no hit to my score so far.  Also, in a prev post it was mentioned the change to Vantage 4 from FICO.  I noticed all my Synchrony scores took a drop of  62 points in January..went from Fair to Poor.  I knew this was incorrect..So last night enrolled in my Sams Credit account score..it now went back up 74 points.  Not sure with the change in scoring models if it was a glitch and may have been a trigger.  Who knows at this point.  Just a heads up!

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You're not the only one who noticed that massive drop so it sounds like it's a possibility. 

Sorry that you lost all of those accounts. You seem to be taking it well for what it is. 

[notmyrealname23]

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@FinStar wrote:

AFAIK, and just so you might not be disappointed, there isn't any retention bonus if you decide not to keep it.  You can decide if the program works for you and evaluate once the AF comes up for renewal.  By the same token, they offer a variety of incentives to boost those miles.  If this is your only SYNCB account, I wouldn't worry too much about it. 

Thanks. I have Amazon Store card for 3K also through Synchrony, but that's it. I'm gardening right now, this card + others I have are fine for my credit rebuild.

The Cathay card is good one time for the bonus (it's basically buying 42000-43000 miles for $135, figuring I lose 2% cashback for that 2k in spend, I can get $300-400 in airfare value out of that easy peasy in coach, even more nominal dollars in business if I want), but bluntly, as a $95 AF card, beyond year 1 it's weak sauce compared to the Capital One Venture (I have that) or any other number of AF travel cards. The Venture transfers miles to Asia Miles at 2:1.5, but you get 2 miles on ALL purchases, not just dining and international, so like a lot of airline cards, the flexible currency cards beat the airline brand ones as long-term plays. The only way this card makes sense long-term is if I spend a ton on Cathay airfare (spoiler: I don't), or if the benefits are juicier in 2021 (who knows but not holding my breath), or I get a reason to keep it (I won't be mad if I don't get one if/when I ask next year; it's just not a long term keeper past the initial bonus with the benefits it has now).

[JoeLuvsHisCredit]

Oh wow!  So sorry @Mama_Pearl

HUGS to you and your mom

[Anonymous]

@Anonymous I’m so happy to hear that your mother is recovering with family and our heart and prayers continue for her full recovery.

As to the subject at hand, I definitely believe that some of the less than prime lenders are tightening up, just like some of the primes have dropped a lot of costs by jettisoning benefits.

I also think VS4 has something to do with this. Moreover, there’s another thread I read where someone was in enrolling/unenrolling repeatedly and noted fluctuations, crazy fluctuations almost daily.

They therefore questioned the validity of the score when pulling the enroll trick. Nevertheless, it would seem IMHO that it may have something to do with VS4.

Which brings me to another thought, I wonder if VS4 tracks CLIs from all cards. I mean the data is there, especially when going back 24 months.

When you get your annual credit report it lists what your credit limit was when. So that could’ve been made a metric whereby they look for multiple CLIs in a short period of time even outside of the current lender. Could even be correlated somehow with new accounts or HPs. Who knows what kind of metrics they’re coming up with now.

Just random thoughts nothing to back this up, no evidence.

[mikesonthemend]

As for any coronavirus concerns... why are we only seeing large limit PIF accounts getting hit? If it is an economic concern. low scores are the ones that would be targeted.

I believe it has more to do with non-profitable accounts. They have too much money tied up in un-used lines of credit. I may be wrong, but they want to take on risk. Risk pays.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, they are cutting the fat, that’s part of the tightening up, but profitability is an economic concern, probably the number one economic concern for the lender.

The majority of income from mass market credit card companies come from interest according to article from nerdwallet, so it makes sense that they would want to reallocate that to someone who’s going to use it and carry a balance and earn them interest, without getting too far out there.

And while they make money from swipe fees, someone who rarely uses a card isn’t very profitable either.

And if you’re a MFer, there definitely not getting any fees from you! Lol!

[Anonymous]

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@FinStar wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

No updates yet.. still waiting for the snail mail letters to arrive. I'm sure it'll state vague reasons as to why they closed all the accounts so nothing exciting to look forward to. Pretty bad that synchrony would go to this extreme to close all accounts without any warnings BUT it is what it is..

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Thanks for keeping us posted @Anonymous.   I hope things are well with your mom and she's having a smooth recovery. 

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I have the 2% cash back SPM (Synchrony PayPal Mastercard). It is one of my favorite credit cards and use it all the time, especially at Wally World. It is also my catch all credit card for non bonus category spend. I make many charges a month but never carry a balance

The SPM is the only Synchrony card I have and I never liked how intwined with PayPal it is. I cannot log directly into the Synchrony credit card portal. I must log into PayPal first. I cannot withdraw my cash back directly into my bank. I have to withdraw it into my PayPal balance first than my bank. PayPal has a deserved reputation for banning people and holding their money for months on end.

I wonder if I should look for another 2% cash back card just incase?

[Revelate]

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@mikesonthemend wrote:

As for any coronavirus concerns... why are we only seeing large limit PIF accounts getting hit? If it is an economic concern. low scores are the ones that would be targeted.

I believe it has more to do with non-profitable accounts. They have too much money tied up in un-used lines of credit. I may be wrong, but they want to take on risk. Risk pays.

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I think it's a combination of all of the above TBH, I just didn't spell it all out as others had upthread.  One's total P+L is a mix of managing risk and also keeping profitable customers, but also encouraging your unprofitable ones to go elsewhere.

And actually talking Sync's positioning in the market, you want to catch the falling consumers: if this all goes worst case scenario style, people even on this forum are going to lose some of their higher tier accounts quite likely, and where are those folks going to turn for credit?  Sync and similar.  Chase/Amex/etc might have a problem with a 600 FICO scoring consumer, Sync: "we like you!"

If I were Sync looking at the market I'd be looking at that possibility especially if it was cutting out dead limits anyway which ostensibly they should be doing every so often.  Of course why they granted them in the first place I don't understand anyway but clearly I'm not running the show.