Trying to recover active but unused credit card account

[Question_man]

I have an active credit card account, but I have not used it in many years and I discarded the card.  My insurer issued a credit to this account, and I have the last 4 digits of the account. How can I learn the name of the issuer of this card?

[dragontears]

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@Question_man wrote:

I have an active credit card account, but I have not used it in many years and I discarded the card.  My insurer issued a credit to this account, and I have the last 4 digits of the account. How can I learn the name of the issuer of this card?

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You don't know who issues your card???

Does your reports list the issuer?

[longtimelurker]

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@Question_man wrote:

I have an active credit card account, but I have not used it in many years and I discarded the card.  My insurer issued a credit to this account, and I have the last 4 digits of the account. How can I learn the name of the issuer of this card?

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Not from the last 4 (first 4 is much better!).  Who issued the credit?   You should be able to get more information from them?

[Question_man]

The issuer of the credit is unable to tell me! 

[Question_man]

I have not used the card in at least 2 years, probably more.  I got rid of the card, since I was not using it, but so as not to reduce to my credit score I never cancelled the account.  I know who issued the credit but the company that issued it does not know who the credit went to.  Or at least that is what I was told.

[SDMarik]

Pull up your credit report on Myfico here and it should show you all of your current (and past) accounts. If you have not touched it in 2 years, it will also be good to check to make sure it's still open.

[Question_man]

Aaah, thanks, I will try that.  I assume the account must still be open, because if it was closed, the issuer would have been notified that the transaction was not completed.

[longtimelurker]

Does the company that issued the credit have the account number.   From the first few digits the issuer can be identified.   But if you recognize it from the credit reports, probably easier!

[Remedios]

If you haven't used it in years, what's being credited?

If you called the issuer, they would see where the credit is coming from. There is no way issuer doesn't know where the money came from. 

If you know issuer, you have access to website/app. If you have access, transaction would be there. 

It's been a while since I got this confused

[K-in-Boston]

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@Question_man wrote:

Aaah, thanks, I will try that.  I assume the account must still be open, because if it was closed, the issuer would have been notified that the transaction was not completed.

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Not necessarily.  Your insurer likely does this through an automated batch.  If the account is not open, the merchant's credit card processor may simply mail them a letter in 2-6 weeks stating that the credit failed due to an invalid account number.

Go to annualcreditreport.com and pull your  credit reports.  Even if the account is closed it may jog your memory.  The last 4 may not match the account numbers listed on your reports, however, as they are not always identical to card numbers.  If you can log into your insurance portal and see the stored card as mentioned previously the BIN number (first 6 digits) of any credit card can be decoded to a particular issuer, and for larger issuers, even a specific subset of cards.