Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward points

[Anonymous]

Please give advice...

I have not used my Fidelity rewards card for months and today I learned that Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward points.

They claimed to have sent me a letter asking for information and I did not respond. In fact, I never received that letter.

I have close to 200,000 rewards points over ~10 years. 

Simply can not let it go. I spoke to regular rep, supervisor, supervisor's supervisor and all said they can not do anything about it...

Any advice is appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I am afraid there isn't much you can do now, 2000 bucks gone, thats hard to swallow for anyone.

See if any other more experienced MFers have any input.

[Anonymous]

Small claims court.

They have to prove they notified you. Make them prove it.

Likely they will settle.

[Anonymous]

In reading my card terms and conditions, got the impression that the lender could do whatever they wanted with rewards. My take on it was cash the rewards out as you go along or risk loosing them. Now it is only my impression and only on reading a few lenders Terms & Conditions?

[CreditInspired]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Please give advice...

I have not used my Fidelity rewards card for months and today I learned that Elan Financial Services closed my Fidelity account without notice; forfeited all of my reward points.

They claimed to have sent me a letter asking for information and I did not respond. In fact, I never received that letter.

I have close to 200,000 rewards points over ~10 years. 

Simply can not let it go. I spoke to regular rep, supervisor, supervisor's supervisor and all said they can not do anything about it...

Any advice is appreciated.

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Hi and welcome to MyFICO

This is really a blow to the gut and I can't imagine losing $20, much less $2K. So I ran through some scenarios because I just can't wrap my head around their nonchalant attitude regarding this. So, first, did they tell you what the letter said and did you ask them to email you a copy of the so-called letter pronto.

Now a few questions on some reasons why an account may be closed or rewards confiscated:

• Were there any late payments?
• I know you said you used the account months ago, but exactly how long a period of inactivity?
• I don't know anything about Elan but was wondering if the rewards expired?
• Did you return several items that had earned rewards?
• Could Elan have thought you were gaming the system somehow?
• Is it possible the CC issuer changed the reward program structure and you missed it?

These are only questions off the top of my head. 

I learned a very valuable lesson from your post. I definitely won't be allowing any of my points to accumulate for any length of time. 

Thanks for sharing and I really hope you get some type of satisfaction from this.

[FinStar]

Sorry to hear about the closure and rewards points forfeiture. Unfortunately, not much that can be done even if escalated to their EO.

Their CCA and Fidelity T&C pretty much addresses some of these situations. So, even if any legal avenues are pursued, if ELAN produces evidence of such correspondence/notification, this may not play in your favor.

Was there anything that prevented you from cashing out or redeeming these points from your Fidelity account? Also, it sounds like the ELAN CC account may have sat dormant without use for a long period of time before the notification was sent.

[Anonymous]

Thanks! I am thinking about taking this route...

[Anonymous]

I never thought about transferring points... paobably because I never expect to lose them...

[Anonymous]

They said it as because of credit risk. Probably because of the dispute between my former landlord and me...

[longtimelurker]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I never thought about transferring points... paobably because I never expect to lose them...

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Hope you can get the points back.  But....

As a general PSA, certainly amplified by this:   In general, NEVER keep cashback points with an issuer, for two reasons.

1) You never know when something like this can happen, either because of some genuine concern, or because of a mistake.  Fighting for them back will take effort and may anyway be unsuccessful

2) You earn no interest.   Much better to cash out whenever you can (min redemption for example) and place in an interest bearing account if needed.   

(Some people like to keep the rewards separate for various reasons, this can be done by placing them in a new account)

The exceptions is when there is some benefit in redeeming a certain larger amount, e.g. additional discounts on $100 gift cards.   If that is the route, redeem when you reach the needed figure!

For convertible travel points, UR/MR/TYP while the first concern is still there, and devaluation is a bigger risk, you may need to keep them with the issuer unless you know you will certainly redeem them for a particular partner.  (And even then, the risk of 1 might be less critical than the wish to retain flexibility)