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

[longtimelurker]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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Personal accountability makes a lot more sense here. If you wish to play the points game or the long game with earning cash back, you have to accept the risk associated with it versus a card that has quicker redemption options. All of us here have decided that our various rewards programs are worth it to us. That includes following any of the rules. 

Its unfortunate that this happened to the OP and it could happen to any of us. We should all use our cards with the knowledge in the back of our heads that we can lose them at any time. 

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Right.  It seems unlikely that we will reach consensus on whether it is fair/right/someone's fault, so IMO it's best to view it as a lesson for now (until laws are changed for those that want that).    Basically, storing up rewards with the issuer carries mainly risk and not much reward! 

And it's not just losing.  Penfed silently devalued its point system, so while you thought you had say $500 worth of points, you in fact can now only buy stuff worth $400.    If pushed, they would state truthfully that you still had all the points that you earned!   And over time, airlines/hotels can devalue their reward programs, impacting MR/UR/TYP etc.   Best to use as soon as it makes sense!

[ChargedUp]

My condolences to the OP. That just plain sucks!

If you knew that your landlord may place something negative on your CR's, it should've been a hint to cash out the chips and prepare for the worst. Elan is part of US Bank and they're known to be on the conservative side. I've got an Elan card that I rarely use and they raised my limit twice, even though I've never ran more than about $3K through it. I'm quite sure it's the negative reporting that created the mess.

Should you win your case against the landlord, I would attempt to hold him liable for the effects of the negative item he placed on your CR's and maybe recoup your $2K from him! I'm not a lawyer, but if he had no causation to "slander" your credit, then I would believe he should be liable for all effects of his actions.

I'm not sure if anyone else asked, but did Elan have your correct address? Have their been mail thefts in your area? Elan *does* have a secure message area when you sign into your account. Was there anything there you might have missed?

[Anonymous]

1. They have my correct address.

2. I am not able to log in the account to access messages.

[Aim_High]

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@ChargedUp wrote:"...Have their been mail thefts in your area?"

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Good point. 

It is unfortunate that we cannot trust our mail to be safe at the curb any longer. 

Paperless statements and notifications are sometime a good thing today for some people. 

I am old-fashioned because I still like my paper statements.  (I see e-statements as just being another chore and expense put on the consumer by the banks since I have to remember to download my statements from each account, save to backup media, and/or print them all every month.  It is easier to just open and file away my statements for as long as I want to keep them.)

So I choose to send all my important mail to a USPS P.O. Box.  It's also handy since I travel and I know my important mail will never be left at the curb when I go out of town.  Plus, if I go out of town for the weekend, I can let it accumulate in my box without having to leave a 'hold mail" notification.  My curb box mainly just gets junk mail. 

[Save-n-Invest]

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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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I haven't read through the entire thead so apologies if this has already been covered.  Sorry to hear of the loss of so many points. I consider Elan a flaky servicer for many reasons. I try to avoid their cards. 

Have you contacted Fidelity? There may be recourse there. I had a much less significant issue with the debit card 2-3 years ago. I received a letter to use the debit card by date certain or it would not be renewed. Fair enough. I complied with the advice on the letter. Near expiration date a new card arrived. I put it in the place debit cards are kept without realizing the new card had the old expiration date on it. 

The next time I tried to use the debit card the merchant told me it was expired. Used a cc. Came home and called to advise of the error. I got ll kinds of nonsense. I think it was/is a debit Visa. I was referred to another party to call. That party referred me back to the original party. Got old. Obviously the game was to wear me down making useless phone calls.

Finally I phoned Fidelity and innocently asked how to go about moving asssets from Fidelity to another brokerage. They wanted to know why.  It was short and sweet. No way to access funds if needed after hours of the service center.  

The next morning FedEx delivered a new debit card correctly dated. I should have done that from the jump. This did not involve money so it may have been easier than your situation. You don't have to be a Fidelity customer and Fidelity knows that. Maybe a polite call to Fidelity can help. It won't hurt so worst case scenario you are at the same place.

Sorry for such a large loss of funds. That's a difficult one to accept.

Good luck!

[Psmith]

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@OmarR wrote:

Wow. I guessed I never realized that people actually took chips home with them. I always assumed they cashed them out before they left the building. Or if they were too drunk (or whatever) at least cash them out soon after.

It would irritate me daily to see chips stacked up on my mantle not earning me interest.

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Then it might amuse you to know that the father of a famous politician once gave his son an interest free loan by buying and taking delivery of $3.5 million in chips from the son's casino. This was a clever move, as chip holders have priority over the casino's other creditors.