Credit card changed banks; score dropped

[HeavenOhio]

My LL Bean Barclays Visa was recently sold to Citi. Citi took over the account about ten days ago, and it's now a MasterCard. Today, I got an alert saying that my Equifax score dropped five points with the note saying that Barclays reported "Account Transferred Or Sold Credit Card."

I know that alerts aren't necessarily tied to score drops, but I think this one probably is. I'm wondering if my points will come back once Citi reports. I'm also curious about which scoring aspect this might have affected. And moving forward, will both accounts remain on my report, thus affecting my AAoA (in the wrong direction )?

[Anonymous]

So the one account simply reported as closed and you're waiting for the new one that took it over to show up?  Did the account have a balance on it at the time it closed? 

[HeavenOhio]

I think it may report as closed. I'm going to check my monitoring services in a day or two to see if they can provide more detail. Before I check those, I want to be reasonably sure my reports are all updated.

Yeah, it might have reported a balance as there was a $242 balance on the card (from new charges) at the time of transfer. The charges were made with Barclays, and I paid off the balance through Citi about seven days ago. I don't see any indication of any balance at this point, though. If that would have happened, it should have triggered a balance change alert.

[Anonymous]

You would think so.

I was thinking if the account was reported closed with a balance that it would be viewed as maxed out by the FICO algorithm.  If that were the case, though, I'd assume you would have lost more than 5 points... unless of course you already had another account at say 70%-89% utilization and the new "maxed out" account wasn't a major change with respect to highest percentage balance on a single tradeline.

[HeavenOhio]

My utilization is low enough to max out that portion of my score. Two of six cards were reporting positive balances.

[Thomas_Thumb]

---

@HeavenOhio wrote:

My LL Bean Barclays Visa was recently sold to Citi. Citi took over the account about ten days ago, and it's now a MasterCard. Today, I got an alert saying that my Equifax score dropped five points with the note saying that Barclays reported "Account Transferred Or Sold Credit Card."

I know that alerts aren't necessarily tied to score drops, but I think this one probably is. I'm wondering if my points will come back once Citi reports. I'm also curious about which scoring aspect this might have affected. And moving forward, will both accounts remain on my report, thus affecting my AAoA (in the wrong direction ?

---

I had something like that happen with my Best Buy card - In that case the portfolio of accounts was transferred to CBNA from Cap One. The original account is still on my CRA reports as a closed account transferred to another lender. The new account has the original open date. The BB card was about 4 years old at the time and I ended up with two 4 year accounts, one closed and the other open. AAoA dropped from 17 to 15 years. My score did not change.

In another case Fidelity transferred Visa account processing from BOA to Elan early last year. When that happened I was issued a new card but, my Fidelity Visa account stayed open. The account just listed a different account #.

[HeavenOhio]

Then I should expect a permanent AAoA hit? AoYA and AoOA are non-factors, by the way.

[Revelate]

---

@HeavenOhio wrote:

Then I should expect a permanent AAoA hit? AoYA and AoOA are non-factors, by the way.

---

I've had both cases on my report: one airstruck the prior lender's tradeline (Cap 1), the other instance kept both old and new and yup, hit my AAOA by some amount.

4 years 4 months AAOA and duplicate now closed mortage with an age of 2 years 11 months.  Thanks Chase!

[Anonymous]

Hi Heaven!  If I am reading your first couple posts right, you haven't yet pulled your credit reports, and so you don't know whether there are two accounts (one closed and one open) or one account (new owner).  You also don't know if there were other changes made -- for example a change to the Date Opened.

I'd say that without knowing what the reports say, there's no good way to guess what could be going on.

Even when you do see a change made to the report, it can sometimes be very temporary.  I have lost credit cards a number of times before, and one time the issuer in response opened a new account and closed the other (and that's how it read on the reports).  But it only read that way for a short while -- after a month they deleted the closed account.

[HeavenOhio]

Of course, I'm hoping that this a temporary situation. What I know is that Citi hasn't reported yet, so as of now, it's a change to one account on one report. I've checked WalletHub the past two days. It indicates that Barclays last reported to TU 25 days ago. So I'm going to give it a day or two before I go to Karma or anywhere else. The next time I pull from these sites, I'll get fresh reports. If I pull the trigger today, I'll kick in the seven, fourteen, or thirty-day waiting period for updates.

Where this would really be a drag is if someone is in the midst of a mortgage. These people don't need little surprises, temporary or not. It could also affect 5/24, either short-term or for a while.

I may call Citi to see what they know, but the reps are likely to be in the dark. They've been great the three times I've called them, but it's because of their helpful attitude rather than their knowledge. They understand my questions, and they also understand that the stock answers don't necessarily address them.