Some Bank of America Credit Cards Closed in Recent Days
There’s been a few reports in the last couple of days that Bank of America is closing some credit cards. This seems to affect people who have a large number of credit cards with the bank, many of them being MLB cards. There’s no definite answer as to what rules they’re following exactly with these closures, but it seems that they’re aiming to bring the number of BoA cards per person down to 4. There’s still data points that contradict this limit, but maybe they’re just starting to roll it out.
People calling in have been told that they will receive letters explaining the exact reasoning but some reps have confirmed that “excessive accounts” is the reason for the closures.
Bank of America is starting with cards that have a lower credit limit, from what a few datapoints show.
Conclusion
This might create problems for those who have lots of Bank of America cards, especially since you won’t know for sure which cards will be closed. If you have more than 4 cards and you really value any of them, it might be a good idea to close a few. I would hate for BoA to close my card if it was one of the oldest in my wallet for example.
But again, this isn’t affecting everyone. Personally I only have four Bank of America cards and one Merrill Lynch card and I wasn’t affected.
Did they close any of your cards? Let us know in the comments.
HT: Doctor of Credit and this reddit thread
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I have 8 BoA cards and I am still ok for now.
Thanks for DP. I guess they’re not going after everyone.
Obviously I have no idea what the exact rationale is behind this move but….. recently received a letter from BOA regarding the only CC of theirs I have. It was an old hotel card that they have since moved on from (no longer have the relationship), and the card has sat idle for a couple of years since I no longer have a reason to use it. Anyhow, got the letter saying “please use it or we will assume that you no longer want the account open and will close it”. I wanted to keep it open if for nothing else the “Museums on Us” program that they sponsor, which we use when travelling. I started charging a couple of things here and there and have heard nothing further.
I did however call them to inquire the reasoning for the letter and they cited security – aka they don’t want to have to keep an eye on accounts that aren’t getting used and feel that “forgotten about” or “excessive” accounts held by one individual pose an unnecessary security risk to them.
They tend to shut down cards that haven’t been active for a long time. That’s interesting though that they mentioned excessive as well.
Do you think Merrill Lynch are counted separately?
I have 5 personal BofA credit cards. None affected (yet). As a DP, I did downgrade one of the 5 yesterday from an Alaska to Cash Rewards (my second – since they wouldn’t let me directly downgrade into BBR card). No problem downgrading, and even got a call from a BofA rep today to confirm that the downgrade was processing and would only take a week or so (compared to the 8-10 weeks I was told).
Could be that they’re going after people who have cards well into the double digits, and bringing them down to 4. But not really bothering with people who have 5-6 in total.