Chase Shutdown Spree That Seems To Be Targeting Women
Over the past week reports have been rolling in of a Chase shutdown spree. That isn’t all that surprising given the current uncertainty in the economy. What is surprising is that every report I have seen so far has been of women being shut down. I thought it was an anomaly at first but now I have seen 5-6 reports of this and every single time it is of woman being shut down.
What Is Going On?
Last week a buddy reached out to tell me his mom’s account got shutdown for a spike in spending. He thought it was strange since his dad’s account had similar spending numbers but they left his accounts alone. He had heard from a friend of his that his wife’s account were shut down under similar circumstances. I thought it was strange but moved on from it.
Since then more data points have been creeping up in private groups, on Reddit etc. and it has always involved women. Then today there was a post in the Award Travel 101 Facebook group from yet another woman. Anna reports in the group that she was shut down because of too many recent new accounts with other institutions. She had opened 5 cards with other issuers in the last 8 months and that tripped their alarms I guess.
Why Are They Targeting Women?
When Anna spoke with Chase they said they are doing an annual audit of all accounts. That doesn’t seem all that unique, but the fact that it is all women getting tripped up by it does seem strange.
So what is going on? I can’t do much but speculate here. My guess would be that Chase has adjusted their audit algorithm and made it more sensitive. They are using this to scan accounts for potential bust out risk with the current economic uncertainty. Having said that I have to believe that they adjusted it negatively towards women somehow.
That seemed odd to me because I would think men would be more risky overall. A quick Google search shows that women file for bankruptcy at a slightly higher rate (52% of bankruptcies are women). That is pretty much equal and doesn’t seem worthy of singling a gender out over though.
Final Thoughts
If you have some data points to share yourself please leave them in the comments. This is a strange situation for sure. If you do get shutdown there is a chance to get your accounts reinstated, Ryan has in the past. But, it is an uphill battle for sure.
If anyone else has a theory of why this Chase shutdown spree is targeting women please share them below. Maybe some people that work in the banking industry could help us out with that.
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The day after I responded to your post I got notice I had been approved for the caard. Maybe it’s coincidence. I did have the banker send intervene with the credit department. Anyhow, it’s a good card.
You get back $500 when you spend 3K in 3 months.
Congrats!
Chase has changed a lot their criteria not only for approvals, but for continuing to hold their cards. I applied for IHG Premier card. I really wanted another card to keep charges separate. I was turned down, went thru reconsideration twice. Reasons being: I have too many cards, with too much credit. Please note that I have a very low utilization and Fico score of 820. For me, Chase lost out. I was considering a Private Client account for my 401K rollover upon retirement. I am going with Schwab now. Done with Chase’s lies and games. After the 2nd denial, I applied for the Citi Costco card for the 4% gas rebates, instant approval. No reason for me to give Chase any more business than they deserve!
Anyone ever read or watch “The Handmaids Tale”..About how the woman of the US live in total suffrage and and how they lose all their rights and become servants in horrible ways…None of which was their doing….It all started with the woman having their accounts frozen
Perhaps a better strategy would be to get your finances in order and control spending as 5 credit cards for anyone, regardless of gender, seems excessive.
For most people 5 cards is excessive. But this is a site about travel rewards and using miles and points to do it which come from credit cards. So many people that read this site have a lot more than 5. And for the most part, they do not overspend or carry a balance at all. Only people with great credit and a solid economic foundation can (and should) play the game though.
Belinda, we spend thousands every month as part of regular monthly budget. It seems irresponsible to not funnel all that money thru multiple credit cards that earn us rewards, which are a form of currency for us. It’s another way of making our money work for us. Is your everyday spending making you money? Sounds like it isn’t. Listen and learn.
I use my points for travel. I switch from one card to another depending on what card I want to build points on. Last year my points from Chase paid for three plane tickets to Rome and returning Barcelona, and American Express took care of a lot of hotels. It saved us tons of money.
I have one active Chase card now…INK. I pay my balance of 2-4K off every month. My credit is 835. I applied for a new card because it pays back $500 on the first 3K spent in the first three months. Of course
I’d apply for it. I got an EIDL loan and want to buy some new equipment for my business. However, I was rejected and the reason given was that I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY INVESTED WITH THEM. In fact, they are not my bank, but I didn’t know that was a criteria to get a card from them. ??? I went into a Chase bank and the banker thought it was odd too. He called up the department responsible. They have since sent me two emails telling me they are reconsidering and will respond via mail in 30 days. Doesn’t sound too promising. I am a woman, though I hadn’t made that association.
They have been a lot tighter on business cards approvals since the pandemic hit. Especially sole proprietors, they are pretty much denied instantly.
They cut my lines and before asking for a reconsideration, I moved almost 15x the amount of credit that they cut over to them and they told me to pound sand (after running me around).
I got my checking account locked supposedly for suspicious activity which it has been about a month or so and they told me they want no business with me yet I never received my funds or a letter informing the reason when I called. So rude on the fraud department for hanging up on me yet I tried to open up a different bank I got approved then I got denied a few days later.
They cut my lines and before asking for a reconsideration, I moved almost 15x the amount of credit that they cut over to them and they told me to pound sand (after running me around).
I tried to open a new checking and savings account from the computer I use just about every day to log into my account and make a transfer into the new account once it was opened from First Republic (far superior bank, but no CC) from an account where I am the only account holder.
They flagged it and then ran me around for 7 hours trying to resolve it and then had to resolve the direct deposits that were supposed to be going into the now closed accounts.
I just applied for a new Chase card and was asked for my last 2 years of tax returns. I already had 9 Chase cards, was 4/24. Never been asked for this before. I was approved but I thought it was peculiar. Maybe because I am female?
I doubt it. They are just being more cautious these days and having 9 cards with them I am sure raises some red flags.
@Glenn — This.
I’m a woman. The current economic downturn is disproportionately affecting women. Women have been hit hardest by job losses in the pandemic. This is not an opinion, it’s a fact. Look at Dept. of Labor stats. You can also dig into job losses according to other demographic data like age, race, etc. Due to lack of child care and schools not reopening, women are losing jobs or having to give up jobs at a much higher rate than men. This means, they’re potentially more risky customers.
Some of the articles below are behind paywalls, but there’s been a lot written about this in the past few months:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/womens-job-losses-from-pandemic-arent-good-for-economic-recovery-11592745164
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/14/coronavirus-job-losses-disproportionately-impact-women.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/08/since-coronavirus-pandemic-started-only-a-third-of-womens-lost-jobs-have-returned.html
I am sure it is because more women are player 2 mode. Points tends to attract more men then women.
Male here, got shut down earlier this month by Chase for rapid increase in revolving balance, spent 20k in first 4 weeks of card opening on large household purchases, no gift cards, no MS. Reinstated though after a call.
Thanks for the DP – glad you got everything back up and running!
It’s NOT just women. I got shut down earlier this year BEFORE Covid. Simon gift card purchases did the trick. Chase doesn’t mess around. They shut down ALL my cards and my checking and savings account (eventually) too. I explained what it was but the VGC purchases looks suspicious to them. They do NOT want people buying VGC’s with their credit cards.
No one and nothing is equal. Sexes and races obviously are going to spend differently and have difference finances as a whole just like they have difference violent crime rates, different IQ scores, and different aptitudes in certain area. It seems the bank is targeting people who are more risky to the bank; they happen to be women.
you are bigoted sexist fool
I hope they get sued for this. Do they think people won’t notice they are discriminating?
I’m sure they’d claim it’s not “discrimination,” it’s just an underwriting algorithm, like insurers use — e.g., Profile A is more likely to have a car accident/develop serious medical issues/die young/default on a loan, and so on. You might be a fantastic driver, but insurers are going to assume you’re quite likely to wreck your car, just because you’re 23 years old … and “the numbers” tell them that 23-year-old drivers are more like to wreck cars than, say, 40-year-old drivers :-/
That does not sound like enough data points to draw a conclusion. I doubt that Chase would specifically target women as I assume Chase would run afoul of discrimination laws not to mention the PR nightmare. If Chase is actually shutting more women down recently my guess would be that they are simply targeting certain occupations that have a higher proportion of females.
Could be coincidence for sure and we definitely need more DPs.
Even if they aren’t specifically targeting women but have made adjustments to what they look at so that they have a disparate impact on women, there could still be liability.
My thoughts as well. They could have tweaked things and it is having unintended consequences towards women.
I just got shut down last week, and am not a woman. High spending on gift card deals seems to be the cause.
Thanks for the DP James. What did the letter say?
“Rapid increase in spending and not using the card as intended”
They do seem very sensitive to a spike in spending these days.
I hope you actually don’t believe that Chase is targeting women, and just wrote a click bait headline/post. Because that would lead me to question your judgment. And how much I should trust your recommendations.
First, you have decided that Chase is targeting women because of five or six data points among millions of chase card holders. Even to describe it as spree is questionable and creates needless panic as we don’t even know if anything unusual is happening let alone calling it a campaign targeting women.
Second, it would be so illegal and break so many laws that Chase would be dumb as bat to do something like that knowingly. Admittedly, banks are not known to follow all rules and there certainly might be subtle forms of discrimination based upon zip codes etc (minority heavy neighborhoods), this would be heavy handed and ridiculous beyond belief. Chase would be opening it self to billions of dollars in law suits for no obvious benefits.
Ditto what a previous commentator said: I have certainly called Chase pretending to be my wife because she didn’t want to talk to the bank, and they never had any problems because I obviously can verify her fully. And yes, she has a foreign name where her gender is not obvious to an average American.
I thought there was enough smoke to warrant looking for more data points. Thanks for the comment.
I think the most at-risk segments of the new economy such as influencers, gig workers and small business owners have over the past few booming years seen an increase in female participation. These segments probably present the most risk to banks these days (unclear if further stimulus measures will reach them, decreased overall discretionary spending and therefore decreased income, uncertainty over virus trajectory and travel restrictions, decreased social media/influencer engagement by companies etc).
Interesting thought for sure.
How does chase know if you are of the Female persuasion? I don’t remember being aske that on any application.
I am sure they have all of that info in their data base.
Lol I impersonate my wife (who has a non-English name that could very well be a male name) all the time when she doesn’t want to talk to humans. The bank doesn’t know any better.
They have all of your spending data… if you gave me a man and a woman’s purchases and where they shopped over an extended period of time, I bet you I could figure out who was who…
I let my old roommate 10+ years ago use my Cvs card ONCE because she didn’t have hers and the makeup she wanted was on sale… I still get checkout coupons for makeup…