Can anyone offer some advice?

1Sandra2

Hi, I have an Amazon credit card (Halifax) which I have had for about five years, I originally let my son use this one and he ran up a few thousand pounds worth of debt until he moved away three years ago. I have always paid this off on minimum payment until last year when the debt was down to about £7k when I transferred this debt to a 0% deal with Barclaycard. I have not used the card, and neither has my errant son) since, but was about to do another balance transfer because they offered me a deal a few weeks ago so I was going to do a transfer sometime within the next few days.

I have since received a letter from them saying that following a review they have reduced my credit limit from £14k to £500, they are closing the account in two months, and that is that. No explanation or reason to do this. I rang them on Wednesday and the guy I spoke to said he was shocked by this, he e-mailed the underwriting team while I was on the phone and told me to call back in 2 days. I have just done this and got a real push off from a different guy, I was in tears on the phone but he just kept repeating that there is no appeal in a case like this.

I really need to keep this card, I live alone and wanted access to some credit just in case I have an emergency. Can anyone offer any advice as to why they would just snatch this card back? I know I hadn't used it for about six months but this doesn't seem like a reason to take it off me. I have just run my credit report off on Experian, and there's nothing unusual showing on there, I haven't applied for any new credit for at least a year, probably more and I am just really really sad about the whole situation. I don't even know what I have done wrong. Can anyone help me please??

Tixy

Credit card companies are just generally reducing their exposure.

It could be because you haven't used it, it could be that in doing a general review of accounts they feel you have too much credit available elsewhere and would worry you couldn't afford to service the full £14k if you went out and spent it all.

Nothing you can do about it. Once its closed and the account is no longer showing as active on your credit file you could try applying elsewhere for another card so you have an 'emergency card' available. Or 2months after its closed you could apply for a new halifax card (they treat you as a new customer after 2months), but even if they did accept you it would likely be at a starting credit limit much lowe than what you did have.

1Sandra2

I still don't understand why they have done this without any warning though but thanks for the advice... makes my head hurt.

redpete

1Sandra2 wrote: »

I still don't understand why they have done this without any warning though

If the CC company warned customers that they were about to have their credit limit slashed you would get a proportion of them decide to spend spend spend whilst they had the higher limit - which would be the opposite effect that the lender intended.