Barclaycard closing my account due to "Business decision"

Alex9384

I logged in today and noticed my Barclaycard balance transfer offers are gone and it says that I have no credit available because the account is suspended.

I'm wondering why because they've been earning Balance/Money transfer fees off me since 2019 and I've always paid back what I owed back to zero, then took a new offer, and so on.

Overall, on my credit reports I have almost 800 repayments across all my credit cards over years, all of which were made on time. Zero late payments ever. So it's pretty obvious I'm very reliable customer. it's a bit strange they would cut off such customer, especially if they know they could make further money from future BT/MT fees.

I wrote their customer service and they said "Business decision was made to close my account on 3/2/25". I asked if that means I won't be able to open a new Barclaycard ever again. The CS representative said I will be able open a new one, I just can't reopen the existing one. Has any of you actually tried that?

I have recently transferred a balance from a different card onto my Barclaycard, which will be on 0% interest until late 2026. Now I'm wondering what will be shown on my credit reports? I tried to ask that too, but their CS was super slow today, I got logged out several times during that, I went through 2 different people and the third one just closed the chat. So the last question remains unanswered. Has anyone on here had the same experience? If yes, what was shown on your credit reports after the CC was closed but you kept paying back the balance over time?

zagfles

Have you only ever used the card for BT/MTs, not for spending? They generally don't make money on BT/MT fees as the rates are usually well below prevailing interest rates, so they'll make a loss. That might be the reason. 

Alex9384

zagfles said:

Have you only ever used the card for BT/MTs, not for spending? They generally don't make money on BT/MT fees as the rates are usually well below prevailing interest rates, so they'll make a loss. That might be the reason. 

I used it for purchases too, just not in the last few months.
Once they reduced my limit because I already had transferred balance and then kept making new purchases on top of that, then paying off the next month whatever the purchase amount was, so basically the BT balance stayed the same over several months. But that was about 2 years ago.

It's still interesting that they would close this card but allow me to open another one? What's the difference? Unless the CS representative was wrong about it. I guess I'll find out when I start doing eligibility checks after 6 months or so.

grumpy_codger

Alex9384 said:

...

I'm wondering why because they've been earning Balance/Money transfer fees off me since 2019 and I've always paid back what I owed back to zero, then took a new offer, and so on.

Are you being sarcastic? It was your who were earning money of them. They were making losses.

Hoenir

The Customer Service Agent has no idea whether your new application will be accepted. Be strange to close one account to then immediately allow the opening of another. 

Alex9384

Hoenir said:

The Customer Service Agent has no idea whether your new application will be accepted. Be strange to close one account to then immediately allow the opening of another. 

Just after starting this thread I found a letter from them...
So, they are "closing all my accounts" even though I only had one CC with them. It means if I had a current account, ISA, etc., they would be closing down all of them.

Now I'm a bit more pessimistic about being able to open any account with them again.

HillStreetBlues

zagfles said:

Have you only ever used the card for BT/MTs, not for spending? They generally don't make money on BT/MT fees as the rates are usually well below prevailing interest rates, so they'll make a loss. That might be the reason. 

If they have found out the they aren't making money offering BT why not simply stop making the offers? (It's a rhetorical question)

Alex9384

Here it is...

zagfles

That looks a lot more serious than a "business decision", it sounds like they suspect your accounts are being used for purposes against the T&Cs, eg for business purposes, illegal purposes, money laundering etc. There's loads of threads on the banking board about accounts being closed. 

Alex9384

zagfles said:

That looks a lot more serious than a "business decision", it sounds like they suspect your accounts are being used for purposes against the T&Cs, eg for business purposes, illegal purposes, money laundering etc. There's loads of threads on the banking board about accounts being closed. 

If it was that, they would freeze my accounts. They would not give a 60 days notice and say "you can still use your accounts with us until ...."

Emmia

Alex9384 said:

I logged in today and noticed my Barclaycard balance transfer offers are gone and it says that I have no credit available because the account is suspended.

I'm wondering why because they've been earning Balance/Money transfer fees off me since 2019 and I've always paid back what I owed back to zero, then took a new offer, and so on.

Overall, on my credit reports I have almost 800 repayments across all my credit cards over years, all of which were made on time. Zero late payments ever. So it's pretty obvious I'm very reliable customer. it's a bit strange they would cut off such customer, especially if they know they could make further money from future BT/MT fees.

I wrote their customer service and they said "Business decision was made to close my account on 3/2/25". I asked if that means I won't be able to open a new Barclaycard ever again. The CS representative said I will be able open a new one, I just can't reopen the existing one. Has any of you actually tried that?

I have recently transferred a balance from a different card onto my Barclaycard, which will be on 0% interest until late 2026. Now I'm wondering what will be shown on my credit reports? I tried to ask that too, but their CS was super slow today, I got logged out several times during that, I went through 2 different people and the third one just closed the chat. So the last question remains unanswered. Has anyone on here had the same experience? If yes, what was shown on your credit reports after the CC was closed but you kept paying back the balance over time?

It's possible that by only using the card for MT and BT that you've somehow been flagged as a risky customer - it could look like you keep running up debts, and then use Barclaycard to address them at 0%.

I'll be surprised if they'll let you open another card with them, having had one closed by them. Time to move on and find another provider ?