Banks Can Switch You from One Credit Card to Another Without Your Permission

Here's an interesting email I received from a reader:

My husband and I have a Bank of America Visa card, an account that we’ve had for several years.  About a year ago, we were “upgraded” to a Visa Signature, which I really didn’t pay much attention to, because we rarely use the card.  Recently, however, we were “upgraded” again, this time to an American Express card.  Bank of America was changing our Visa card to an American Express card. 

We called and asked if we had any choice about this, because we already have an American Express Blue Card, and need a Visa card for businesses that don’t take American Express.  Well, no, they told us we had no choice.  This is our oldest credit card account, so we don’t want to cancel it, and potentially hurt our credit rating.  I guess we are stuck.  At least they didn’t start charging an annual fee.
 
So credit card holders beware – apparently your Visa card can be converted into an American Express card, whether you like it or not!

If this happened to me, I'd be miffed!!!

Has anyone else had this happen to them? Anyone been successful at fighting this? Is this even legal for banks to do?

Comments

[jayda]

This is easy to fight simple by closing the account.

[DCS]

Closing an account doesn't remove the history of it from your credit report. If it's on your report, then it's used to calculate your score, open or not.

The only way closing it would affect your score is if you carry balances and closing it greatly reduces your total available credit, which would increase your utilization ratio.

Go to http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/closing-credit-card-dings-credit-score-2.aspx for a Bankrate.com article about this issue.

If you don't carry a balance on any cards, or if you do but the limit on this card is low enough that the new card will equal or exceed it, just tell BofA to get lost and go get a rewards VISA/Mastercard elsewhere. Search this site for several discussions on which rewards card would be best for you.

[GV]

I've had similar happen twice with Bank of America. Four years ago they felt I was not using my credit line of my primary card to its fullest and issued me a BoA-branded American Express card with a $5,000 credit limit. No credit check was performed nor did they ask my consent if I would like the card, they pulled the credit line by subtracting the $5,000 from the already existing primary card limit... When I contacted customer service it was explained to me that this was done to give me greater spending power and was done as a favor for being a good cardholder.

Two years later the same thing happened, in the mail I had waiting for me a new BoA-branded World MasterCard that I did not consent to nor ask for with a credit limit borrowed by reducing the limit of two other underutilized cards I held at the time (cards originally issued by banks that Bank of America swallowed up in merger.)

[Gregory]

MBNA did this several years ago to a LOT of people, including me. I likewise already had an Amex and thus never used my "upgraded" MBNA card. MBNA lost me as a customer because of that. Certainly nothing illegal about it, but it strikes me as a really dumb move since most people are in that situation, i.e. have a Visa for a reason and likely already have an Amex.

[Tommy]

I agree with everyone else. It happened to me a few years ago. Annoying and sad, but moving on with you life is really the best thing to do.

[Michael Gardner]

This is another reason I will never have a credit card again.

[KaseyD]

Since you've had this card a long time, I recommend that you don't close the account. Keeping the account open, albeit unused, will boost your credit score as opposed to closing the account. Just tuck the card away in your safe and use it once or twice a year. This way it it doesn't show up as inactive on BofAs records; if it does, BofA may take it upon themselves to cancel the card for administrative reasons.

Chase MasterCard did something similar to me a year ago; changing my card which greatly reduced my rewards. I stopped using the card, and a couple of months ago they offered me a whopping 10% back in reward points for 3 months on almost every category I use. I'm sure it's part of a market test, but I think it had to do with my change in spending patterns (from $1000/mo to >$10/mo). Perhaps BofA will get a similar message from your non-use and up the ante.

With your long-term credit history apply for a different Visa card. If you have (or want) a Schwab account, their Visa Signature pays 2% cash back on "everything"; but I think I read here not too long ago that it is no longer available.

[Squirrelers]

If that happened to me, I would be inclined to keep that card but leave it unused. I would take that as an opportunity to take another look at what cards are out there and which ones offer me the best of what I'm looking for. I don't care about interest rates as I don't carry balances, but would look at cashback, rewards, etc.

[StackingCash]

Citibank turned my Visa into a Mastercard a few years back. I didn't affect me too much because Mastercard is pretty much accepted everywhere. However I did open up another Visa card with U.S. Bank just to have a Visa card. Two years ago I opened up an AMEX card. Recently I've been thinking about getting a Discover card so I would have one of each of the big 4. Because of recent credit card companies policies, I want to have a few cards open to maintain history and allow me the flexibility of shutting one down if they ever piss me off.

[rzrshrp]

This happened to me years ago with a Wachovia credit card. It was switched to a non-Wachovia card and to top it off, Wachovia proceeded to start calling/mailing me and asking me to Apply for a new Wachovia card. If they wanted me to have one, why did the switch the one I already had? Why should I add a new inquiry, credit card and cancellation because of their corporate shuffling?