Credit Card...REVOKED!

October 18, 2008 10:35 PM

How will my credit be affected now that Wachovia has revoked my student credit card?

With Wachovia tightening its belt--and with my payment timeliness never approaching spectacular--I've just received word (when I called to ask why the card that carries NO BALANCE was declined) that my credit card has been revoked. I have two questions

1) The most information I have gotten about this online says I must receive a certified letter from Wachovia. I have not received this letter. What does that mean?

2) How will this affect my credit rating? (Not that it matters, since the only people who can get credit anymore are the ones who don't need it!)

posted by jefficator to work & money (5 comments total)

1) You'll receive it eventually

2) It shouldn't affect your credit rating. It's something Wachovia did, related to its own internal turmoil, not directly related to your performance.
posted by amyms at 12:15 AM on October 19, 2008

I would assume that your credit report will continue to show a slow payment history for that card. It'll take a couple of years for that to age off. I would also expect that that line on your credit report will now state that the account was closed by the creditor.

Wait six weeks or so, then get a copy of your report, if you want to know for sure.
posted by gimonca at 12:29 AM on October 19, 2008

...and with my payment timeliness never approaching spectacular...

What do you mean by that? Payments more than 30 days late can be reported to the credit bureaus and so will affect your rating. Less than 30 days late and you should be OK.

...card that carries NO BALANCE...

This may be why they canceled the card; they weren't making enough money off of you. If that is the case then your credit rating shouldn't be affected. Here is an article on the practice from the UK.
posted by TedW at 2:31 AM on October 19, 2008

If the card was revoked a month ago, you may be able to check your credit report to see how it now appears. You can get one free credit report from each credit bureau per year. (www.annualcrediteport.com, not the similar domain name that has those stupid commercials.)

Now your card may have been revoked, but is your credit line gone? They may be switching you into a different tier or a different backing bank. If the line is still there, then nothing changed. If the line is gone, my expectation would be that this could negatively affect your credit score, especially if it was your only credit line, or one of the lines you've had longest. As long as you have another open credit line, the score will gradually go back up.

Check out www.creditkarma.com to get an approximation of your credit score whenever you want for free. Remember that if you pull your own credit, it does not reduce the score.
posted by cprompt at 6:28 AM on October 19, 2008 [2 favorites]

It's quite possible they closed your account because you were a crappy customer(ie: you didn't use their services). It's not terribly uncommon. I had it happen once a couple years ago.

On your credit report you will see that you have one less active account and one more closed account.

I would expect it to drop your credit rating a small amount. Why? Your credit rating is a single number that people with money look at to see if you're worth their time. Closing an account for any reason shows to a potential lender that you aren't a great user of lending services, and therefore don't deserve a positive rating. Also, no longer having this account available means that you have less total "available credit" in your portfolio, which to someone on the outside looks like you aren't capable of having that much available to you.

But I would be surprised if it goes down by more than a couple points and I wouldn't worry about it. They go up and down all the time. If you want to build up your credit rating, get a new card, use it and maintain a balance on it month to month. (Note: This is advice on increasing your credit rating, not saving money. For the latter, do the opposite.)
posted by Ookseer at 12:13 PM on October 19, 2008