I got one letter today, from Chase bank. I have two credit cards with them, the only ones left over from my life in the United States. I just paid the annual fee of one, a bit late (as the bill came while I was in Singapore and Cambodia). When I opened the letter, I was startled to read that the other had been cancelled because they “assumed that since you had not used the card in the past 24 months, you no longer had need for it”.
Now, in a way, that is true. I’ve had this card (and its predecessors–I believe it was a GE card before Chase gobbled it up) for 20 years. In addition, there was no annual fee.
Duh! THAT’S why they cancelled it. The other one they get $20 a year out of, so they’ll keep that one going. There was no way on the letter of appealing the bank’s decision, no number to call in case I actually wanted to use the card, no “thanks for the twenty years of your business we have been privileged to have”, just “cut up your card so that you don’t inadvertently try to use it.”
One wonders. If I were ever to have to return to the US to live, I would now have only one card that I could use (which is, in and of itself, not a bad thing, I guess). Perhaps I should just cancel the other Chase card too. I have two cards from UK sources, totalling GBP 5500 in credit, which if we use them we pay off each month, thus incurring no interest charges.
Obviously this is another sign that (1) our financial affairs are not in bad shape, in that I don’t have need of this card to live, (2) the credit crunch is biting on the banks, as they are cancelling cards that have not been in use for a while to limit their own exposure to possible bad debt later on, especially cards that attracted no annual fee, and (3) God doesn’t want me to move back to the United States.
I’d certainly agree with your conclusions in your final paragraph.
I have a second VISA card which is my just-in-case-heaven-forfend-I-misplace-the-primary-one card. The primary VISA (on which just about everything goes, and earns me Air Canada points) is with CIBC* actually attracts an annual fee of $120. However, since they pick up the insurance on rental cars, and that’s $11.95/day, all I have to do is rent a car for ten days a year (which I do, four or five weekends/year), it pays for itself. For me that works out fiscally.
*that’s their name in these days of alphabet soup, but it actually stands (er, stood) for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
The secondary VISA is with Royal Bank of Canada, and attracts no fee (or any aeroplan points), quite deliberately at a different financial institution, and neither card where I do my banking. I’m quite strict about custody of it – the two VISA cards never travel in the same wallet.
Unlike you, I make a point of spending a little on the secondary card every six months or so, just to make sure they know I still want it. Ignoring the transatlantic aspects of it, do you have more than one UK credit card? It might be wise to get a secondary one in case one goes a-missing for whatever reason.
The RBC card has actually been seeing some heavy use recently – my friend John died in September, and I’m his executor. Until probate is granted, all his bank a/cs are frozen, so a fair amount of expenses have gone on the RBC card, and the estate will pay me back (with appropriate interest). It’s very easy to keep the accounting separate from my own finances on a different card. Although it’s too bad it doesn’t get air points – I could have had a short-haul flight by now, what with funeral expenses and the like.
If you ever move back to the US and establish an address you’ll get credit card offers frequently – they keep my shredder busy.
Yeah, that kind of thing has been happening to me, including repeated incidents of one credit card company buying another and then deciding that the additional cards with them this gives me are too many.
We have a second UK Visa card, and our total possible indebtedness in any one month would be
This would happen here if I hadn’t put our names on the Mail Preference Register. We get little or no junk mail as it is highly discouraged for companies to send unsolicited post to people on that register.
I think it’s very unlikely that I’ll ever live in the US again.
That happened to me once when I was living in the US.
Are you still getting offers.
The unsolicited offers for credit cards have really dried up for me in the last month or so.