Beware of Providian/Washington Mutual credit cards ...

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mshheaddoc

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I'm just sharing my recent incident to see if others like me who might have been affected.

I am a long time providian card holder (2001). NO issues on this account. Card was never late once. I hadn't used it too much in the past few years because the rate was exceedingly high but I kept it for purchases I needed that I'd pay off in the same month or something like that. Its not bad to have any extra $3K lying around if you need it.

Well we're in a money crunch with moving so I figured since I just did a balance transfer for the full amount of my credit limit and paid it off one month later that I'd use this card for the next 2 weeks until our money issues were over. Well, unbeknownst to me, since WAMU took over they've been going through their acquired credit cards apparently and reducing peoples credit. They decided to reduce mine in the past 2 days (literally) without giving me ANY notice. Not even a notice on my online account (which is all I have). So I find this out when I'm trying to pay for my mom's brunch on Sunday, which was a tad bit embarrassing since 3 days ago I had PLENTY of credit on that account. I call, they tell me that they letter is in mail of why they reduced it. I asked why they couldn't tell me. They said because it was in the letter. :confused: Then they tried to tell me that 16.99% was a fantastic rate and that I needed to keep my card. :rolleyes:

So today I go online to payoff the credit card which I cancelled as soon as I got back from lunch yesterday. They cancelled my online account. Now mind you. I had ONLY online statements so now I have NO records of this account. I was so pissed. I called and the poor guy just had the wrong chica today. They were telling me I had to wait for my next statement in a month (my statement apparently ended on Saturday) in order to payoff and I'd have to pay off all the interest that accrues as well. Of course that didn't work and I also threw a fit that they were going to charge me $15 for a pay-by-phone transaction.

Funny thing is, I got a letter today dated 5/9 offering me a 1.99% balance transfer offer stating my FULL credit that I had. I also had one of my other credit cards which I just did a huge consolidation of balance transfer (and maxed out the card) just upped my credit by over $5000 within the past few days :laugh:.

I'm sad that they had free credit score monitoring which I checked my credit on every month :(

Anyway, long story short, I hope that no one else has to go through the embarrassment I did and wanted to warn you if you had this credit card.

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I'm just sharing my recent incident to see if others like me who might have been affected.

I am a long time providian card holder (2001). NO issues on this account. Card was never late once. I hadn't used it too much in the past few years because the rate was exceedingly high but I kept it for purchases I needed that I'd pay off in the same month or something like that. Its not bad to have any extra $3K lying around if you need it.

Well we're in a money crunch with moving so I figured since I just did a balance transfer for the full amount of my credit limit and paid it off one month later that I'd use this card for the next 2 weeks until our money issues were over. Well, unbeknownst to me, since WAMU took over they've been going through their acquired credit cards apparently and reducing peoples credit. They decided to reduce mine in the past 2 days (literally) without giving me ANY notice. Not even a notice on my online account (which is all I have). So I find this out when I'm trying to pay for my mom's brunch on Sunday, which was a tad bit embarrassing since 3 days ago I had PLENTY of credit on that account. I call, they tell me that they letter is in mail of why they reduced it. I asked why they couldn't tell me. They said because it was in the letter. :confused: Then they tried to tell me that 16.99% was a fantastic rate and that I needed to keep my card. :rolleyes:

So today I go online to payoff the credit card which I cancelled as soon as I got back from lunch yesterday. They cancelled my online account. Now mind you. I had ONLY online statements so now I have NO records of this account. I was so pissed. I called and the poor guy just had the wrong chica today. They were telling me I had to wait for my next statement in a month (my statement apparently ended on Saturday) in order to payoff and I'd have to pay off all the interest that accrues as well. Of course that didn't work and I also threw a fit that they were going to charge me $15 for a pay-by-phone transaction.

Funny thing is, I got a letter today dated 5/9 offering me a 1.99% balance transfer offer stating my FULL credit that I had. I also had one of my other credit cards which I just did a huge consolidation of balance transfer (and maxed out the card) just upped my credit by over $5000 within the past few days :laugh:.

I'm sad that they had free credit score monitoring which I checked my credit on every month :(

Anyway, long story short, I hope that no one else has to go through the embarrassment I did and wanted to warn you if you had this credit card.

sorry to hear about all the trouble you've had - it's why i don't deal with places like wamu or capital one.
 
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