Has anyone else had their Providian account sold to Columbus Bank &Trust? Just wondering if anyone else has had experience with this company? The notice I got makes me kind of leery... it appears that they are contracting out for someone else to service the accounts and I am wondering if that mean lousy service. When I heard that Washington Mutual bought Providian I wasn't that worried because they are pretty good to deal with. Why would they sell my account right before Wamu takes them over? Also, I have another Providian account (closed) that was not sold to CB&T... this seems weird! Thanks for any responses!
Were you one of Providian's sub-prime accounts, or more toward prime? Maybe they split up their portfolio based on customer credit risk.
thanks, ontrack. that is what I seem to be finding out. I think mine may have been considered sub-prime since I got it when my score was lower back in 1999. but then again I had an 8% apr and no annual fee so that seems pretty good. if they are not going to keep those terms, I am definitely going to cancel!
Wow! I didn't know that Wamu bought Providian. I had an account with Providian but didn't keep up the payments. By the time I wanted to work out payment arrangments, it was sold to a CA but the CA hasn't contacted me in years and it is listed only on Experian as a Collection Account and I'm afraid to dispute it since it might stir up collections again. My boyfriend currently has a Providian card with an interest rate of 27.99%. Does anybody know when Wamu is scheduled to take over officially? Should he wait until the takeover to try to get his interest rate lowered? When he tried to previously, Providian vehemently refused to lower it, even though he pays on time and more than the minimum. As for CB&T, I think that is the same entity that handles Aspire Visa. I just got a card from them but I'm still debating on whether to activate it. The high annual fee and monthly maintenance fees has me leery.
Trilivonel, if I were him, I would wait for wamu. Providian is stingy with limit increases. My dad threatened to close his account and they did lower his apr, though. He has absolutely perfect credit, so not sure if that makes a difference... As for aspire, I don't think I'd activate that, but that's just me. I bet you could do better. Once I found out that CB&T was affiliated with Aspire, I was hesitant to activate the card they sent me. I am afraid they'll charge that huge annual fee and monthly "maintenance fee."
We got a notice as well but were planning on closing Providian since they trashed my credit due to THEIR mistake and not taking responsibility or helping me with it and then also giving us a huge hassle on an 86 cent balance on my husbands account. So I was preparing a "close the account at creditor's request" letter and wanted to send it via certified but only have a PO box for CB&T. I just called them and they said they DO NOT have a physical address? I asked the gal if she drives to a PO Box every day for work ~ there was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. So this brings up a question ~ are they legally required to provide a physical address??
If it's been on your report for years, it's quite possibly past the Statute of Limitations for collections. Check your state law. If it's past SOL, go ahead and dispute it. If it stirs up collections, you start racking up violations. If they sue you, you go to court and assert the affirmative defense that it's past the SOL.
Hedwig, Unfortunately, I live in NY where the SOL is 6 years. My last payment to Providian was Sept. 2000, the CA (Colorado Capital Investments) got the account in 2003, sent out one letter, I disputed it and I never heard from them again. Then again, I was already in payment arrangements with that particular CA already for another account and once I told them I was unemployed (the CA got almost $1500 on a $6000 bill) they stopped contacting me. I'm wondering if the CA figured that since I'm unemployed, there wouldn't be any point in pursuing collections against me. Should I dispute it anyway? As for Wamu, if they are taking over Providian does that mean Citibank will still be handling their unsecured and secured Visa and Mastercard accounts? Once the takeover is complete would my boyfriend get a new card with Wamu name on it instead of Providian?
I have some pretty good knowledge about the buyout, and here is my opinion. WaMu did not have a Credit Card division prior to the Providian purchase. So I would expect that a lot of the same management that ran Providian will be kept. WaMu had been looking to mitigate their risk in the mortgage business, and the best way to do that is to buy a credit card company. They are still working out the details on the buyout. I would expect that it would take at least until the end of the year for the merger to be complete, and even longer until it affects anyone with a Providian card. Hope this helps...
So is the Providian CC operation as run by WAMU likely to be run cleanly? Have they cleaned up the problems Providian got itself into? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/etc/script.html
