new twist on goodwill letters :-)

Hi all,

Once my credit was clean, I applied for every prime card that mattered to me and got them (excepting mean old Discover). I wanted to get all the cards at once, get the"new account" FICO penalty over in one shot and test the cards to see what worked for me. Since March 2001, I have opened 10 (yes, ten) new revolving accounts and had about 20 inquiries on two of my three credit reports. As you might expect, my credit score, once over 700 has taken a dive to 650-670.

Since six of the newly opened accounts have been opened AND closed/consolidated in this last year, I had an idea of asking the companies to help me regain my credit scores by deleting the perfectly good, but FICO harming, new account tradelines. So... I wrote the following letter to MBNA, Parisian, and Citibank via PFB. I called American Express (1-954-503-3787) and said basically the same thing over the phone.

The result: AmEx deleted 2 accounts and Parisian deleted 1. I am still waiting on MBNA and Citi for the other three.

If you suffer from "application-itis", here's two forms of a letter that might help you out. Enjoy...

________________________________

Letter ONE

Dear [card company],

I am writing to express my pleasure over recently receiving a new [name of card with x benefits].

My question today concerns a different type of credit report issue. As I
mentioned, I have opened four card accounts since _____. The first one
opened in ____ ends in xxxx, the second one opened in ____ ends in
xxx, and the third one opened in ____ ends in xxxx . I have
consolidated all of these accounts into my current one, ending in xxxx.

As you can imagine, my credit report - although it is immaculate - looks a bit
"cluttered". Although I do stress that the information being reported by
[card company] IS accurate (I am not disputing anything with [card company]), I am asking
[card company] to do a courtesy gesture of goodwill to me and instruct the credit
bureaus to remove the card accounts ending in xxxx, xxxx, and xxxx.
Essentially, I would like to "de-clutter" my credit report, as several new
accounts lower my credit scores based on "recently opened accounts" and "length
of credit history" scoring codes with Fair Isaac. This is particularly relevant
for the account ending in xxxx, since that account was opened for less than
one day (it was consolidated the day that it was opened).

I do recognize that my request is unique and that it may not be normal policy
for [card company], but I'm hoping that [card company] will remove these three accounts
from my credit reports. Obviously, since the account ending in xxxx is active,
it should continue being reported to the bureaus.

Please remove card accounts xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx from my credit reports as a courtesy. It would mean a
great deal if [card company] could help me "de-clutter" my credit report by removing
these tradelines, particularly since one (xxxxx) was opened for less than one
day.

Thank you for considering my query. I look forward to your response.

_____________________________________________

Letter TWO

Dear [card company],

I am writing to express how much I enjoy shopping at [store]. I have a question pertaining to a store charge account that I opened in __________. The charge account number is xxxxxxxx.

I opened the store charge in ____________, made a purchase for $$$$, paid the
balance off, and closed the account (in excellent standing) the same month. I
noticed that even though the account was paid and closed before one month, it
was already being reported on my credit reports with the three major credit
bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and Trans Union).

Although the [card company] tradeline is reporting accurately and in excellent
standing, I have noticed that my credit score is being affected negatively by
the addition of this account to my credit report in different ways, since the
credit score rating is influenced by the opening of new accounts and by the
average age of all accounts, which is in itself affected by opening of new
accounts. These are now my top two reason codes on my reports.

Although I do stress that the information being reported IS accurate (I am not
disputing anything with [card company]), I am asking [card company] to do a courtesy
gesture of goodwill to me and instruct the credit bureaus to remove this charge
account, which was opened for less than one month, from my credit reports.
Essentially, I would like to "de-clutter" my credit report, and I don't want an
account that was opened for only one month present on my credit report, and
decreasing my credit score.

I do recognize that this request is unique and that it may not be normal policy
for[card company]. I have also been told that [card company] *has to* report all accounts,
but I would like to mention that the Fair Credit Reporting Act does *not*
demand that all accounts be reported, but rather - that any account that *is*
reported simply be reported accurately. Therefore, a company does have legal
discretion and permission to remove any account it chooses from the credit
report. I'm hoping that [card company] will do that in my case for this charge card
account.

Therefore, please remove charge account # xxxxxxxx from my credit
reports as a courtesy. Thank you for considering my query. I look forward to
your response.

 

UPDATE:

Today, I got a call from Citi's Executive Office. Three of my closed accounts will be deleted. They got a version of letter ONE.



Unfortunately, AmEx, who had deleted the requested accounts from all of the credit reports, just rereported the ones I wanted deleted on Experian. So, I'm off to call AmEx again. I'm glad they sent me a letter of deletion for those two, though. :-/...

No word from MBNA. I'll resend the PFB letter today.

 

Marie,

AmEx "coded" all of my accounts starting in January 2002, and did so on all of my reports. I like the idea, too. I wish all card companies would do it. As a matter of fact, when you call the AmEx credit bureau unit, you have to refer to the coded account number for each card (which you can only get in entirety from TU presently), not the true card number when talking about reporting issues.

I think AmEx deleted my two accounts in question from all CRAs, then deleted ALL accounts from Experian, and then re-reported all accounts on Experian (it seems a lot of folk today are seeing AmEx re-appear on EXP).

I'll have to check EFX and TU to make sure AmEx didn't re-report everywhere.

 

UPDATE 12-8-2002

I immediately had success with Citibank, Parisian, and American Express as described above. All accounts were deleted by the next updated reports.

As for MBNA... after Javan's post here:

http://consumers.creditnet.com/straighttalk/board/showthread.php?threadid=38259


Last week, I called MBNA at the "consumer advocate's" number (that guy was REALLY interested in how I got his number, so please be discreet if you call) and he left my number with a consumer advocate (apparently he is no longer a consumer advocate). She called me back and agreed to have the Gold Reserve account deleted. She's sending me a letter in the mail confirming the deletion.

It took a LONG time to get this done, as MBNA's credit dept was very snooty and unhelpful. Frankly, most people at MBNA (including this guy) had no CLUE what I was talking about re FICO scoring adverse reason codes. The credit dept. manager was the worst. He swore up and down that it was not harmful and told me to dispute it and he'd send UDFs to delete. He lied.

Anyway, we'll see if the consumer advocate's office follows through.


Many thanks to Javan for the information.

 

Allen and Christi,

I hope they work for you. You might want to change the wording just a bit to keep them from being "recognized" as form letters from those pesky CreditNetters - lol!


Hermit,

That is a great point, though based on my conversations with hapless MBNA, definitely something that would go over their heads. Split files? Huh? But the identity theft point would definitely get their attention and make them move on it - unless they think *you're* the thief... :-/


GEORGE,

Well what can I say - lol!? You should use your AmEx Blue to revolve your balances exclusively if it's hidden on Experian. And aren't you from the west, where Experian is used heavily?