CreditFBi

Lately some finance companies have been canceling credit card accounts without warning the cardholder. Such cancellations, being felt by consumers in Maryland and across the country, highlight a little-known gap in federal laws governing credit cards. Though Congress has toughened disclosure rules for credit card companies – by requiring 45 days’ notice for making significant changes in interest rates or other terms – canceling cards without warning is still allowed.

“Apparently, the closure of a card is not considered a material change in the terms,” said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at Credit.com. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this with a straight face.” Canceling cards and cutting credit limits without notice has been a practice of long standing. Card issuers say that if they warned consumers about a looming cancellation, customers would run up their balances before they lost credit and card issuers would be on the hook for even more money.

“You are required to get notice [at some point], but oddly enough you are not required to get notice before they cancel the card,” said Ruth Susswein, a deputy director with Consumer Action. Issuers must give notice within 30 days of cancellation, she said.

As credit card reform slowly worked its way through Congress, cancellation notices were not raised as a big issue because card companies weren’t closing many accounts at the time, Susswein said. “There are more accounts being closed now,” and the consumer group is hearing more complaints about abrupt closures, she said.

Accounts might be canceled if cardholders’ credit scores drop, they take on more debt, open new lines of credit or live in an area where home values plunged or where unemployment skyrocketed, Ulzheimer said. Or, it could be that the accounts aren’t profitable enough or for other reasons that the card company won’t reveal.

Angry consumers still have thousands of credit unions and small community banks where they can get cards when big players play tough, advocates say. But they can also complain to the card issuer that dropped them.

“Sometimes a company will choose to make a change for a whole group of customers and when they look at the specifics, you might be somebody they put into a pot that is considered more profitable when they look at your actual card,” said Consumer Action’s Susswein.