I canceled a credit card today!
Over five years ago when our daughter turned 13 we got her a credit card. I don't remember how we stumbled upon Citi but at the time it may have been the only company that would let a teen have a card with her name on it. She set up the account for online payment through her checking account and started learning experientially. She'd already had a checking account for four years by this point so she did OK.
I think her credit limit started at $1500. I occasionally helped her reconcile the account during the first two years, but she mostly had to teach herself to enter her charges in Quicken as she made them and to not make a paper trash pile in a desk drawer. Online payment was a must. A couple times I had to call Citi to raise the credit limit (it got all the way up to $3800) for airplane tix. I haven't had to do a thing for several years. I've never even logged into the website.
Now she's at college, and her campus is Chase territory, but for some reason the bank has a terrible reputation with the students. When she turned 18 she started applying for other credit cards (NFCU, PenFed, Fidelity, USAA) but they turned her down. (Despite having a healthy CD balance at PenFed and a Roth IRA at Fidelity.) Her assets and a $250/month NROTC stipend weren't considered enough income to qualify, despite her long-term relationships with some of the institutions.
We went back to Citi to ask them to transfer the card over to her name. Despite her application (stating income & assets) and my assertions that she was the one with the five-year payment history, Citi turned us down. Twice.
Last Christmas she got an offer from Amex Blue. She applied and was accepted. Over the last six months she's religiously paid off that balance every month to get a start on "her first credit score". That responsibility has made her even more zealously frugal with her money, and it inspired her to really confront her budget & expense numbers. She's made real progress on this in just six months.
Last week she re-applied for USAA and was accepted online. (Did the Amex Blue give her a track record? Did USAA recognize the family name of the blogger that they've invited to their conference?) The card arrived yesterday and she immediately activated it. Now with two credit cards in her hands in her own name, we could cancel the Citi card.
You know what happened next. Her call was transferred to the Citi retention team and we got the full-court press. They even pointed out that we were "owed" $14.62 in rebates but would lose them if we didn't keep spending on the card until we reached their $50 rebate threshold. I politely yet firmly explained that they'd had a chance to keep us twice before and that they'd turned us down both times. They apologized profusely and pointed out that we were owed $14.62...
We finally broke through that DO loop and they "reluctantly" and "regretfully" agreed to cancel the card. Luckily their address on file is her college dorm, so I won't have to read any of their Jackson Five "We want you back!!" letters...
She proudly sliced up her Citi card into the trash. I then presented her with the other three cards that Citi's sent me over the last five-plus years, still unactivated and glued to their cover letters. She had a lot of fun cutting them up to.
Her NROTC stipend goes up to $300 next month, but she's already committed to sending the extra $50/month to her savings account and "living like a freshman". (She read about it on a financial-independence blog somewhere.) She's even decided to get a $12/tour job as a campus guide and use those earnings to pay for her ZipCar addiction.
One step closer to getting her off the payroll!
Over five years ago when our daughter turned 13 we got her a credit card. I don't remember how we stumbled upon Citi but at the time it may have been the only company that would let a teen have a card with her name on it. She set up the account for online payment through her checking account and started learning experientially. She'd already had a checking account for four years by this point so she did OK.
I think her credit limit started at $1500. I occasionally helped her reconcile the account during the first two years, but she mostly had to teach herself to enter her charges in Quicken as she made them and to not make a paper trash pile in a desk drawer. Online payment was a must. A couple times I had to call Citi to raise the credit limit (it got all the way up to $3800) for airplane tix. I haven't had to do a thing for several years. I've never even logged into the website.
Now she's at college, and her campus is Chase territory, but for some reason the bank has a terrible reputation with the students. When she turned 18 she started applying for other credit cards (NFCU, PenFed, Fidelity, USAA) but they turned her down. (Despite having a healthy CD balance at PenFed and a Roth IRA at Fidelity.) Her assets and a $250/month NROTC stipend weren't considered enough income to qualify, despite her long-term relationships with some of the institutions.
We went back to Citi to ask them to transfer the card over to her name. Despite her application (stating income & assets) and my assertions that she was the one with the five-year payment history, Citi turned us down. Twice.
Last Christmas she got an offer from Amex Blue. She applied and was accepted. Over the last six months she's religiously paid off that balance every month to get a start on "her first credit score". That responsibility has made her even more zealously frugal with her money, and it inspired her to really confront her budget & expense numbers. She's made real progress on this in just six months.
Last week she re-applied for USAA and was accepted online. (Did the Amex Blue give her a track record? Did USAA recognize the family name of the blogger that they've invited to their conference?) The card arrived yesterday and she immediately activated it. Now with two credit cards in her hands in her own name, we could cancel the Citi card.
You know what happened next. Her call was transferred to the Citi retention team and we got the full-court press. They even pointed out that we were "owed" $14.62 in rebates but would lose them if we didn't keep spending on the card until we reached their $50 rebate threshold. I politely yet firmly explained that they'd had a chance to keep us twice before and that they'd turned us down both times. They apologized profusely and pointed out that we were owed $14.62...
We finally broke through that DO loop and they "reluctantly" and "regretfully" agreed to cancel the card. Luckily their address on file is her college dorm, so I won't have to read any of their Jackson Five "We want you back!!" letters...
She proudly sliced up her Citi card into the trash. I then presented her with the other three cards that Citi's sent me over the last five-plus years, still unactivated and glued to their cover letters. She had a lot of fun cutting them up to.
Her NROTC stipend goes up to $300 next month, but she's already committed to sending the extra $50/month to her savings account and "living like a freshman". (She read about it on a financial-independence blog somewhere.) She's even decided to get a $12/tour job as a campus guide and use those earnings to pay for her ZipCar addiction.
One step closer to getting her off the payroll!