Mbna - A Cautionary Tale
I've had three MBNA credit cards for ages - not from choice, they just gobbled up various other credit card businesses along the way.
I don't use the cards much (and always pay the balance off each month) - so far, so ordinary.
Last week I was 'invited' by Amazon to apply for their MBNA branded credit card - with associated cashbacks on purchases. Again so far, so ordinary.
Yesterday I got an email saying "Amazon Card approved, it'll be with you soon". So that's good then ...
... actually no it's blanking not.
I logged in to see if it had been automatically added to my MBNA online service - not only was it not there (probably needs me to do something) but I saw that, of my existing three cards, one had been totally closed and the other two had had their credit limits slashed from the top side of £10k each, to an effectively useless £1k.
No letters, no phonecalls, just changed without any notice or discussion.
It's not the principle of a bank reviewing your total credit limit across several cards (indeed they are obliged to do so) it's just that doing it without any notice or consultation seems utterly wrong - and could have left me in a big hole if I was depending on my existing cards (the Amazon Card won't be with me for at least a week or two).
Fortunately I have a couple of cards with other banks, but others might not be so lucky.