Consumer complaint received 2021-03-03
Product: Credit card or prepaid card — General-purpose credit card or charge card
Issue: Other features, terms, or problems — Problem with rewards from credit card
Company: U.S. BANCORP (NY)

My complaint is about closure of my account without sufficient notice and forfeiture of my cash rewards balance without any notice, even though my statement says rewards are available. 

I have been quarantined alone in the snowbelt of upstate XXXX since XX/XX/XXXX and in XX/XX/XXXX decided to move temporarily to quarantine alone in XXXX for the remainder of the winter. I have a XXXX XXXX and am very careful about exposure. I forwarded my USPS mail to the temporary address. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, I used my USBank card for the first time in a long time for two charges totaling {$88.00}. There was no problem with the charges going through. Then in mid-XXXX I received 2 pieces of mail from USBank, both forwarded from my home address. The first was my statement ( picture attached ) which accurately shows a balance of {$88.00} and cash rewards of {$350.00}. The payment due date is 3/10/21 and the statement says cash rewards can be used for statement credit or can be transferred to a bank account in the US. The second piece of mail was a notice from USBank saying my account was going to be closed because I wasn't using it. This was the first and only notice I received about inactivity. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, less than 2 weeks after I receive both the pieces of mail and 10 days before my payment due date, I tried to pay my bill using the rewards listed on the statement. I could not access my account online, so called XXXX. I waited a very long time for a representative who said my rewards couldn't be used because the account was " in the process of being closed. '' I explained that the statement said the rewards were available. She put me on hold to check what to do and came back to say that she would transfer me to someone who would reopen the account and then I could use the rewards. I waiting for another very long time - now well over an hour on the phone with USBank before reaching the next agent. At first he didn't understand why I had been transferred and said he was in underwriting. Then he said that because it was more than 30 days since the notice, he could request reopening ( no guarantee that it would be approved ) and that in order to do that, he would have to do a hard-pull on my credit report and it would be opened as a new account. I am not concerned about whether it would be approved - per XXXX, my current credit score is XXXX - but the inquiry and opening of a " new account '' would damage my credit score ( and the cancelled card may also slightly lower the score since it will reduce the average length of credit, even thought nothing about my creditworthiness has changed. ) Apparently if I had called within 30 days, this wouldn't have happened, but I didn't get the notice within 30 days of when they say they mailed it. So he said he couldn't help me and transferred me to a supervisor in customer care. She was actually very knowledgeable but did not have the authority to solve the problem either. She credited {$50.00} to my account for the bad service. I authorized payment of my outstanding balance to the bank account already on file because I do not want interest charges or other fees while this is being resolved. So they still were able to access my bank account, but not honor their rewards program. 

I want the {$350.00} shown on my current statement to be applied to the account and to have adequate time to use the credit. I think it is totally misleading not to honor what is on my current statement. It would never occur to me that I don't have to pay the amount on the bill, so why do they think they don't have to apply the reward balance on the bill? 

I also think it is unfair that they would not allow the account to remain open when I responded within 2 weeks of receiving their notice. It is not my fault that the mail wasn't delivered within 30 days of the date printed on the notice.. Of course mail delivery delay isn't their fault either but they should be aware of delays during the pandemic. There was no prior communication about cancelling my account for inactivity and if I had received notice I would have made decisions to use my accrued awards and to keep the account open. 

Finally, the customer service representative, who again I want to praise for trying to help, gave me the address to send a complaint directly to USBank, but it would require me to go into the post office or somewhere else to mail the letter - and I am doing everything possible to minimize the risk of COVID. Besides, given the waste of time when I called them, I don't trust that it would be resolved with a letter anyway. I appreciate that the CFPB portal is online.