Two Unexpected New Credit Cards

I got two new credit cards , but I really didn’t apply for any of them .

Last night I received two new credit cards in the mail. One is from Bank of America and the other one is from Lowe’s. They are both replacements of the cards I already own. However, both of them are not exactly the same as the old cards.

I have a Bank of America Power Rewards card since 2002 (at that time it was a Fleet Platinum card). Though the card offers rewards (1 point for every dollar I think), I used it for nothing but balance transfer and I have no plan to use it for any purchases because I’d rather have cash rebates than points. So when I got the new WorldPoints rewards card yesterday, I was just about to throw it in the drawer before I noticed another difference of the card besides its appearance.

A new account number!

That’s right. Not just they gave me a brand new card, but a brand new account number as well. And when I opened the envelope from Lowe’s, there’s another new card. It’s a replacement of the Lowe’s store card (I opened the account in 2004 after we bought our house and used it to get 10% off on more than $2,000 of appliances we purchased there) that can be used only at Lowe’s before. The new card is a general Visa card with, of course, a new account number.

Without much of my knowledge (let alone approval), I just got two new entries to my credit report!

Unlike Citibank which sent me a letter in advance before upgrading my Dividend card to Dividend World card so I can opt out the upgrade,  I didn’t get any notice from BoA regarding this change. Actually, this happened to me once before when my Sony card was transferred from Citibank to Bank One (then Chase). In that case, I can understand why a new account number is issued because the card no longer belongs to the same company. But why the bank has to assign a new number to an existing account when they re-brand the card? They are still the card issuer.

I wonder if it’s too late for me to do anything with the new BoA card now since it is already in my hands.

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