Did you close your credit card? Did you REALLY close it?

I was just sitting on the sofa, and got an email from Equifax saying there’s been a “rate change” to a credit report. I logged in and saw that the credit score dropped significantly. I dug deeper, and I saw that a credit card was listed as being late, as “bad debt.” WHAT. THE. HELL!? I’ve never missed a payment in my life.

I tried to figure out which card it was. I didn’t recognize the credit card number. I had to call the issuer, MBNA, and they said it was an active card that was charged the annual fee, which wasn’t paid. I am 100% sure this account was closed. Then I dug a little deeper. There was another account from MBNA that was active, for which I don’t have a card. I asked about that card, and they said it was a never used. What’s going on?

The phone agent quickly reversed the fee, the interest, and closed both accounts.

There are two random accounts that don’t make much sense on the credit report. I am 100% sure we closed the delinquent account awhile ago. We’ve never received any statements for these accounts. The agent said she couldn’t fix the report, and that it’d have to go to a manager.

MBNA recently made a massive computer change. They formally operated on a rented Bank of America computer system, but recently developed their own TD based system. Perhaps that change resulted in some glitches?

The agent said she couldn’t make a request to fix the credit report, and said a manager would call us back within two days. I’m really concerned. Although I am certain that a request was made to close the account, and I have no clue what the other account is about (she said there was no activity on it, and it was a credit card that had no sign up bonus…), and never received any statements, I don’t have any proof that we sent a request to close the account. Hopefully a manager finds a note, computer mix-up, etc, that would fix the problem. However, I’m concerned that maybe when the account closure was made, the agent didn’t do it/save it to the system (although this wouldn’t explain the lack of statements).

I would suggest that a month after closing an account, just call the creditor to make sure it is confirmed as closed. Also, try cross-referencing all your credit cards to your credit report, to see if there are any outliers. As a churner, there are so many trade lines that it never occurred to me to do this. However, clearly weird things happen, and I suspect this is going to be a PITA that will take a very long time to fix.