Experian cheerfully informed me by email the result of my recent thrift regarding our USAA Preferred Cash Rewards credit card use - USAA was specifically named - and dropped my score 50 (fifty) points. Lucky me! Please, USAA, don't point the finger at Experian. FICO was constructed to work hand-in-glove with financial institutions. The banking lobby's machinations is not a well kept secret. Experian cannot point a finger at USAA and USAA...well, you know. (I have a finger, too.)
To shine a light on the illogical stupidity of the financial industry, Equifax has my same FICO at 849 out of 850 and the PenFed card issued to us as blessed by Pope Equifax has more than twice the limit than our USAA card.
Even more mysterious, and potentially dangerous, Experian offered the chance (just a chance mind you) to raise my score if I would just tell them my user name and passwords to our checking accounts, etc. What?! Why does Equifax and TransUnion monitor those acccounts without my ever having given them my secure logins? Is this a scam? No. According to Experian that's the way it works (with Experian). Experian's bait game is reprehensible and unethical. USAA's complicity in this charade is a burden to those suffering greatly today from the effects of our government's ineptitude.
We really don't need a credit card, anyway. Cash is more readily accepted. So, cut up the card if it's causing a problem. I wish I could attach a pic of the pieces. As of Thursday it's history. Fortunately, we saved more than we would have imagined for retirement, so we will never need loans, either. The card was useful back in the days when foreign travel was still fun. Some foreign ATM's were more fee friendly than others.
Au revoir USAA.
