Popular Bank Sending Out Shut Down Letters For Avianca Card

Popular Bank has sent out e-mails to some Avianca cardholders stating their accounts have been shut down. Below is how the letters read:

Dear: <name>

The credit card contract applicable to your account grants either party the right to terminate the account relationship or the credit privileges at any time with or without cause. It is a voluntary agreement that either party may terminate unilaterally. 

The Bank has chosen to exercise said contractual right and hereby informs you that the above mentioned account will be close effective <date>. Please destroy and discard any card you may have received for this account. 

Credit card #XXXX

After said date, you will not have access to any of your credit card benefits. As a result, you must take the necessary steps and make the necessary arrangements to avoid setbacks. If you have authorized any companies to charge your account for membership fees for ongoing services, please contact them directly to arrange an alternate method of payment. 

If there is a balance on the account, you will continue to receive your monthly billing statements. We inform you that you remain responsible for the payment of any balance in the account, which will remain subject to all the terms and conditions of the Agreement.

Sincerely,

Fraud Risk Control Department 

At this stage it’s not clear why people are being shut down, but it’s always possible that those who are shut down have been leaving out information that might explain the shut down.

Hat tip to Help Me Build Credit
    William Charles
  • On December 20, 2019, 10:00

View Comments (59)

  • I'm a little confused why a bank would APPROVE someone for a card.....and then ask them for documentation after the fact.....which a few people said they sent.....only to be shut down anyway. That is backwards on multiple levels.

    • This is the same bank that runs Popular Direct. I'm not surprised they do shenanigans in their credit card division too. For years, they would start a new savings product with a great interest rate. Then after a few months, they would quietly slash the interest rate on that product, while advertising the rate of a different (new) savings product on their website. (And bank rate monitor websites show the new latest product, which you might be attempted to assume is the rate you are getting, until you look at your statement).

      And they start charging inactivity fees even while the account had new transactions on it while they were at it. Then keep repeating this strategy over and over. Great way to get money into the bank and then avoid paying interest to all but the most vigilant. Many folks don't check their cash storage savings account as often as their transaction accounts, so their strategy was very effective.

      So unless you kept track of what specific savings product name you had and kept watching the website to continuously open new savings accounts with new names, your rate gets slashed and stays there. By the way, Popular is state chartered in New York State, in addition to their huge presence in Puerto Rico.

      It is very likely that they closed credit accounts because 1.) They had intended the Avianca card to be for a certain demographic or a certain location (southern Florida and Puerto Rico) for example, and realized later that others were attracted to the offer or 2.) They detect a huge number of online applications were being redirected (http referer or referral codes) from certain deal websites. They probably discovered that these customers (1) and (2) had a high likelihood of opening the card for the bonus and then quickly closing after bonus time, without a longer term relationship that they were attempting to attract. Closing the accounts avoids paying out bonuses for them.

  • This comment section is the reason we can't all have nice things.
    If you play the bonus game, the occasional shutdowns are part of the deal. As long as there was no clawbacks, people need to get off the "terrible xyz" comments. Move on to the next one geez. Banks don't like when you hit it and quit it.

  • Ok time for a Spanish lesson.

    Banco Popular is loosely translated as People's Bank, NOT popular bank. A version of such a bank exists in almost all Latin countries.

    • Right, but their website uses the name Popular Bank. So they're the ones who translated it incorrectly.

  • made 1 purchase, then sock drawered, to get my 60k lifemiles which i used on NYC flights.
    then called in to have annual fee waived at the one year anniversary.
    you’d think i’d be shutdown as a worthless customer, but nothing so far.

  • Maybe they aren't supposed to be issuing cards outside of their footprint which is probably just PRC, NY and maybe a few other places like FL.

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