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Creation cancelling credit cards which have been used with a Curve Card

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Creation Financial Services, issuers of the IHG Rewards and (closed to new customers) Marriott Visa credit cards, made a very aggressive move on Friday in its dispute with Curve Card.

It appears that the majority of credit cards which had been used with a Curve Card are being closed.

One call centre agent said that 1,800 cardholders were impacted. We cannot confirm this number.

Creation closing IHG and Marriott credit cards used by Curve Card holders

The closure letter states that cards are being closed on 3rd December.

Based on reader discussions with the call centre, but not confirmed in writing by Creation:

  • annual free night vouchers on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card will still be desposited if the cardholder spends £10,000 before their card is closed
  • there will NOT be a pro-rata refund of the £99 annual fee on the IHG Rewards Premium credit card – although you would be free to dispute this with the Ombudsman

If you cannot trigger your free night voucher by 3rd December but would otherwise, you arguably have a case for a full refund of your IHG Rewards Premium £99 fee for the current year.

Why is Creation banning Curve Card holders?

It isn’t entirely clear what is driving this, although I was told by an independent industry consultant that it was being pushed by National Savings.

Curve Card, for those who don’t have one, is a debit card which allows you to recharge transactions to a linked credit card. You can learn more about Curve Card in this article.

This meant – most specifically – you could deposit money into National Savings and have it charged to a miles or points earning credit card as a purchase. Most Curve Card holders had a £9,000 daily limit albeit capped at £1.8 million per year.

Whilst Curve Card had always had blocks in place for payments to banks, there were certain grey areas such as National Savings, HMRC and various investment firms such as Hargreaves Lansdown.

Creation had initially sent out text message to cardholders a few weeks ago saying that its cards could no longer be used with Curve Card. I was told at that time that mass account closures would follow, and here we are.

One problem is that the ban is catching many people who used Curve Card purely for Apple Pay functionality. It was the only way to add your Creation card to Apple Pay.

For clarity …. the free IHG Rewards credit card is still open to new applicants. Creation is not pulling out of the UK and is only closing these 1,800 (TBC) accounts.

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Comments (860)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Joints&Piles says:

    I don’t get it. If NS&I don’t like the way Curve was being used they should update their IT to block it, or take it up with Curve.

    If Creation don’t like the way Curve is being used because NS&I are having a go at them, they should change their IT to block Curve, or take it up with Curve.

    Shooting your cardholders makes no sense. They won’t get the annual fee or the benefit of all the non-Curve transactions in future. They clearly aren’t all that upset with me because they seem happy to let me keep the free card. Once they blocked Curve, what’s the motivation to cancel cards?

    Is it to cause trouble for Curve? (I certainly won’t be using Curve any more given a risk of underlying cards being cancelled.)
    Is it to avoid having to spend money doing KYC checks on all those cardholders?
    Is it because NS&I have threatened to trigger money laundering investigations against Creation in respect of all customers who used Curve, and Creation have agreed to kick everyone out to avoid detailed investigation?
    Is it because they don’t understand Curve and consider it a dodgy product only used by people who are probably dodgy and thus likely to do more dodgy things in future?

    • FFoxSake says:

      It’s because Creation want to be out of the UK credit card market.

    • jack charlton says:

      “Shooting your cardholders makes no sense.”
      Unless they have just culled a whole lot of people that were costing them money, and if they didn’t cull them, would likely attempt to find other ways to cost them money ?

      • Joints&Piles says:

        That’s possible, but it’s not the cardholders who are costing them anything, it’s Curve. If Creation think those cardholders can outsmart Creation and find tricksy ways to cost Creation money before Creation realise the loophole then Creation have no business issuing credit cards. They’ve happily allowed spending via Curve for years, same as they’ve happily allowed their own card to be paid off with other credit cards. There’s no way they didn’t know about Curve, and I doubt they didn’t know debit card fronting was being used to put cash-like transactions through Creation. They’ve turned a blind eye until NS&I came calling with a threat to stir things up.

        My advice to anyone who has used Curve with NS&I
        1) Stop using Curve with any card you wouldn’t want to see cancelled
        2) Spend any Curve cash you have before Curve decide to lock your account
        3) Withdraw all your savings from NS&I before they lock your account for months of KYC checks, which is what I’ve just done even though my NS&I savings are all genuine from the proceeds of property sales

        Hopefully this argument stays between NS&I, Creation, and Curve, and we won’t see IHG Rewards shutting down people’s accounts and rescinding points.

        • David says:

          Absolutely this! And some are going to email IHG rewards about having their cards closed!!!

  • oafcmetty says:

    No letter received here. I was only using Curve on the card when abroad, or for normal spend on rare Apple Pay transactions.

    • Jonathan says:

      Wouldn’t get too comfy with the speed of Royal Mail at the moment.

  • BlueThroughCrimp says:

    To quote Omar Little
    It’s all in the game!

    Maybe there’ll be less (pointless) code talking now, with any luck.

    • G says:

      “The game’s out there, and it’s play or get played”

      • Jez says:

        Exactly G 👍 I’m surprised this didnt happen at least 12-18 months ago, but HSBC and Virgin credit cards only worked it out beginning of this year!

  • Sammyj says:

    Not had any correspondence from Creation yet about my free IHG card. I linked it to Curve years ago solely to use in Costco when they didn’t accept credit cards, and probably only used it for that 2-3 times. Otherwise always used the actual card. But that would all have been on a previous expired card. Interesting to see if they kick me out or not, they’ve made a good few quid out of me over the years. Not especially bothered these days, lost interest in IHG when we were banned from America!

  • Wollhouse says:

    Well, whilst we’re on the topic of crappy credit card service…. I’ve just been on hold for 1hr 20 minutes to speak to Virgin CC. I need to do a chargeback or sec 75 for an event that was supposed to take place in May 2020. It’s been postponed 3 times. Online, Virgin says to submit a form… But when you click on the link, it advises the page is broken. When i finally spoke to a customer service, I was told i needed to speak to the Dispute team so was put back on hold. they then advised they’re “in the process of updating the form”. if anyone else needs the dispute team, the direct number is 08000286756 and they’re open mon – fri from 10am -2pm. They do NOT have an email you can submit your documentation via; they don’t have a portal, you must post everything. How quaint. He also advised that as they are saying my event “might” take place in November 21 the vendor is not in breach despite their terms stating they had 12 months to deliver from May 2020. I disagreed and all in all it’s been a very joyful 200 minutes of my life. So, I’m posting the dispute number in the hopes it might save someone else time. I previously had to raise a dispute with Amex and to be fair to them, they dealt with it over the phone very promptly, provided me with a link to upload docs and sorted it within days. Two very different experiences.

    • Jez says:

      Virgin are crap had similar problems with their customer services, complaints etc, just closed all my accounts with them savings and credit cards. You want to try getting through to Virgin Atlantic now that’s another game !! When their boss is out the cosmos employees don’t bother 😂

  • Johnny5a says:

    Does having a cancelled credit card affect your credit rating? (I don’t think so, but just checking)

    • SteveJ says:

      Talk on page 4 of this thread about a potential CIFAS marker.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        There’s no CIFAS marker kit because a CC company decided to lose your account.

    • Dan Loves Christmas says:

      I suppose it could do in the short term, if it changes the % credit utilisation. So if you have a total of 10k credit limit across all your card, and you run a balance of 1k – you’re using 10% of your credit. If you lost a card which accounted for the majority of the 10k credit limit then that could change those percentages. If this was your only credit card and it was closed, then I should think that could also be a scenario which wouldn’t look good.

  • Mark Phillips says:

    Just opened my letter. No explanation whatsoever. Just states that my account will be closed on 4th December!

    • Youllnever says:

      One day later than most! Everyone I’ve heard are having it cancelled on the 3rd.

  • Ryan says:

    Got my cancellation for black too. I’ve got a white. I wonder if that letter is in the post. I’ll try to get my annual fee refunded, like most others. Gutted though, I liked that card

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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