How Can You Find Out if Your Credit Limits Have Been Lowered?

By Debbie Dragon   

As a way to reduce their risk, credit card lenders are taking action and lowering the credit limits of many cardholders. You may think that having a high credit score or making your payments on time would protect you from the credit limit reductions, but this doesn't seem to be the case! People are reporting that, despite paying their bills on time and having good FICO credit scores, they have still experienced credit limit reductions on some, or even all, of their credit cards.

The kicker is, you may not even be aware that your credit card limit has been lowered until 30 days after the fact! By law, credit card lenders can notify cardholders as many as 30 days after the limits have been adjusted, which can result in some ugly situations for the cardholder who is unaware of the limit change.

For example, if you're already approaching your credit card limit and you decide to make a purchase after your limit has been lowered and before you are aware — you could be declined the purchase at the store (embarrassing!), or the purchase goes through and you get hit with over-the-limit fees for being over the new limit.

What can a cardholder do to find out when their card limits have been reduced, before they find out at the store or with over-the-limit fees? Unfortunately, not that much! Due to the law granting credit card lenders up to 30 days to notify you, there is little you can do to speed up that process.

If your credit card has an online account management system, you could certainly sign on to that and check it regularly to see if the available balance has been reduced. This would tell you that your credit limit has been lowered. You can also keep a close watch on credit card statements and mailings from your lenders to see if any changes to your limits have been made.

To avoid embarrassment at the store for being declined a purchase with your card, or to avoid any over-the-limit fees that would occur if you are approved for a purchase that puts you over your new, lower credit limit, what you may want to do is make a call to your card's customer service line before you use the credit card. Just pick up the phone and ask them what the available balance on the card is and what your credit limit is. You can use the automated system to check this information over and over again, and it takes less than two minutes.