Clout Visa

The Clout Visa credit card was a popular credit card for high school graduates, college students and college graduates with little or no credit history. The card is no longer offered, but alternative credit cards for students are available from other card issuers.

A Little History

The Clout Visa card was a popular credit card offered by Clout Financial Services, a financial service company in Connecticut. Clout Financial offered financial products and services to over 750,000 United States college students and graduates starting in 1999.

In 2004, Clout introduced a mini version of their Clout credit card that was about one-fourth the size of a credit card. This mini-size card was designed to be added to the cardholder's key chain, a convenience feature that was very attractive to the young Clout cardholders. The card had a magnetic stripe that allowed it to function as a credit card with a swipe by the merchant while making purchases.

Clout Visa Features

The Clout Visa was designed to help consumers with low credit scores to increase their "credit clout" by giving them a starter credit line that would increase over time if they maintained a good payment history.

Increasing Credit Limit

A cardholder's initial credit limit was usually about $600 when the card was first issued. Cardholders could anticipate an annual increase in their credit limit if they used their credit card, did not spend over their credit limit, and paid their credit card balance in full each month.

High APR

The Clout credit card had interest rates of 18 percent and up, which was comparable with the APRs of other credit cards designed for consumers with little or poor credit histories. However, the 18 percent APR was higher than the interest rates offered by credit cards offered to cardholders with good credit histories.

Fees

The card had no annual fee, but it did have a high cash advance fee as compared to other credit cards.

Customer Service

If you search the Internet, you can see that from the online forums cardholders were happy with the service offered with this credit card, specifically its responsive and helpful customer service.

Current Status

Clout Financial Services was replaced by WebBank as the issuer of the Clout credit card and then by MBNA. Bank of America then acquired MBNA. As the issuers changed, the Clout website and customer-service telephone numbers eventually became inactive.

Cardholders received a letter from Bank of America alerting them to the new ownership of the credit card files. Some cardholders were issued a Bank of America credit card. Those who did not meet the Bank of America credit criteria were not issued a replacement credit card. Instead, they continued to receive their monthly statements from Bank of America to pay off any balance they had on their Clout Visa credit card.

No Letter? Then Call!

Some prior Clout cardholders report that they don't remember receiving notification of the change of ownership and that they have not received any monthly statements from Bank of America to pay off their outstanding balance. This could happen if the cardholder address on file at Clout was no longer current.

Cardholders who didn't receive a letter from Bank of America about their Clout credit card are encouraged to contact Bank of America customer service at 1-800-789-6685. By providing their social security number, they can verify if they have any outstanding balance to pay off. The customer service representative can arrange to have monthly statements sent to the cardholder to pay off any outstanding balance they had on their Clout Visa credit card. This proactive call by the cardholder to Bank of America might avoid a negative note on their credit report or a call from a collection agency if their account is delinquent.

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