Originally Posted by
sdsearch
First, what exactly does "approved in error" mean? (I've never heard of it before.) Does it mean that they meant to deny you but accidentally approved you? Or does it mean that they opened the card for you without applying for it (Wells Fargo style
)? Or does it mean something yet different?
Second, depending on what it means, that fact may recorded in a special place not accessible to those evaluating future applications, or may not be recorded at all.
So, yes, without knowing the details, I would assume it's more than likely that it's just treated (months down the road) as an ordinary approval, for the purposes of BofA's 2/3/4 as well as for anything else when opened accounts are counted.
"Approved in error" is the term that was used on various blogs and websites in 2017 for situations where customers were initially approved for a new Bank of America cards, but then a few days or weeks later were informed the account was "approved in error" and had the account subsequently closed by BOA. The explanation typically provided by BOA was that the customer had sufficient accounts with BOA and shouldn't have been approved for the new card. It appears this was occurring because BOA had started implementing the 2/3/4 policy however it was not hardcoded into the system, so they were manually checking approvals after the fact and closing accounts that were over the threshold. The account is never reported to the credit rating agencies so it does not show up on your credit report, however I am not sure how BOA handles these accounts internally and if they are included as new accounts in the 2/3/4 rule.
For more info on "approved in error" see links
here and
here.