But that is suspicious behavior, as the card company always reasons that you would pay the bill in full if you could. It is certainly fair game for a card issuer to assess how you're behaving within the terms of an agreement. If you take out a Visa card with a $15,000 credit line, run up $14,500 in charges and then pay the minimum $250+/- payment right on the due date... you are going to be viewed far more critically than the guy who takes out the same card, runs up $2,000 in charges each month and regularly pays in full the day he gets the statement. They're both abiding by the card agreement, all right, but one will set off a bunch of red flags and the other won't.

In this case the DC cardholder should have been notified directly -- that's a heck of a way to find out you've been cancelled -- but his spend-and-pay behavior was setting off red flags like crazy. If you're issued a card like DC at such a tender age, the smart first-year strategy would be to prove stability by running up modest monthly tabs of $500 to $1,500, paying them off immediately and building a responsible history -- not stretching the card's terms to the max from the word go.

BTW, Amex does this stuff too... especially with new cardholders, you have a pre-set spending limit -- they just don't tell you what it is... and they'll cut people off in front of God, the maitre'd, and everyone.