I've got a lot of credit card debt. I've been trying to pay it down the last 6 months and have done a pretty good job. Some things have happened that pissed me off though. Once I paid off my Cabela's Visa (former employer), they closed my account. They kept it open for a year after I was fired and never said a thing. Once I get it to zero, BAM. Closed. I hate them. I checked my credit reports from the 3 agencies. All of the accounts are mine. Every single one is in good standing and I have no bad marks anywhere on my report. NONE. I did find a credit card that I hadn't used since 2003 was still being cited on my report. It was closed back in '03 I believe. I called them up and they said they would get it taken off my report. Will this help or hurt me? Now for the BIG thing I mentioned in the thread title. Another card, around the same time Cabela's closed me out, said they would be jacking my APR from 6.90% all the way to 29.99% in July. WTF? I called them and the woman said she has no idea why they did that because I'm in excellent standing with them and have no negative remarks on my account. I'm always on time with my payments. So I check online tonight and sure enough it's 29.99%. My minimum payment has increased by 118%! I'm going to call again and ***** them out. I'm going to threaten them with defaulting. If they stand their ground, I'm just going to take my mother up on her offer to allow me to transfer it to one of her 0% for a year cards. I'll tell them up front about my plans and how they'll never get another dime out of me.
And my mother's offer is just the use of the 0%. I'd have to start making payments toward that card. She's not offering to take on the debt for me.
Strange. Credit cards with no balance on them don't hurt your report, they actually can help it. One thing creditors look at is your % of available credit you're using. Of course if you had 100 cards, that wouldn't be good, but that's not the case. Don't call and ***** anyone out, they didn't personally do it. Call and explain your situation, see if they'll lower it, and if not go someplace else. I've had good success just calling and asking for a lower rate, but it doesn't happen everytime. I'm not sure if threatening them with moving your funds elsewhere will really make a difference, but it's worth a shot. Save the whole "you'll never get another penny of mine" rant though, it don't make a **** to the phone rep.
6.9% on a credit card sounds like an introductory rate. Most cards are upwards of 20% nowadays. After the introductory period is over the rate goes up. Find the fine print on your statement. It should explain it. I'd move your money to a new card and close out that one. But seriously consider not carrying a balance on a credit card. That's just throwing money away.
I carry a balance on one of my cards. Discover decided to raise the rate on that card from 1.9% to 19%. I called and asked them what they could do for me. They said basically "nothing". Transferred to a BoA card at 1.9% same day. Now I am just debating whether I should close the discover card or not. I never used it, except to sit that debt in a low interest account. I've had the card for probably like 10 years, so I am not sure if its in my best interest to close the account.
all of the 0% bt offers I get have a 3% or $$$ fee to transfer. i want no fee. the link doesn't speak to the BT fee, but that's what I'm looking for.
scott, the breakdown in my link does have a line item for fees. In the first section, the first 5 or 6 cards have no fee.
One reason I don't get another card for a transfer is because I'm always denied now. I used to be able to get any card I wanted. Then I closed two accounts a couple years ago and since then....always denied. So even when I transfer everything away from this HSBC card, I won't close it. I'll just let it sit there. I'm not making that mistake again. At least not until I can get my balances down to a manageable amount.
Crazy, its not actually the longest. I have one other with a longer history, and no balance. You think It would be a negative hit if I closed the discover card. It kinda pisses me off that they would not work the rate for me, so I'd get a little pleasure out of cancelling the card.
They jacked your rate because they can. They can jack it at any time for almost any reason (usually your agreements says they can do it when your credit gets worse). Because credit scoring is pretty arbitrary, they can justify their decision with anything, or nothing. You have no recourse realistically. You probably agreed to arbitrate in guam. It's a smooth butt-******* american consumers get daily, and nothing can be done about it until and unless laws change to permit some form of accountability. You are now paying for someone else's default.
Call them, ask why the rate was raised, state firmly that you will not pay that rate-that you will transfer the balance to a lower rate card if they do not change it. Then do it, and cancel the card if they persist. Pretty soon you will be getting five offers a week in the mail for lower rate cards. You don't have to be jacked up by these thieves. And the horse they rode in on.
