Every business is in business to make a profit, even the ones noted as “non-profit” require more money coming in than going out. I’m a capitalist at heart and believe in the free market system.
HOWEVER when credit card companies are allowed to charge enormous fees and hike rates to 29.99% at their whim they become crooks interested in making as much from you anyway they can under the guise that it’s perfectly legal to squeeze their customers for every penny for as long as possible.
For example, our Chase Visa which they changed over to Chase “Slate” Visa went from 14%, to 16% to 18% finally all the way in one fell swoop in Jan ‘09 to 29.99%, the maximum allowable by law. Their reason? We were late on our payment, we called our bank to ask how a payment made 2 weeks in advance was somehow late? Their response, Chase held the payment until after the due date, then processed it.
This is illegal right? Not at the time it wasn’t, Chase claims they did no such thing and basically said prove it. Anyway fast forward to Jan ‘11 and I’m still fighting to get our rate lowered since we are NEVER late and they know it. Their response and this is a direct quote “It is not Chase Bank policy to adjust interest rates at customer request”
My response, so what is it going to take to get Chase to treat us like customers and not like someone who visited a card shark? What is it going to take to get Chase to lower the rate? They respond, we may review your account in the next few months but can’t promise anything, why don’t you just pay more so it gets paid off sooner?
We owe at this time $17,000 on that card, we have knocked off 8k in the past year so we’re trying BUT 29.99% adds up faster than we can pay if off. The Chase supervisor tells me “it’s not Chase policy to keep you paying for years on end”. Oh really?!?!? Funny, because that’s what 29.99% does!!!!!! My wife and I have made a promise to them, we will NEVER do business with Chase in any form ever.
Their latest ploy to get people at 29.99% is the new Chase Ink card, this is a business card that they are pushing on consumers. Why you ask? Because the new rules enacted in 2009 known as the “Credit Card Accountability and Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009” aren’t enforced on business cards, so Chase sent out 47 million offers to get people to switch over to this card so the second you slip up, or they slip you up the card defaults to 29.99%.
Their other tactic? Lowering your limit to BELOW what you already owe, this also sends your card into default status and they can demand FULL payment no matter how much you owe, they have tried this ploy with us as well and all we got, was a weak apology but since the system can’t reverse this “mistake” they can keep you at the elevated rate indefinitely. There are more sites dedicated to trying to expose Chase for the predatory lender they are than I can count. I can’t wait until we are done with them so we can tell them to close the account and shove it.
Sorry for the rant, but I needed to let this out or my brain was going to explode.
9 comments:
If it was me, I would do what I could to get that interest brought down and then have the card canceled "Per customer request". There are plenty of other companies out there and I would let them know that!
Love Di ♥
Diane,
I am working with the Credit Advisory Group. Chase out right told me the only way they would work with me was if I was unemployed and needed hardship help. Telling them there are other credit card companies means nothing to them, they know at this point I can't get another card to transfer the balance to.
We have two big credit card debts that we are working hard on and even though we changed our habits awhile ago we will be paying for it for years. By using the Credit Advisory Group the cards will be closed "per customer request" and the Chase card becomes 0% and the others become 1.9%.
We'd pay $49.00 per month for them to handle this but considering we are paying 29.99% right now going from 29.99 to 0 will lower the payment by over $250.00 a month for Chase alone and pay it off in 3 years. Chase will never work with us, they have no reason to, they believe we'll pay until the cows come home, or if my math is right we would pay $739.00 for 39 years netting them $60,000 in pure profit.
One of our daughter's would agree wit you 100%. They have pulled the same stuff on her and she has also vowed that she would never do business with them again.
that is just a plain old dirty way to doing business!..is there no way to transfer this balance to a different card?..with a lower rate!..geez..that is 'highway robbery'!!!
Gosh Erik I don't know what to advise. It's similar here in the UK and as my husband puts it people get 'shafted' by these companies. I hope the Credit Advisory Group give you the help you need.
Thank you for your lovely comment again on my last post - it seems to me that you and Mrs Erik are great together too. I loved her picture below of you.
Thanks everybody, I actually just added myself to the following class action law suit. Maybe that will get some traction.
http://www.gslawny.com/lawyer-attorney-1383679.html
This was a hard lesson to learn but we'll get through it and never use credit cards like we have in the past again. It's been a long time since we used them so we are on the right trail finally.
Not been exactly happy with the Chase takeover that occured to WAMU, which basically turned a decent bank into a mediocre bank.
We have a Chase Visa, a CitiBank Master Card and an American Express. I've had glitches with service charges with all three from time to time, but have always gotten things resolved with a phone call.
What really irritated me with chase was one time after getting a late charge reversed, they charged me interest the next month even though the previous month I had paid in full. I had to get that taken off as well.
Now we use the American Express the most, carry the Master Card for when the merchant doesn't take AMX and keep the Visa in a drawer incase we loose our wallets or something.
Chase is really sneaky.
Can you transfer the balance to another card?
They are Dirty Rats always have been always will be. You have done really well in bringing down the principle eventually the bill will be paid off and you will be free. I went through the same thing with a divorce several years ago and it was so frustrating dealing with credit card companies because they have by where the hair is short. Now I pay cash or pay the credit card off at the end of the month. I vowed they would never ever get me under their thumb again.
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