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This was touched on in a diff. thread, so I thought I'd give it one of its own.
I think something should be done about the credit card companies. We have had terrible troubles with citibank over the last few years. Here is what I experienced a couple of years back:
We do automatic bill payments online. We were told that my citibank payment was late. Interest rate? raised. Even after proving that the bill had been paid in more than a timely fashion we could not get said interest rate down. They claimed that the money came in after 2pm that day from my direct bank payment and that it was too late to be credited that day. What CRAP. We couldn't get anyone on the phone to help us and letters did not help. I was actually hung up on when waiting to talk to a manager.
Citibank rasied my rates to 30% ...Obviously, I cancelled my card. Seriously...how could they possibly raise the rates that much? I don't get it. I was in a position to pay off my balance and cancel my card. What the heck do people do when the credit card companies do things like this and they can't pay off the balance?
As soon as one company raises your interest rates, btw, all of the banks catch wind of this and start sending you "your credit information has changed, we are increasing your interest rates" letters.
My credit rating is quite good, I have no late payments and we pay over the minimum. I am not a credit risk....
In my opinion, there should be an absolute maximum interest rate that credit card companies can charge. In the UK, it is around 15%. That, to me, seems reasonable. The credit card companies have become predatory...offering initial rates of 0% or 2.9%....an then promising a 14% after a year.....But if they don't credit a payment made 10 days in advance by your bank's direct payment, they can raise the rate to 30%?
I think NOT.
If the fed. govt. was going to step in, how about taking a look at the predatory nature of these companies.
I think something should be done about the credit card companies. We have had terrible troubles with citibank over the last few years. Here is what I experienced a couple of years back:
We do automatic bill payments online. We were told that my citibank payment was late. Interest rate? raised. Even after proving that the bill had been paid in more than a timely fashion we could not get said interest rate down. They claimed that the money came in after 2pm that day from my direct bank payment and that it was too late to be credited that day. What CRAP. We couldn't get anyone on the phone to help us and letters did not help. I was actually hung up on when waiting to talk to a manager.
Citibank rasied my rates to 30% ...Obviously, I cancelled my card. Seriously...how could they possibly raise the rates that much? I don't get it. I was in a position to pay off my balance and cancel my card. What the heck do people do when the credit card companies do things like this and they can't pay off the balance?
As soon as one company raises your interest rates, btw, all of the banks catch wind of this and start sending you "your credit information has changed, we are increasing your interest rates" letters.
My credit rating is quite good, I have no late payments and we pay over the minimum. I am not a credit risk....
In my opinion, there should be an absolute maximum interest rate that credit card companies can charge. In the UK, it is around 15%. That, to me, seems reasonable. The credit card companies have become predatory...offering initial rates of 0% or 2.9%....an then promising a 14% after a year.....But if they don't credit a payment made 10 days in advance by your bank's direct payment, they can raise the rate to 30%?
I think NOT.
If the fed. govt. was going to step in, how about taking a look at the predatory nature of these companies.
I'm stealing it!
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