Has anyone seen their rates skyrocket on previous balances?
I have a older credit card from last year that had some big moving expenses on it along with some medical ones that I am slowly paying off the last year paying way more than the minimum payment.
I have noticed that not only has my interest rate gone up almost 10% but the min payment is now more than 30% more.
Anyone else seen this or know anything you can do about it?
I don’t have any balances on my credit cards so I haven’t seen this personally, but this is normal. Credit Card companies are trying to get there liabilities down and of course raising rates to help with the lose of fees thanks to Obama’s plan for credit cards that helps the irresponsable and hurts the responsable :gotme:
Nothing against you as a consumer.
It’s very common right now. Credit card companies know the new regulations are coming soon and are making any adjustments to accounts they can to maintain profitability.
It’s been all over the news. First link I grabbed from a google search, but there are tons.
The increased minimum payment is more of the government deciding what’s best for you. Everyone knows that by making just the minimum payment of 2% you’ll pretty much never pay the debt off because you’re barely covering the interest charges in most cases. So, the government decided the minimum should be higher. Great, except for people who can’t afford to pay more than the minimum.
Dude, do you actually do any research into these things or just make generalized statements about everything Obama is for that are wrong? You post complete generalized bullshit about a lot of his positions. I think being in the South is going to your head.
Any ways to get it reduced or the intertest lowered? I have been paying significantly more than the min payment for the last year and never missed one. Is there any suggestions to try to get the rate reduced or do they seem me paying it off regularly and trying to get as much out of me as they can knowing that I am always going to pay it?
Or better yet, any card companies people have found that have fixed rates and 0% apr on transfers that I can transfer it too?
Maybe, but since I work at a Bank I see all the real stuff, not the crap everyday poeple hear from the news :gotme:
I do agree with him on somethings :tup:
Well Joe, he is right. These new credit card rules are helping people who pay bills late and hurting people who always pay their bills on time. Financially responsible people aren’t going to be able to get low fixed rate cards because with the new rules there is too much risk for the credit card companies to offer them.
That said, some of these rules really needed to be passed. The one that bothered me most was when a CC company would raise your rate because you paid some other bill late. EX, you pay your phone bill late and Chase would bump you from the 5.99 fixed to 20+%, even though all your Chase payments were on time.
Unfortunately as with most liberal government bills they went too far in protecting stupid people and as usual it will be responsible people footing the cost.
I work at a bank too. One of the top 5 credit card issuers in the world. The credit card plan hurts shady card companies who use bait and switch and turn molehills like one day late payments into thousands of dollar mountains. It helps all consumers. That’s why they’re forced to make it up by raising fees and the like. At least you have some transparency into how they’re screwing you so you can shop around for the best deal without any surprises once you get the card.
Also true, there were some shady card companies.
I really am considering taking a personal loan to pay off the cards and then roping it into a fixed payment that way. These fees are awful for someone with excellent credit rating.
If you have excellent credit rating, do this.
No balance transfer fee. 0% for a year. You even get $135 in gift cards. Sign up for this, divide your balance by 12, and pay it off over a year.
:word:
Thank you. You seem to have some knowledge in this subject so here is my next question.
I have 4 major credit cards open. Two have no balance and there is two that have the expenses I have talked about. If I move the one card that has the crazy interest rate to that card, do you suggest closing the two cards that are not used?
How do companies look at unused cards? Do they see that I have the ability to rack up X amount of debt or do they see the history with the card since one of them I have had for almost 8 years.
Ahh that offer I can not use. Citi is the card that is screwing me. Haha.
How long have you had the cards open? Generally, with only 4 major credit cards open, would be 5, you wouldn’t be getting neg points for too much open credit. If they are some of the ones you’ve had open the longest, closing them would hurt your score. The one you’ve had for almost 8 years, definitely keep open. A portion of your credit is scored on your oldest open line, and average age of them. If the terms are shitty, lock them in a safe or something but keep them open. Also, if you use most of your avail credit on that Citi card, another portion of your score is what percentage of your available credit you utilize. you wanna keep that low, so more open cards is good.
The only way i recommend closing one is if the other one has been open less than a year.
If you want to get your TransUnion credit score (one of the 3) and experiment with what opening or closing accounts would do to your score, sign up at creditkarma.com. I pull my score weekly there for free.
0% credit cards :tup:
You do the balance transfer into your bank account. They typically give you checks to complete the transaction. Then you pay the other citi card out of said bank account. That’s the way to get around that restriction.
Also, heres some details on how the new credit card law helps good users too:
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/CreditCardSmarts/What-the-new-credit-card-law-means-for-you.aspx
Highlights:
-Payments in excess of the minimum pay off the highest rate balances first, not the lowest. Anyone who’s ever had a 0% balance transfer render a card unusable for purchases because any payments you make pay off the balance transfer at 0%, not the purchases at x%.
-Like Jay said, defaulting with one type of creditor doesn’t affect your credit card balances.
-Interest rate hikes on existing balances will be allowed only under limited conditions, such as when a promotional rate ends, there is a variable rate or if the cardholder makes a late payment. Interest rates on new transactions can increase only after the first year. Significant changes in terms on accounts cannot occur without 45 days’ advance notice of the change.
-Credit card issuers will have to give card account holders at least 21 days after their statement is issued to pay their bill.
-Consumers must “opt in” to over-limit fees. Those who opt out will have their transactions rejected if they exceed their credit limits instead of getting raped with fees.
-Finance charges on outstanding credit card balances will be computed based on purchases made in the current cycle rather than going back to the previous billing cycle to calculate interest charges. So-called two-cycle or double-cycle billing hurts consumers who pay off their balances, because they are hit with finance charges from the previous cycle even though they have paid the bill in full. This benefits the best cardholders because they’re the ones paying their balances in full.
just because nobody has said it yet… the safer boring way to go is to do a debt consolidation through a credit union (if the rates are right, you might even want to throw your car in). you don’t have to be in over your head to do a normal one (I’m not suggesting the ones where they try to get your balances reduced etc)
Wow that does seem to help. I had my BoA card that I transferred a balance to becuase they gave me 18 months with 0%. I went and used the card for like $1,000 in purchases for a work trip and when I got the check from work, I paid it off however still noticed charges of interest. I called and they told me that the purchases APR was like 29% and i needed to pay off the 0% balance transfer first before the payment was applied to that. I thought that was kind of ridiculous that I could not mail in a payment to apply directly to a purchase.
Can you explain this? When the application asks for the credit company to pay off and the account number, what do you put? Or do you use the checks they send you after you sign up and do it that way into your account?
Are you suggesting going into a credit union and apply for a debt consolidation loan or are you saying to find a program that negotiates a payment plan you see on tv and radio for debt consolidation?
I’m saying a normal debt consolidation, not the ones you see on TV where they reduce balances.