Tricky CC Policies

[Wyndo]

These things have probably been discussed recently, but I haven't been around in recent weeks, so I'm not sure. Appologies if this has already been discussed.

I'm starting to think that the more things are changed to help consumer rights, the sneakier and dirtier credit card companies are becoming, to keep profits sky-high at the expense of their customers.

Arbitration isn't totally new, but have you noticed that it's pretty much impossible to get a card without agreeing to this? Or, without the CC assuming that you have agreed by applying for the card? You can decline the ammendment to your existing CC policy, but that means you have to close the card and no longer use it. And, new agreements add this from the very beginning -- you have no option to decline. Sneaky.

Next, I mentioned a few weeks ago that my wife got hit with this next tactic, but CC companies are starting to practice bait-and-switch scams. You are roped in with a low interest rate, but then they keep a constant watch on everything else going on in your credit. In my wife's case, there were no problems. We were just paying some other bills and saving for a vacation, not really making "huge" payments to her card, and MBNA decided to jack up her interest rate by more than double, because this "might indicate financial difficulties". We "declined" the change in terms, so it's pretty much a dead/unusable card now (if it's used, it's treated as "acceptance" of the change in terms). They screw over their customers in the name of "taking a risk" -- come on, give me a break. All that serves to do is make it harder for consumers to pay, and pad their own pockets using whatever excuse they can drum up...

But this next one seems new to me. CC's are offering deals for no interest on balance transfers or no interest on purchases when you do a balance transfer. In the fine print, they state that balances with lesser APR will be paid by your payments first. In other words, if the offer calls for 0% APR for 1 year on balance transfers (but not debits), then any time you use the card, you're going to bury those purchases under the balance transfer until it's paid off. Basically, they rely on you using your card because you're going to pay interest on the purchases with no way of taking care of the balance until the balance transfer itself is paid off. It's too bad consumers aren't allowed to select the manner in which our payments will be applied, but it doesn't work that way.

I kind of just needed to vent a little.

Mike.

[anti-something]

and dont forget they place any late fees/overlimit fees under those balance transfers too, so you end up paying horrible interest on them.

[Wyndo]

Ah, good point. I hadn't encountered that (it could happen -- even though you send a payment in plenty of time, they'll sometimes "post" it late and call it your fault -- hasn't happened to us yet, thankfully). But yeah, those get buried even deeper under the 0% APR balances.

[Wyndo]

Oh, and I almost forgot -- information float! Used to, we would receive our credit card statements almost a month before the due date. Now, CC's are changing their grace period for repayment (what I'm seeing recently is a 20-day period). This means they wait a week or two longer before sending our your statement. There have been times when I've sent a payment online or using an "extra" invoice/envelope from a prior month when I did pay online, because we sometimes get bills mere days before the due date. You have to really know your cards and the billing cycles, otherwise if you get a bill late and that's the first time you've even given it any thought, your payment probably can't reach them on time.

[Xanathos]

I'm a bit ruthless with regards to what you outlined in these posts. I always X out the mandatory arbitration clause in my CC contract/application (some minimum wage worker goes through these things--they don't check to see what I've done). I had a Chase card where they doubled my interest rate after the FIRST MONTH because I was approaching my credit line limit (which was intentional...I was trying to max it out to show usage on it, then paid it all off in full at the end of the month and left it near the lower end)....called and cancelled immediately. If a CC company can't get me my statement at least 2 weeks before they want their money, I cancel (BoA was horrible about this...I once got a statement a mere 6 days before the due date), etc.

You can fight back. You just have to be persistent and know what the game is.