oh yes they will screw you in a heartbeat if you are late once. And BOA and go screw themselves also.
I had a card with them and had a good credit limit and payed off the balance one month.
Then I get a letter in the mail, they reduced my credit limit to $500 LOL.
I was pissed this is the same limit they give to “immigrants” that do not have to show a social security number LOL.
So happily one more card in the shredder 
Update
Surprise Surprise
The “retention department” rep from BOA lied to me. He told me he reviewed my records and found I paid late 6 times in the last 12 months. I reviewd my past 12 months statments and was late 3 times one of which was not late since they posted a payment before the due date and still charged me a late fee. I added it up and actually paid a total of 70 days in advance over the 12 month period
They also never have the same due date from month to month sometimes changing by 5 days in one month. My Sptember 08 payment was due 9/5 and the October 08 paymnet was due 9/30!!! No wonder people are paying late. They purposely keep changing the date so that it is difficult to schedule regular monthly payments.
My innocence is lost. I believe they are being purposefully deceptive and opportunistic
I have a plan to fix this (for me at least). I hope it works
Update x2
Looks like my plan worked. As of 9/2 the cc company has credited me back all the excess interest they charged and reset the APR back to the original rate. Never underestimate the power of doing your homework and documenting your findings in writing. They did not disclose exactly why they reversed themselves but I am happy they did.
[quote]Mr.Bill wrote:
oh yes they will screw you in a heartbeat if you are late once. And BOA and go screw themselves also.
I had a card with them and had a good credit limit and payed off the balance one month.
Then I get a letter in the mail, they reduced my credit limit to $500 LOL.
I was pissed this is the same limit they give to “immigrants” that do not have to show a social security number LOL.
So happily one more card in the shredder :)[/quote]
I’ve heard that they have lost their shirt on their program to give cards to illegal aliens. That might explain why they are so predatory with the rest of us.
I switched back to my credit union card after BOA stuck me for $39 for being 1 day late and refused to give it back. I told that girl I was going to quit using her card. I was charging $1000 a month and paying it off, guess that makes me a “deadbeat.” Also, their travel points program is a joke.
[quote]Razorslim wrote:
Update x2
Looks like my plan worked. As of 9/2 the cc company has credited me back all the excess interest they charged and reset the APR back to the original rate. Never underestimate the power of doing your homework and documenting your findings in writing. They did not disclose exactly why they reversed themselves but I am happy they did.[/quote]
Although you have got it fixed this time, beware, that if you ever are late, even a day, or miss a payment, you will be screwed. They will look at past adjustments and say “Oh well, we made these adjustments back then. We can’t ‘waive’ it this time.”
Etc, etc. I have a credit card from 2005. Maxed out and paid off numerous times. Online banking, or my error, I don’t know, made a payment with a decimal point off. As soon as I caught it, I paid the difference. A rep called me and told me I was late. I explained what happened, they removed the late fees. 3 months later I realized they had been charging me the default APR. I got a manager to reverse that and the overpaid interest. They told me that if anything else happens again, I’m SOL that they’ve made to many adjustments on my account.
shoot. I’ve had one for a year at 20%, I’ve had no balance on it for the last 6 months and it just got jacked to 30%.
I can’t wait till after our wedding to pay off the CCs for good.
Late 3 months out of the last 12?
Maybe that’s how they decided your interest rate, they gave you 25% because you’re late 25% of the time. Seems fair to me. They give you the ability to extend your means, you should have the responsibility to keep yourself in check.
I really don’t understand why you would allow yourself to be late, knowing that there’s a late fee, “as long as you’re not past 30 days late”.
And who doesn’t know to post their payment at least a few days BEFORE the payment is due? When you schedule the payment, it clearly states that if you want it credited on time, you need to schedule it a few days early. If you choose not to read that, or pay attention to it, that’s on you.
And I don’t speak from some high and mighty position, I have been late on cards a couple times in the past few years, but I know it’s been my fault, not someone else’s, and therefore wouldve been my fault if the rate went up.
You ever run out of gas? Would you blame the gas station you last filled up at? Or the dealership you bought the car at? Same thing…
I had been carrying a sizeable balance on my Capital One for a few years because the APR was around 6%. After the fed slashed interest rates it bottomed out at 3.8%. Then C1 changed their terms and conditions and my rate almost tripled. Now I have a plan to pay all my cards off in 8 months. After that I will never use them again.
I’m going to start doing things the old-fashioned way, by actually saving up for the stuff I want instead of paying banks with shady business ethics a cut so I can live one step ahead. From now on, debt is for emergencies only.
[quote]dez6485 wrote:
Late 3 months out of the last 12?
Maybe that’s how they decided your interest rate, they gave you 25% because you’re late 25% of the time. Seems fair to me. They give you the ability to extend your means, you should have the responsibility to keep yourself in check.
I really don’t understand why you would allow yourself to be late, knowing that there’s a late fee, “as long as you’re not past 30 days late”.
And who doesn’t know to post their payment at least a few days BEFORE the payment is due? When you schedule the payment, it clearly states that if you want it credited on time, you need to schedule it a few days early. If you choose not to read that, or pay attention to it, that’s on you.
And I don’t speak from some high and mighty position, I have been late on cards a couple times in the past few years, but I know it’s been my fault, not someone else’s, and therefore wouldve been my fault if the rate went up.
You ever run out of gas? Would you blame the gas station you last filled up at? Or the dealership you bought the car at? Same thing…[/quote]
My point was that the “retention specialist” told me over the phone that I was late 6 times in 12 months. I was only late 2 times, the third time they charged me a late fee even though I paid early. In addition over the 12 months I paid EARLY a total of 70 days.
These credit card companies can raise your rate WHENEVER they want just by mailing you a new terms and conditions. They raised my rate from 8.65% to 25.99% with NO warning. I got one yesterday from another company that was like 20 pages of fine print. Who has time to read that crap. They are counting on you not noticing the rate increase until 3 or 4 months later, then not bothering to investigate why.
Though my payment record wasn’t perfect, I did make my payments including the late fee. BEing late a few days does not justify a tripling of the rate, a few point I can see as a risk adjustment.
They are being predatory and preying on those who can pay and care about there credit score to cover the losses from all teh bad loans and credit they extended to those who cannot afford it.
[quote]Steel Nation wrote:
I had been carrying a sizeable balance on my Capital One for a few years because the APR was around 6%. After the fed slashed interest rates it bottomed out at 3.8%. Then C1 changed their terms and conditions and my rate almost tripled. Now I have a plan to pay all my cards off in 8 months. After that I will never use them again.
I’m going to start doing things the old-fashioned way, by actually saving up for the stuff I want instead of paying banks with shady business ethics a cut so I can live one step ahead. From now on, debt is for emergencies only.[/quote]
Send them a certified letter saying that you do not agree with the current terms and conditions and want to revert to the previous Ts&Cs. Any balance that remained prior to the new Ts&Cs should revert back to the old ones. Also ask for reimbursement of excess interest charged. Try to calculate and give exact amount. You really ahve 60 days to contest the terms and conditions but try anyway.
That is what they hope to do. They change the Terms and Conditions and do not expect anyone to contest it within 60 days. By then you have accepted them by default. If you borrow money at a certain rate they cannot change it without your approval. Your approval comes when you do not contest it within 60 days by law.
Just as an aside, my CC company just hiked up my minimum payment from 2% to 5%. This isn’t a serious problem for me, but for someone who say, refinanced some debt onto one card with one of those low fixed APR type deals, Something I have done in the past, you could really get stuck. For instance if you carried a balance of 10,000 which I guess is pretty normal for a lot of americans, your minimum monthly payment would go from $200 to $500 bucks. I think overall this would be a good thing because it would pay the card off faster for people who only pay the minimum balance, but I know in the past I have paid minimum on my cards due to some cash flow issues, like I had to fix my car that month, or some other relatively important things. So For someone like myself a few years ago, where I would normally pay $500 or more on a large CC balance 10 out of 12 months, I could have really gotten screwed if something were to cause me a short term cash flow crunch.
I really hate how they work these things, Supposedly they sent me a notice about this 6 months ago, I don’t remember seeing it and am pretty good at reading all the fine print even though it’s pretty much a pain in the ass with thier fucked up wording and terminology. Anyways, it’s like either take these new conditions, or pay off the entire balance before your next statement is due.
I am with whoever else said no more CC’s. Soon as my balances are 100% paid off, they will go to extreme emergency situations only. No more buying toys or electronics and taking a few months to pay them off. I’m not giving these dicks another dime.
V
And anyone that possibly missed this- if you plan to pay them off and then never use them again- DO NOT CANCEL them! This will likely hurt your credit.
Pay them off and cut them up if you want, but leave them open with a zero balance! When your card expires and they send a new one, cut that up too if you want.
Or, and I practice this myself- simply keep them in a safe place to only use in emergencies- maybe a bill that you don’t have money for that is about to F your world up if it’s not paid, or a college tuition payment or something, not your new stereo or ps3 or something
If you have the money to pay your minimum (and preferably more than that), do not do it on the due date. Do it as quickly as possible. They dink you interest DAILY, so DAILY balance counts. The quicker that $100 or whatever shows up on your balance, the quicker the daily interest charges drop by that little bit.
[quote]dez6485 wrote:
Or, and I practice this myself- simply keep them in a safe place to only use in emergencies- maybe a bill that you don’t have money for that is about to F your world up if it’s not paid, or a college tuition payment or something, not your new stereo or ps3 or something[/quote]
best bet to cut them up. If they’re in the house or your wallet you WILL use them.
save cash for an emergency.
I find it sad that even the responsible people don’t have any discipline and advocate cutting them up. I love my Credit Card because it allows me to not carry cash and it offers security unlike a debit card. I’ve never had a problem with them changing the date since it was usually 3 days earlier every month. Now if it was completely random that would suck but you can usually contact them to setup a permanent due date like the 1st of the month.
It sounds like you guys know how the game is played but still bitch. It really isn’t that hard to work the system so you get something out of it, but it does require a little bit of financial discipline. It really shouldn’t be a problem for most of us on here since we should already have the discipline of lifting/eating properly. If not join the military or just pay cash the rest of your life and miss out on credit.
[quote]dez6485 wrote:
And anyone that possibly missed this- if you plan to pay them off and then never use them again- DO NOT CANCEL them! This will likely hurt your credit.
Pay them off and cut them up if you want, but leave them open with a zero balance! When your card expires and they send a new one, cut that up too if you want.
Or, and I practice this myself- simply keep them in a safe place to only use in emergencies- maybe a bill that you don’t have money for that is about to F your world up if it’s not paid, or a college tuition payment or something, not your new stereo or ps3 or something[/quote]
Glad you said that because I was just about to cancel a card that has 0 balance that I never use. It has a pretty sizeable limit too, so that would have messed with my score a bit.
I have some integrity and admit to fucking up with credit cards bad. I have to pick up a 2nd job some where. Which will solely go to paying off my cards. Ahh biggest fuckin’ headache. Word to others. At the the minimum only keep 1-2 cards on you. Don’t have cash? Don’t use them unless like others mentioned it’s absolutely necessary.
What’s even worse is at my current job I went from working 50+ hours a week to maybe 35. .maybe get 40 if I’m lucky. Which isn’t happening, I heard they are slashing more hours right now. FML.
Any others got tips? I’m paying the smallest card off right now out of 3, which actually has the biggest interest on it. Pos capital one. Then moving on to the bigger one etc. etc…
Think I will have to switch over to a ramen noodles, eggs and milk diet soon. It’s that bad.
[quote]Carlitosway wrote:
Any others got tips? I’m paying the smallest card off right now out of 3, which actually has the biggest interest on it. Pos capital one. Then moving on to the bigger one etc. etc…
[/quote]
It is key to pay off the most expensive debt first. Doesn’t matter what the balance is you’d much rather pay 7% interest than 20% even if the first balances is 3 times as large. I’ve seen people save up to pay off their 30 year house mortgage at 8% while paying the minimums on 50k credit card debt at 25%. Mind boggling.
BOA is the worst company I’ve ever dealt with, I had these same issues with them over 10 years ago and haven’t used them since. Got one of their cards on the low introductory rate/balance transfer deal and within a few months they started fucking with the due date and then jacking the rate when they caught me napping. My mortgage was with Countrywide, and when BOA took them over this year I refinanced immediately. Went from 6.375 to 4.875, but more importantly I got the hell away from those cocksuckers.
I have three active cards with a total credit limit of around $50k that I use purely for convenience and the rewards, and pay the balance on time every month. Comes out to anywhere from $500 to $3k most months, but it’s money I would have paid with a debit card anyway but this way I get the reward points.
I’ve never had a problem calling and having the due date set to around the 6th or 7th of the month, that lets me make sure my paycheck got deposited ok and still gives me time to get the payment there a day or two early. The only two CC companies that have ever given me a problem with this was Discover and BOA, and I won’t deal with either one of them.
[quote]GhorigTheBeefy wrote:
It is key to pay off the most expensive debt first. Doesn’t matter what the balance is you’d much rather pay 7% interest than 20% even if the first balances is 3 times as large. I’ve seen people save up to pay off their 30 year house mortgage at 8% while paying the minimums on 50k credit card debt at 25%. Mind boggling.[/quote]
I work with a guy who refinanced his mortgage to a 15 year note so could shave the rate from 5 to 4.5%, but now he has to carry a balance on an 18% CC to make ends meet. How in the world does that make sense?
But this same guy has the maximum withheld on his payroll taxes so that he can get a $5,000 “bonus” on his tax refund every year. Go ahead and try to explain to him how this isn’t sound financial planning, I’ve given up already.