Teh Credit Card Revolution

I recently got a notice re: my Discover Card, informing me that even though I pay in full almost every month I "tripped a trigger" and they were raising my percentage rate to 29.99%.

After looking at several recent statements, I realized that my due date has been a moving target of late. I pay with my bill payer service, and until this month have done one pymt a month. By moving my payment date around, they found a place where I would not have paid in the last 20 days, and therefore I was "late" twice.

I told my billpayer service to do two payments a month, so I will never go more than16 days without a payment.

Chase also has raised my rate recently - same scenario.

Yesterday I finally gathered all my credit card statements and brought them along to work so I could call them up and cancel their butts if they refused to lower my rates.

I first tackled Discover. I called their customer service line, and started out with the statement: "I really don't care if I have a Discover Card in my purse or not. I explained the situation, which was supported by his own records of my account. I told him that if they really were serious about raising my rate to 29.99%, they could "..take my card and .... I won't tell you where to put it because that would be very RUDE."

I asked him to reduce my percentage rate to 12.5%, and reimburse me the late fees.

He said all of that was good, except he was going to lower my rate to 10.4% effective immediately. Woo Hoo. Now that the late fees are canceled, I have a credit balance.

Next I called Chase, with the same spiel. The credit manager managed to remove some erroneous charges, but refused to do anything about the rates. "Our rates have been frozen until spring, and I can't even do anything about that." I told him that Discover just lowered my rate to 10.4, and if he didn't want me to throw his card into the back of my purse and never use it, perhaps he could find a way...

Nope. The software wouldn't let him. I told him that maybe he could pass on to corporate that the software needed fixing, and that I would be blogging about this situation. Still nope.

Don't know what's up with Chase, but at least DISCOVER CARD has GOTTEN IT!