If You Can’t Trust a Credit Card Company…
by kev on April 23, 2007 

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A few months back, I wrote about the brain trust at my Verizon Visa account who maintained they could not lower the interest rate on my remaining balance because I had closed my account in 2004. They acted as though this was standard practice with all credit cards - as much as they’d love to lower my interest rate, their hands were tied. Riiight.

Flash forward a few months.

Counting the aforementioned card, I have three remaining credit card debts I am working double time to pay off. The first one, the Verizon Visa, has 31.25% interest. The second, also a Visa, has 20.5% interest. The third, a Discover Card, has 0% interest for the rest of 2007. It was used to transfer as much of the balance as I could from the ridiculous 31.25% interest Visa.

In March, I made what I thought was my last payment on the evil 31.25% interest Visa. I was giddy. However, at the beginning of April I received a billing statement from them saying I still owed $17. Apparently, before my last payment arrived to them, they were able to bleed a little more interest from me. I gave them a call, asked what I needed to pay and when I needed to pay it in order to completely pay off the balance, and then sent them one last payment that very day.

However, along with the $17 balance, there was one other thing on the billing statement that caught my eye. It was a bold message in capital letters that said:

CONGRATULATIONS! BASED ON YOUR RECENT PAYMENT HISTORY, WE ARE LOWERING YOUR INTEREST RATE. YOUR NEW RATE WILL BEGIN ON YOUR NEXT BILLING CYCLE.

First of all, how slow to react can a company be? My balance on this card was originally over $8k. It took them until my balance was down to $17 to think, “hey…this guy has almost paid off his balance…perhaps we should lower his interest rate to entice him to stick around as a customer?

Secondly, what happened to the “sorry…we wish we could lower your interest rate, but because you closed your account there is nothing we can do” nonsense??

I think (as I try to hold back the tears) the Verizon Visa people lied to me.

DEJA VU

My second Visa, the one with 20.5% interest, was also closed in 2004. As I write this, its remaining balance is $2,100 - down from its original balance of $14k.

While this Visa’s reaction time is considerably better than the Verizon’s, it loses bonus points for stupidity and cheapness. What am I talking about? In April’s billing statement for this Visa, it had its very own bold message in capital letters. What did it say? Glad you asked:

CONGRATULATIONS! WE ARE LOWERING YOUR INTEREST RATE TO 19.78%. THIS NEW RATE WILL BEGIN ON YOUR NEXT BILLING CYCLE.

Wow. You lowered my interest rate a whopping 0.72% after three years of faithful, prompt bill payments?

I think this is love.