by Tricia
You may have heard that something to try with your credit cards is to call and see if they will lower your rate. This tactic can work even better if you can threaten to move your balance to another credit card.
I have tried that with credit card #1, the big kahoona. They did lower my interest rate from 9.99% to 7.99%. I was pretty happy with myself and pretty proud that I was able to negotiate a lower interest rate.
Not even two months later, I get a change in terms of agreement from my card. They were raising my rate to 10.99%!! I started to wonder if that was my punishment for negotiating a lower credit card rate. Since then, it has grown and grown to it’s present rate of 16.9%. Have I been late with a payment – no. Have I done anything different – no. They just decided they needed more money from me.
I want to call again so badly, but I am not a fibber. They will see right through me when I say I can transfer my balance (it’s almost $24,000 remember) to another credit card. I have a feeling they will just laugh at me. Times like these I wish I was more agressive. Or at least I’d get a very nice card offer in the mail 🙂
What may have happened is when you negotiated that lower rate, your terms for the card changed and they added something called an Universal Default which allows them to soft ping your credit accounts and see if you are late on *anything* (I learned about this through Mary Hunt’s Debt Proof Living daily newsletter). If you were late on anything, they use it as justification to raise your rates, regardless if you were late on the particular account or not.