Things are still heating up on the CreditBloggers post this week about the most recent wave of Bank of America APR increases. We received over ten new comments on the post overnight along with a lot of direct emails.
And the media is taking notice. Our team worked closely with a reporter from the Wall Street Journal and it resulted in a great piece called "BofA to Boost Rates on Cards with Balances."
Co. have implemented in recent months. The banks, facing rising
delinquencies, blame the economic turmoil. Many have been tightening
the screws on people with less-than-perfect credit, but now they're
pinching a broader range of customers who have good credit records, but
carry a balance.
On Tuesday, Tamara Smith of Burlington, Vt., got a notice from Bank of
America that her 7.9% rate will increase to nearly 13%. She immediately
called the bank and opted out of the change. That means she keeps the
7.9% rate on her roughly $2,000 balance, but can't use the card for new
purchases without having the higher rate apply to her entire balance.
Thank you to our blog commenters Tamara and Sandra for sharing their stories with the reporter! If you'd also like to talk to a journalist about your credit card experience, send us an email with your details and preferred phone number.
Emily Peters – Credit.com's personal finance expert and former TransUnion credit bureau insider. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com editor.
Credit.com offers straightforward tips and advice to help you make smarter financial decisions. Visit Credit.com to sign up for your FREE Credit Report Card and find out where you stand today!
{ 7 comments… add a comment }
I have a credit rating of over 750, rarely (once a year) carry a balance from one month to the next, and have never been late on a payment. I can’t figure out why they are changing my Bank of America MasterCard with 5.9% fixed to an 11% variable.
I called to get some clarification and the representative told me that it was happening to 56 million other customers (which is definitely a lie). Their press release said 4 million. Its a lousy policy and was lied to. I am not going to be using Bank of America anymore.
Pay all my debts including credit cards on time, never late. They raised my rate to 25%. They call themselves the “Bank of Opportunity.” That they are.
B of A just raised my rate to 13.45% from 8.99% because I don’t pay off the balance every month. I think Congress needs to revise the date on changing bank regulations from July of 2010 to May 1 of 2009. Anyone else with me on this?
I guess I don’t understand why in the USA, an organization is allowed to “amend” their end of a contract. Well, we can reject it. But if my domain name registration renews in six months and I forget to change that auto-renewal to another card, I get dinged with a 50% higher interest rate. I had a FIXED interest rate. How can they just decide they are going change it? Is our government going to allow this? Bank of America buys a failing company called Merrill Lynch and we are supposed to let them pillage us so they can afford to stay flush?! Let’s not forget about all the money that the government has already given B of A. We all need to stand up and fight! This is such crap!!!
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I received a note from BofA last week, as well. I have a good credit history, never late, always paid more than minimum.
I called and the person said that credit was more expensive now.
This is what I did:
-I rejected the increase;
-I had them lock my current rate;
-I emailed federal officials in charge of TARP money for BofA telling them about the rate hike.
This is my plan:
-I’ll pay off my small debt;
-I won’t use this card;
-I’ll close the account as soon as the balance is paid off.
-I won’t use BofA in the future, and recommend against it to everyone I know.
If you’ve been a victim of this rate hike, I hope you are able to stop using BofA and pay off your debt soon.
Cheers,
J.J.
Bank of America has changed our fixed APR Visa card to a stinking variable rate card. They told us they are changing all their credit cards from fixed rates to variable rates. We did not sign up for a variable rate card, we never sign up for variable rate cards. In order to opt out the rate has to be going up. I told them that we wanted to opt out of the variable rate because the word variable suggests the rate is going to go up. They told us that since they are changing over to purely variable rate cards, there is no way to opt out. Isn’t there some sort of legal recourse because of the fact we did not sign up for a variable rate card? This smells like bait-and-switch. We have a home loan, a line of equity loan, a checking account, and a credit card through them. We’ve been with them for many years, never late on anything, we even pay extra. Another thing, they got BAILED OUT with taxpayer money and now they’re wanting more of our money! They said this change had to do with “tough economic times”, but they’re content with making things tougher? I told them this has nothing to do with tough economic times, they’re doing this “because Obama told them they could do it”. It started with loans, bank accounts, and credit cards to illegals and now this. They’re shooting themselves in the foot. All they’re going to have left as customers will be the deadbeats that caused the problems in the first place. We’re closing our bank accounts with BOA and shopping for other financial institutions to transfer our balances to. I want to outright close the credit card but my husband says no, it’s bad for our credit rating. Wish us luck.