About 1.5 million Bank of America credit card holders have rec'd. notices of "rate increase amendments." The rates on these accounts will be increasing in March by 7 to 10% above the current rates. The cardholders affected have been notified, and have until Feb. 29, 2008 to send a LETTER of REJECTION in WRITING to the address given in the notice. (Actually, the letter has to be in their hands by 2/ 29.)  If you reject, you can no longer use the card, but the rate will not be jacked up for (in most cases) NO REASON.  Both my husband and I have BOA credit cards and were sent these notices, we sent our rejection letters, called to make sure they were rec'd., and cut up our cards and any convenience checks for those accounts.

We were never late with a payment and never defaulted our agreements in ANY WAY!!

You can get more info by Googling "Bank of America Amendments of Credit Card Rate Increase + rejection." There are several consumer interest websites with more info.

PLEASE check your mail from BOA...if you are affected by this, you only have until 2/ 29/ 08 for them to recieve your letter of rejection. Personally, if I had a BOA credit card acct, I would call customer service anyway, just to make sure I wasn't affected, even if I didn't recieve a letter...it could have gotten lost in the mail.

Please, please, please don't let them snare you guys into this...make sure to find out whether or not you are affected. COVER YOUR BACKSIDES ON THIS ONE!!

best wishes to all,  janeb in southside Virginia

 Any, and all, credit card companies can do this whenever they want.

Also, if you are late with one payment to cc A, then all cc rates will default to, typically, 29.99% immediately.  This is Universal Default.  Here is a good link that shows how that works.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_default

My financial advisor says this: "If you swim with the sharks, you WILL get bit."  BoA practices are a perfect example.   

 

Hi rolo,

Yeah, I know they can do whatever they want....whenenver they want...and with no reason, as in my case. My warning to the other customers who may not read all the mail that looks like "Junk" is that they may have missed the amendment letter.

In my case, the shark swimming days are over, I went ahead and paid them off, but won't close them, as this will lower each of our credit scores.

The moral of the story is to read the fine the print.

thanks for responding, rolo. All good points!

Yes, it IS interesting that a major change in the "details" comes with a lot of other paper ads in the statement.  If they were concerned about customer service they would present the change in a full size document attached to the statement...but wait, that would indicate they had a conscience!   

wow that is good info - T H A N K S

HI all,

Just wanted to give an update on this particular situation. I reported that we 'opted out" of the 8-10% interest increase in February. duh.. Anyway, since then our CURRENT rates have DROPPED 1.25% to 2.% on the small amounts we have left to pay off. If they can't have more, they'll settle for less?

On a separate Bank of American card, not one of the 2 we "opted out" of, that has a very low balance, we have been offered an 8 month 8.99% promo!!! Unbelievable.

In the final analysis though, BOA seems to be the stupidest bank around, and we are doing without everything we possibly can to pay them to 0. Don't think we want to do that dance ever again....

Just a fun trick...everytime you deny yourself something unneeded, whip out the loan calculator and punch in that amount at the ung-dly rate you are being charged, and see what you will save over the next year, or until it is paid off, if EVER. This helps to keep us on the right track.

Good day all, janeb 

 

Don't you like how "fixed" rate cards only stay fixed until the credit company decides to up them?  There was talk of a bill in Congress that would make a fixed-rate card stay at that rate until the account was closed.  You know, like other loans.  I sure hope something like that passes.

I had an MBNA card since I was 18.  Never had any problems with them; they were fair.  Then they got sold to BoA.  I didn't like them from the get-go.  Their bill-payment page online was difficult to negotiate and involved clicking through several screens that were of no importance whatsoever (a supreme annoyance when you're on dial-up).  So, last Christmas, I did a lot of online shopping and put everything on that credit card (I don't use my debit card online).  I made two separate payments--each time I got paid--but when I went to make a third payment--what my husband gave me for his share--it wouldn't let me pay online.  Said I had exceeded the number of payments I could make online. 

Huh?  So I called them.  The first person had never heard of that before, but transferred me to another department.  There I got this hateful girl who said that the rule used to be that you could make three payments a month online, but they switched it down to two.  Why, I asked?  Because they can.  But paying online is cheaper; it costs the company less money to accept a payment online than by paper.  Why aren't they letting me pay my bill?  You can pay your bill; I can accept a payment over the phone for $15.  I'm not going to pay to pay a bill!  Why is it this way?  Because it is.  There's nothing I can do about it and there's nothing you can do about it either.

I hung up on her because I was so mad.  I then went out and applied for a new card and as soon as I got it, I canceled the BoA card.  I'll show them what I can't do about their stupid policies, clearly made hoping that people won't rush to pre-pay their bills, hoping that people will let them sit there and accrue interest. 

Bank of America and Wells Fargo are 2 of the most arrogantly run banks in this country. I don't know why anyone does business with them. Edey

I've got a story even better than that one. This happened last year, when I had both an MBNA credit card (owned by Bank of America) and a Bank of America checking account. Being the eco-conscious gal I am, I signed up to receive my MBNA credit card statements electronically through Bank of America's online banking service, rather than getting a paper statement in the mail. The website warned that this service "could take one to two billing cycles to activate," but what it didn't say was that delivery of my paper statements would stop immediately! For two months I didn't receive my credit card bill, either electronically or by mail. I noticed something was up when I went into online banking and saw that my credit card was listed as "past due." I found that they had charged me interest on the payment I'd missed (normally I pay my balance in full each month) and a $39 late fee. When I called the bank to explain the situation, the customer service people insisted that I was responsible for making sure my bill was paid on time, even if I didn't receive it! They offered to give me a credit for half the amount of the late fee "as a courtesy," but they refused to remove the charge or acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Fortunately, this story has a happy ending. I sent a letter to the bank's billing department advising them that they were in violation of the Fair Credit Billing Act, which makes the creditor responsible for "billing errors," including bills not sent to the correct address. I also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Eventually someone from the bank called up and told me she would give me credit for the full amount of the late fee, as well as the interest I was charged.

This story has two morals:

1) The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Filing a (polite) complaint through the proper channels really works. I've complained to the Better Business Bureau about other companies whose practices I considered unfair (e.g., companies that didn't make good on advertised rebates), and I've always gotten satisfaction. It also pays to do your research; I think being able to tell the company exactly which law it was violating forced it to take me seriously.

2) Don't trust Bank of America any farther than you can throw them. I'm sure the bank set its online billing up this way on purpose in order to sock unsuspecting customers with late fees for bills they never received. No other company I've signed up for online billing from has taken two months to activate it--or stopped sending my paper statements before I asked them to. Needless to say, we promptly moved our savings and checking accounts to a new bank (leaving the old credit card active to help with my credit rating, but using it very seldom).

 Hi haverwench..welcome. I like the way you think. It is always best to sound educated ((on the topic at hand) and somewhat sane, when trying to get something corrected.

One last caveat about Bank of America credit cards...one we had with them never had the same payment due date month to month. It varied like from the 3rd to the 2nd to the 1st to the 2nd to the 31st of the prior month! I once had TWO payment dates fall in the SAME month. If you use any type of automated payment system, this will really mess you up...that was the plan, I believe.

Keep the faith...jane b