Comments on: When Balance Transfers Go Bad!

By: Julie Dozois

Julie Dozois — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:47:29 +0000

On 12/07/05 I received a letter from Individualized Card Services, which is supposed to be FIA Card Services. They state as a valaued customer that they are sorry I refused the Minimum Payment Calculation change. They said I will no onger have charging privileges on my account, effective immediately. When I asked why they were changing my monthly payments to almost double, they said that President Bush signed a bill called the OCC Regulation, in which credit card holders would have to double their monthy payments. I do not believe there was any such billed ever signed by President Bush. They told me to shred my credit card, which I did. I feel I have been lied to, and I don’t like it. I have never been late on my payments to the credit card company ever.This all happened in 2005, and it is 2009, is there a statute of limited of 3 years in New Hampshire, which states after three years after closing my account that I can state that fact to them and say SOL. I have still paid them every month without being late, so what can I do? Thank you…..

By: Jack

Jack — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:00:17 +0000

Hello,

I had a few things I wanted to inquire regarding Michael’s question. I know people are being taken advantage of everyday over the phone and with refinancing due to the “We reserve the right” fine print, are there ways to fight these transfers or agreements due to being misconstrued, unlawfulness, or being misinterpreted? Would there be any reason to pursue BBB, FTC, State Attorney’s Office, Small Claims Court, or Arbitration, etc., or would this just be a waste of time, money, and effort? Would this actually get me anywhere if I was to make claims against them? I understand it’s more of a my word versus theirs but would it matter? Does this ever happen and does anyone other then the credit card companies ever win? I know that on several occasions balance transfers for myself and others that the terms change and they balance transfer your accounts without anything ever being signed other than the original agreement and you just default to whatever terms and percentages they fell like you should get, but is there any sort of protection for the consumers? Anywhere?

Thank You,

Jack

By: J

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:29:23 +0000

Thanks for the response, Mr CC. I already tried to validate the debt but they unfortunately validated it on Equifax already. I think I’m going to try and have them open it back up and see if they would be willing to do that.

By: shaam

shaam — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:13:37 +0000

My response to Michael with the Chase Balance Transfer is that he should DISAGREE in writing with the change. Chase will close the account but his 2% minimum payment & 2.99% APR will remain until the account is totally paid off. Yes, it may cause his credit score do dip for a short time but it is better than not being able to make the minimum payment on the account.

By: BlueJeans

BlueJeans — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:10:31 +0000

Thank you Mr. CC for your article,

I have a question that relates to J’s question and your response. Since our credit score is 30% debt ratio on open accounts and closing those accounts can hurt our credit score, would opening them back up improve our score? (If it is allowed by those companies.)

I had several credit cards in the past that I paid off and closed before I realized how that action was not helping my credit score. It would be cool to think that the opposite would help improve my credit score.

Thank you for your time,
BlueJeans