I was late on a citibank payment. Not 30 days late but about 5 days late. My excuse is I was busy with my moving you know....etc. etc. But anyways, they jacked my apr up from 13.99 to 24.99 on my platinum dividend card. My plat select is still at 14.99. I just wanted everyone to know they were capable of that. They said I have to wait 6 months to have it lowered. I am placing the card in my sock drawer. Later!
Ummmmm you should have given them a better reason, Roni, LOL. I don't blame you though, who would use it after that.
You misunderstood. I didnt tell them anything. In other words, I didnt offer an excuse. Shit Happens! I noticed it on my statement last month. I am just now mentioning it here. When I called them they told me I had to wait for a decrease. I balanced transferred out to my new Wachovia card.
Roni: A thought I just had about your deal. I'm thinking that if you leave it go and don't use it until they come back down on the interest rate they might just cancel you out or hit you with some kind of non-usage fee. I don't know, I'm just guessing they might possibly pull some dirty trick on you. I think I'd want to buy maybe $5 worth of gas or candy for the kids or something every month and pay it off in full at the end of every month. One $5 buck or so purchase every month just to keep the card active. They sure ought to get the idea you were not happy with them that way pretty quick too. I think I'd keep filing complaints with the banking commission and the BBB every month just to keep them hopping too.
You know, I gotta agree with you now that I stop to think about it. It seems to me that getting whacked with 29% or whatever it was interest rates just because she was 5 days late is just exactly that..... nonsense. Good grief is exactly what they need a dose of to my way of thinking. What's even worse, if the public just sits there and takes that kind of abuse, they will keep on raising the interest rates until we get to the point Mexico and some other 3rd and 4th world countries are at now. Interest rates to even prime consumers running well above 50%. Sub-prime customers can get socked with 70 to 80% interest rates for housing and other consumer spending. And there aren't any consumer protection laws nor bankruptcy courts in those countries either. They pay up or somebody knocks on their door with a baseball bat. Think it don't happen? Don't bet on it. And the cops could care less until they kill somebody. And they usually get away with that too because they got enough money to buy the cops off. And just in case you happen to think I'm just coming up with a BS story about buying the cops off, my wife's nephew who is staying with us for a few days got drunk and ran off the road in his pickup. He hit a house and destroyed that and he killed a woman and her daughter sitting on the front porch and put another kid in the hospital who also nearly died and will be a cripple for the rest of his life. I guess you just about know what would have happened here in the U.S. if he had done it here. Down there, $5,000, $2500 down and the rest if they ever catch him, and he is home scott free. No record, no jail time, no bond, no nothing. He didn't even have any insurance. Back on the subject, if we don't complain when we get hit with nonsense like that, we will be there someday too. And our economy can't stand that anymore than the 3rd world countries can. Just what percentage of the total commercial debt owed by the public that is defaulted on by the public through bankruptcy or whatever other means do you think our companies and our economy can stand before it falls flat on it's face? Usurious interest rates like that lead to an ever spiraling debt load and quickly. Right now, our economy is said to be teetering badly, reeling from the blows inflicted on it even before the WTC thing last month and now it's far worse. The airline industy is hard hit and that impacts the entire travel industry. Hotels, motels, restaurants, resorts and things neither you nor I will ever know about. The airlines laid off 100,000 people and the rest of the related industries had to lay off a million people. So it gets to be a domino effect real quick. And the impact goes right on to much less taxes, less money in Social Security, more Unemployment claims to be paid off, no end to it, seems like. You may be right in your thoughts, I don't really know. But I like to look at the larger picture and see what that kind of shabby tricks can end up doing to us. Therefore, in my opinion, it isn't nonsense at all. Oh well, let's not get mad at each other over it. Each of us has our own opinion and you sure are entitled to yours too. I can understand your line of thinking and I hope you can understand mine. If not, well I guess it really ain't no biggie. Fun chatting anyway. You have a nice one.
I think the BBB is a waste of time. As for the banking commission, it might be good to complain to them about the absence of any "proportionality" in Citibank's heavy-handed response to a minor transgression. Meaning, should Roni really pay hundreds of dollars in extra interest just because one payment was 5 days late? Let's do some math. Suppose her balance was $3000. The minimum payment would then be $62.50. Only the minimum payment could be considered late; anything else would be a voluntary payment by her. Her interest rate went up by 11 percentage points, which would be an extra $330 per year on a $3000 balance. So the punitive interest over one year is more than 5 times the original payment at issue. Not quite fair, is it? I'm happy for Roni that she has other accounts to which she can transfer the "poisoned" balance. I think paying off a tiny balance in full every month would show Citibank how futile their punitive tactics really are. They are behaving like a sub-sub-prime bank towards prime credit risks. We all know how First USA has lost millions of accounts and irreparably damaged its reputation with the same type of tactics. Wake up, Citibank! BTW, a few years ago Citibank raised my rate by about 3 percentage points for paying late several times a year. That seems fair enough; their new policy can only be described as greedy.
Richguy I think the BBB is a waste of time. I agree with you. totally and completely. And so do most companies. But most of them are members of the BBB and go to great lengths to be sure their images with BBB are not tarnished. A tarnished image with BBB, one of their status symbols in most cases cannot be tolerated any more than they could have their chiefs kicked out of the Masons or the elk's lodge for whatever reason. It's a matter of corporate image. It's like our great new DING-ALING PARK here in OKC. Absolutely beautiful. Almost stunning in fact. And here comes SWBell who is a public utility regulated by the state because they provide a service that has become almost a basic necessity of life like the car and should be provided to the public at the least possible cost which would still allow the company to make a decent profit and they give the city 2 million bucks just to get their name up in fancy lights on a baseball stadium? That' makes it DING-ALING PARK in my books, not SOUTH WESTERN BELL BASEBALL PARK. And that's what I call it every time I get a chance too. Most people agree with me too.
11.00% IS A BIG PUNISHMENT!!! BT the balance "GONE" if you haven't. My wife was NEVER late on her BANK ONE and was "PUNISHED" 3.00%...so she REFUSED the new terms. They closed the account, and kept the old terms. They punished themselves, because they make less money every month as it is paid down...AND WILL MAKE NONE WHEN IT IS PAID IN FULL. THEY LOST A CUSTOMER BY GREED!!!
Roni, Do you think sending an email via PFB may help? It's good you were able to pay it off with a balance transfer, but now that it's at $0, this may be a good negotiating point. 5 days is pretty harsh. I can't believe they did that to you. How's the decorating going girl?
Roni, The 24% is meaningless if they'll lower it again in 6 mos. You're good to use it occasionally for gas. If they're capable of that sort of tactic, I guess they're capable of closing down the account. But I'm afraid it's gonna leave a mark on your credit report. Anyone here know if one going even a day late will get reported as a 30 day late? Have you considered auto-pay? For the past 2-3 mos, I've been frantically busy enrolling most of my accounts to auto-pay. utilities: phone, water, gas installments: mortgage and car loan & all cc accounts. Recently I'm not very confident about the pace of the mail w/ the possible new measures that the PO might issue/enfore. The only accounts I haven't enrolled are Lowe's which I don't use, and cellphone. Think I might as well check to see if these two has it as well. It should give you great peace of mind not having to worry about paying bills on time again. I sign up for the min on CCs, and add an extra payment if I want to pay more. hth
Sorry, I should have elaborated.. By meaningless, I meant they can't strong arm you, if you pay in full or transfer out. But they might resent that, they probably want you to be good little acc holder and take the hike. hth
An 11-point penalty for being five days late seems excessive. Regardless, I still wouldn't complain to the banking commission or the BBB. I'd simply take my business elsewhere.
On my Citibank platinum card, I had one payment that was received 1 day late. They slapped me with a $29 late fee on my next statement. I called and complained about it and they said something to the effect" "Okay, since this is the first time that you have ever been late, we can authorize to remove the late fee just once." Sure enough they removed the late fee. However they never increased my apr and it's always remained at 8.1%. Due to this, I now make all my payments on-line to avoid payments through the mail which is totally out of my control. If this is your first time, you should call and complain. Also, you may want to check that they also didn't tack on that late charge.
BACK IN THE OLDEN' DAYS...all you had to "PAY" was interest...(THE INTEREST CLOCK STARTED) if not paid in full by the due date... There was a BUNCH of STINK when the first LATE FEE SHOWED UP...then they started OVER-LIMIT FEES...big stink about that too...(100% profit, because there is NO money lost)... NOW ALMOST EVERY CARD HAS BT FEE OF UP TO $50.00... WHAT IS NEXT??? PAYMENT ACCEPTANCE FEE???
