I've been calling my credit card companies to see if I can get some relief on my monthly bills. My wife has been ill for an extended period of time so she can't work for a while and I've lost half my income due to the bad economy. I called Household Bank asking for any hardship assistance. We owe them about $900 dollars but at a 29.4% APR, our highest rate of any of our cards. All they said they could do was lower the APR by a couple of percent and couldn't do anything about lowering the monthly payment. I told them this wasn't much help. I pressed them to explain why they couldn't do more when we were getting better help from our other credit card companies (at least one anyhow). I also told them we had no incentive to use them again because of this absurdly high APR. Their defense was that this was because my wife was the primary card holder and she had other high interest credit cards. The customer service person said "Take this as a hint that if you were to apply and get a Household Bank card in your name that the interest rates may drop" (their exact words). We'll I pressed them some more asking what difference if any it would make if my name was on her credit card account also. They refused to address this subject. I ended the conversation saying their service was very, very poor and inconsiderate. My question is that does it matter who's name is on the credit card account whether husband or wife as far as determining interest rates and so on? Is it better to have a joint account so to speak? Also does anyone have a suggestion for getting Household to give us a better rate? Thank you for any replies.
Yes. If the primary account holder has a lower credit score, that is what determines the interest rate. If the secondary holder has a better rate, they should get the account and just add the spouse as an authorized user. Joint accounts are bad ideas anyway.
