I was wondering if anyone on this board had any trouble with Fleet raising interest rates on their credit cards. They raised my husband's in October to 23.97% from his previous fixed 9.99%. After calling them several times and two certified letters later, they said they made a mistake and are reversing it back to its previous 9.99%. The problem is they still have not done it and since I closed our account back in November we are now paying 27%. I am furious. We have excellent credit and I was wondering if this is even legal. Does any one have horror stories like this and how did you solve them? Thanks in advance for all your help.
That's horrible. Unforunately I don't believe it is illegal to raise rates, they of course put this all in the fine print that you need a magnifying glass to read, but if they said they would adjust this back to your original rate I would be mad and fight like heck. Sorry I really don't know exactly what to tell you to do, but from your post Fleet is definetly on my black list. Maybe others may know. mom
When you close your account with fleet it is in their agreement that they will raise your interest rates to 26.99%.Look at it this way they know they lost a customer,and they are going to screw you for all the money that they can get.If you can transfer that balance on to another credit card ASAP!
Joe makes a great point, I understand your frustration with them but you said your credit is excellent you may want to try and tranfer this balance to a low interest rated card that offers a great transfer rate.
Never cancel a credit card that you have a balance on! If you do, you give up all of your leverage with the bank. Fleet is notorious for doing what they did with you. If you cancel your account and it still has a balance on it, they will increase your interest rate to the maximum rate no matter how stellar your previous payment history has been. If you have a 'fixed' rate card and they decide to raise your interest rate, they must provide you 15 days notice. You may reject the change in rate which will entitle you to pay the balance on the card under the existing terms. You may no longer use the card though. If you do use the card, the new terms will apply. In addition, you must be scrupulous about making the payments on time or they can change the rate. By the way, stay away from Fleet. They basically suck. They took over and destroyed one of the best consumer oriented, retail banks in the Boston area.
Great info Great Info J Edgar, I did not know that. How have you been, haven't seen you in awhile?? Mom
I made that mistake w/ FUSA. I closed my account w/ a balance! Fortunately, they didn't jack up my interest rate. It's 15.9%. My plan was to apply for another card (Cap1 Platinum) and do a balance transfer. That's when I found out about the negative credit that was added to my profile (because I was denied!). Frustrating....and I HATE FUSA w/ a PASSION!!!!!!! :-||
We did not receive any notice of an increased interest rate. I did not realize it until I looked at our October statement. I sent a certified letter immediately to Fleet asking them to convert the rate back to our previous fixed rate or cancel our card. When Discover card increased everyone's rates back in February we were notified of the change in advance. On the back of the letter they had a correspondence address in which you could send a letter to Discover asking them to close the account and keep your previous fixed interest rate until you paid off the balance. If you did not close the account and continued to use the card you would be paying the new interest rate. This is why it confused me when Fleet did not have the same agreement. I have decided to take out a loan through our credit union to pay off the balance, but it ticks me off that I had to pay 27% interest for two months on this stupid card. The highest rate on any of our credit cards is 12.99%. But, I just wanted to know if this was typical of Fleet? Thanks everyone for your advice.
You need to read your credit card agreement closley now,and into the future.This will ensure their is no misunderstanding of any of the terms disclosed to you.Also if they already have this term written in the card agreement they are not obligated to send you advance notice of the change.So just be very careful with any credit card agreement that you receive from your creditor.
When negotiating fails to lower my rate, I close my accounts and pay them off. If I still have a balance outstanding, I simply do a balance transfer from a lower rate card. I have 18 accounts. I closed Providian's account because of their 23.9% APR rate and refusal to lower. Fleet is not charging me 23%, but I have them at zero balance until they offer a lower rate. Deal from strength, exercise your credit. http://www.creditsense.com
