Thursday, February 5, 2009

Ohhh... This Is Going to Hurt...

Okay folks. Do you remember the unilateral change that Chase made on my credit card? In case you don't remember, Chase purportedly slipped this notice in my November invoice:



Anyhow, apparently, the $10 service charge applies even if I don't carry a balance on my credit card, since they charged me again on 1/30/09 even though I have a $30 credit on my account.

According to the customer "service" rep, I have 2 options to avoid the $10 service charge: (a) opt out and cancel my card or (b) transfer a balance to 7.99% APR. It is irrelevant that I no longer carry a balance.

Aghast, I told the Chase rep, "Just cancel my card."

Chase is out of my life now. Forever. Good riddance.

But I've now reduced my available credit limit by $18,500. Ouch. Ohhhhh... This is going to negatively hit my FICO score. But it's better than forking over $10/month to a bunch of crooks, right?

7 comments:

Miss M said...

Wow I can't believe them! My main card is chase, obviously the minute they pull that BS I'm out of there. I don't blame you for giving them the boot. Sucks about the credit hit, isn't our system strange.

Christine W said...

You did the right thing. You can get more credit down the road.

Chase bought out one of my credit cards and charged me 22%, even though my fico is excellent. I took it from savings and paid it off, and will never use the card again.

They can kiss it.

Anonymous said...

I never heard before CC charging service charge before. well, times are changing.

444 said...

I don't really understand this, but I will try to see if there is any backstory I have missed.

Is this a credit card? Or a line of credit of some sort?

If you are in good standing, how could a prime (I mean, not sub-prime like some of the ones I have) start charging people $10 per month, for nothing, and get away with it? I am confused. I thought the "big" "prime" cards treated their customers better than that.

Anonymous said...

Right, it is better. I recently had this same battle with Chase. I HATE THEM. Seriously, they will NEVER, EVER get another penny of my money. I closed the account with a $26K credit limit; yeah, it hurts. It hurts a lot, but not as bad as a stupdi service fee. I hope there are many others who fight back.

Anonymous said...

I closed my Citibank because they said that I would either pay them a higher interest or close the account. Bye. Bye! My credit is getting down the tube as I get out of debt. Irony.

Anonymous said...

How much does it really impact your credit score? I played with that variable on CreditKarma last week and it was, like, 10 points.