I Just Got Screwed by Bank of America Credit Card

[brandondrury]

Re: I Just Got Screwed by Bank of America Credit Card

You did get screwed.

Now you have a few options.
A) You can call lawyers and spend hours of your time fighting a mega corporate giant over a few interest perecentage points.

or

B) You can focus on totally elimating the problem that started this whole mess in the first place. In other words, You can spend your time working on ways to make yourself more money or at least educating yourself on spending less.

I know what I would do.

Brandon

[StevenM]

Re: I Just Got Screwed by Bank of America Credit Card

I went over the limit by $1.08 on a $7,000 limit card and they raised the rate to 27%!! Of course I instantly transfered the balance to another card with a 0% transfer rate. I informed the bank I was going to do this and they would lose all the business from this account. They seemed not to care at all. Notice how, in the old days, they would just decline the charge. Now they look at minor limit infractions as an opportunity to completely soak the creditor with extra interest and fees. One of my collegues had a similar problem w/ BofA on a card used mostly in his business for momentary cashflow. It has a $25,000 limit and they raised the rate to over 40% for a minor over the limit infraction. The business runs almost $2 million a year through BofA. Obviously that's not big enough for them to care about either.

[pennywise]

Re: I Just Got Screwed by Bank of America Credit Card

I was thinking about this a little more:
1) read the fine print carefully and if you are unsure call them for verification; ask if there is a transfer fee, what is your credit balance (always go $100) below the amount.
2) Keep a copy of the offer
3) post on your calendar payments 3 weeks ahead of the due date to ensure timely posting to the account

This is what I just did because I got an offer of 0% with no transfer fee for 6 mos. I put the money in a 4 month CD with enough in a new checking account to mail in the minimum payments. I called them to ask what the minimum payment was and calculated it until the payoff. I will make $140 on this sweet deal. Be wise, Be frugal, Be careful.