once, maybe twice in the 4 years I've had my AmEx card I've been a couple days late with my payment. Generally get real busy with something, and its past the due date before I realize it. Never gone over my limit, never skipped a payment. From the 1-2 times I was a few days late, apparently my APR went from 9-12% to 28 freakin %.

Need to pay more attention to the periodic finance charges. Maybe an alarm would have gone up when they friggen doubled. No F'n wonder I haven't been making much progress on paying off the card, even though I don't charge on it ever.

Now I gotta look thru my other cards to see if upped the APR on me. Be nice if they gave you some sort of notice when they did that. Geez.


/rant

 

yeah, same deal with my capital one card. cept they've always been a-holes.

'congrats for being with capitol one for 8 years, unfortunately you've been late on your payment twice, so we wont be lowering your APR'

'any chance of raising my credit limit then? As you've said, I've been with capitol one for 8 years, and you've NEVER allowed me to increase the limit on that card beyond $1000.' (I only use this card like, 5 times a year anyway)

'uhh, no, sorry, but thanks for choosing capitol one, have a great night'

i'll be sure to do that.


BTW, you guys don't mind that I'm airing my financial situation on the interwebz do you? :P

 

Bro, get rid of capital one. I had a card with them several years ago (long before online payments), and I'd send a check the day after I got the bill. Every second month I'd get my statement and it'd have a $29 freakin late fee on it. I'd call and ask them WTF it was about, and they'd say it was late. Bullshit, I mailed it with 20 days for it to arrive. So I started sending the payments in priority mail, return receipt, so they had to sign for it when it came in. I started getting phone calls from them bitching at me, saying I had no right to do that. I told them I had every right since they were screwing me every two months and I was trying to safeguard my credit. Long story short, I asked them for a calculated balance a week in the future, and made an electronic pay-off transfer, and closed the card. Cap one is the absolute WORST company to deal with for a card - I don't know a single person who has been happy with them. They can suck the fattest part of my *** for eternity.

 

That's how credit works man... can't really bitch at the companies. If you're late on payments, you gotta know it's gonna wreak havoc on your relationships with creditors.

Not saying they're not a-holes... but I think you gotta expect what's happening in your shoes.

 

Yeah, that really is true, but jesus, the rates that are allowed these days verge on loansharking...

 

good thing i don't deal with any of those companies. i don't care wut the rate is, as long as there's no annual fee, i always pay on time. the credit card companies hate me for that cuz they never make any money off of me lol.

 

I was once 4 min late on my capital one payment... wonder if I've been penalized for it. Don't remember seeing a late fee or anything though. I really need to pay that thing off though its got 1100 charged to it and the limit's only 1300.

 

glad i dont have any credit cards

 

lol... Chase - for absolutely no reason - raised our rate from 7.15% to 15% two weeks ago.

I called and demanded an explanation. They had none and said they were going to drop it back down and apologized. Lucky my wife was paying attention to the statement, because we were never notified of the rate increase.

The sheets getting stupid - especially during these times. We're watching our credit rating like a hawk.

 

i'll be watching my credit much more closely now too. What gets me is that I don't have bad credit. Last I had the score checked it was like, 780 or something. The card companies are just itching for a chance to make a few extra bucks.

Had that happen ONCE when I was still fairly new with Capitol One. I called as soon as I found out they hit me with a late fee for a payment I made as soon as I got the statement. They said its not their fault they received it late. I told them it wasn't my fault either, I mailed it out long before it was due, so why was I getting penalized for it? No answer. So I told them to cancel the card. They were quite happy to drop the late fees for me to keep my business after that.
I should drop it though, and get something else. If for nothing else, to take advantage of a year of 0%APR or whatever the current offers are.