Did You Hear That? It Was My Jaw Hitting the Floor.

Today’s mail had a nice surprise for me.

If you recall, I was a little upset about Credit Card #6. They were charging me finance charges on a $14.00 purchase. I decided then and there it was the next target to pay – but I was being emotional and I’ve calmed down since them.

Until today…

I received a new “Notice of Change in Terms” sheet (if you ever get those…trust me, read through them). Within their little notice, they state that if for some reason, the balance is not paid in full by the time my zero percent interest rate expires, “…finance charges on this balance will be imposed from the date of purchase until the balance is paid in full.” I feel it is very unfair to change terms that greatly from when you first purchase something. I would never get a card that has those terms…but now I have one.

I feel like they got me.

What I am going to do is exercise my right to Opt Out of the changes and have them close the card. That way I can keep the previous terms in tact and pay off my card under the previous agreement. We will lose some of our available credit and our FICO scores will go down as a result – but I really don’t like what they did here. I really don’t like living in fear of the back interest they can hit me with if something should happen.

If I ever consider getting a store credit card again – you all have my permission to leave comments and knock some sense into me

Posted by Tricia on October 5, 2006 at 11:59 AM in Credit Cards | 6 Comments »
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Angela responded:
Posted: October 5th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
Argh! This infuriates me. I really think it amounts to a “bait and switch” and am angered that it’s legal. About two years ago, we suffered the same “switch” and it motivated me to do exactly what you are doing…and I swore of store accounts from that point on! At least you read it and “caught” it before seeing a very high interest charge! Great job!
mapgirl responded:
Posted: October 5th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Ugh. I hate it when they slip that stuff in and then you don’t realize your interest rate calcuations are all changing. It’s irritating. I read the fine print for work sometimes and it’s really taxing.

Perhaps PFBloggers should brand a line of magnifying glasses for that stuff.
Matt responded:
Posted: October 5th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Ever since I got a store card and saw the interest rate I will never get another one again. The sheere fact that they can charge as much as they do is annoying but when they pull stunts like you’ve encountered its down right infuriating.

Cut the card; transfer as much of the balance as possible, and close the account!
Tricia responded:
Posted: October 6th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Angela – “Bait and switch”…that’s sort of how I feel about it!

Mapgirl – LOL about the magnifying glasses! I think we all need them for all the fine print.

Matt – the card has less than $700 on it right now, so I am just going to pay it off next as soon as we can. I am thankful it didn’t have a higher balance.
Blogging Away Debt » Blog Archive » A Reflective Look Back at 2006 - Goodbye to $13,000 of our Debt responded:
Posted: December 30th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
[...] Did You Hear That – It Was My Jaw Hitting the Floor – Make sure you read those “Change of Terms” notices that you get from your credit cards. [...]
James responded:
Posted: April 8th, 2007 at 9:38 am
This just reinforces the whole point, its best NOT to use credit cards at all. I’d just switch to a debit card and pay down your credit balance. Carryng balances on cards doesn’t many any sense at all.