What makes you they speak English in Philadelphia?
Posted on 03/15/2009 11:42:38 AM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
If you haven't had the credit limit cut on your credit card recently, count yourself lucky. Risk-averse card issuers are getting slash happy. And while many cardholders gripe that such cuts slice razor-close to their balance amounts, for an unfortunate few the cuts go far deeper: below what they currently owe.
Under different circumstances, David Chaplin-Loebell wouldn't have minded that American Express cut his unlimited credit line to just $5,000. Except that when AmEx reduced his line in October, he had an outstanding balance of $10,000. "I found out by having a business purchase declined," he says. Repeated calls to AmEx failed to yield an answer about why the cut was made. Chaplin-Loebell, who lives in Philadelphia, is now paying the balance under his regular card terms, and presumes the line will free up for new purchases once he's below the limit. "For now, they've essentially frozen the account," he says, leaving him to juggle business expenses on his personal cards. American Express did not respond to requests for comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
My Visa accounts are through my credit union. Much more favorable terms. And they don’t treat me like I have herpes.
The guy carrying a balance is a credit risk!
HSBC are crooks and should be out out of business (the market should do that, not government)
Such a shame as that was the original intent. The Cash/Credit price is starting to come back.
It’s not happening to me, so it can’t be true!
As long as you keep paying, you'll likely see the limits raised often. It's not necessarily a good thing. A little identity theft or an irresponsible family member can put you in a world of hurt very quickly. Lower limits aren't necessarily bad.
No, they want to chase their highest risk customers away. They did pretty well before they became a credit card company.
“Such a shame as that was the original intent”
No way!
It’s a convience card, if you don’t have the money in the bank don’t use it!
This is less the “evil” credit card companies than them being caught between a rock an a hard place. The exception is AMEX, which is in very deep trouble because of its *banking* activities, and may fold because of them.
The problem lies in the fact that while the CC companies make a few billion dollars a year profit, that amount is tiny compared to the many billions of dollars they need to *borrow* to cover their cardholders debt.
They do this by issuing bonds. And they issue a lot of bonds. But right now, this puts them in competition with everybody else who wants investment dollars, especially the US government Treasury bills.
And because the government is on a spending spree, for the first time in a long time, something odd happened. The CC companies issued a bond, and nobody bought it. A bond failure. Instantly, this meant that the CC companies were in deep trouble.
What we are seeing right now is their reaction to just that *one* bond failure. Canceling inactive cards, and lowering credit limits. The CC companies trying to reduce their exposure, so they will be able to cover bondholder debt.
Importantly, they are also cutting those who always pay their bills on time, because they make very little profit for the CC companies compared to those that have some debt. And because card holders are lumped into “classes”, even if you are a good customer, if you are in a bad class, you can get cut as well.
But this shows a major threat in the future. Unless the US government stops spending money at a furious rate, more CC bond issues may fail, and with them, many people will lose their credit cards entirely. Since millions of Americans are dependent on their credit cards to meet their monthly expenses, they will be unable to pay rent or make other purchases.
The CC companies have little latitude in this, because even their profits can only cover a fraction of cardholder debt. They may even be forced into “card holidays”, where for the last few days of the month, suddenly nobody’s credit card works.
With the possible, but not definite, exception of a mortgage — I’ll never borrow another nickel. It is somewhat freeing ... and I couldn’t care less what my credit report says.
I am as anti-regulation as any conservative — but it is truly time to crack down on credit card companies. I fail to see how it is legal to unilaterally alter the contractual terms on money already lent. Once the money is lent and the purchase is made, the contract should be locked — no changing limits, repayment terms, interest rates, etc. without the written authorization of the borrower.
SnakeDoc
What is this "balance amount"?
American Express and Citi may be the worse card companies to deal with.
Years ago I conducted focus groups in the meeting rooms of nice restaurants 3-4 evenings a week. The monthly bills for the dinners were often in the 5 figure range which were paid in full each month when I received the bill.
One time I had refund from one of the restaurants for an error on their part re my billing, and they credited AMX. The credit was received by AMX a couple of weeks before my bill was sent out by AMX.
I received the bill and the credit had not been applied. So I contacted them and subtracted the amount of the uncredited refund and paid the full bill, again over 5 figures.
AMX ended up charging me interest for the full amount as they said I hadn’t paid my bill in full. It took a couple of months for the credit to finally be entered by AMX. That cost me money that I didn’t owe them. My CPA said to over pay the next bill by 13.33 and never use the card again. She said that billing had to cost them a nice sum. That was my first experience dealing with someone in India on the phone. I never got an apology nor a refund for the insult and basic unarmed robbery on their part.
Someone called Rush last week and commented that his interest rates on his credit cards were jacked up even though he was paying his bills regularly (I presume not paying the whole amount but enough to cover the minimum).
Rush’s answer was that they were sending the caller a message to close the account.
I had two accounts with Citibank with rates of 7.9% and 4.9%. I was gradually transferring money from the higher card to the lower card when, suddenly in January, they rose each card by 9% while asking Congress for bailout money.
I was able to move the money I had in these accounts without a great deal of damage but I feel sorry for the people who had no fallback strategy. I’ve gradually pared down a $15,000 debt to below $6,000 and I hope to have it whittled down to zero within two years unless the Democrats further tank the economy.
We’ve also had problems with AMEX. My husband’s employer has them use AMEX for expense account items. He is supposed to submit his expense account monthly and the payment goes directly to AMEX. He made the mistake of getting behind on his in-house paperwork and paid the AMEX bill from our personal funds before submitting his expenses for approval. When he submitted the corporate expenses, they also paid AMEX, so now AMEX has approximately $3,000 in overpayment on his account. He has tried repeatedly to get reimbursement from AMEX for the overpayment, and every time he talks to them, they seem unable to process the English language. Unlike you, he’s not talking to someone in India. He’s been talking to someone in Philadelphia. In his case, it appears to be a series of Affirmative Action hires who don’t know much and aren’t very willing. I’ve been bugging him about it, and now that I’m hearing rumblings (above) that AMEX may be in trouble, I’ll really insist on it.
What makes you they speak English in Philadelphia?
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