Red Bluff woman launches credit card revolt (Enjoy the chargin' but not the payin'? Join.)

Redding.com ^ | 9/17/09 | David Benda

[Libloather]

Red Bluff woman launches credit card revolt
By David Benda
Posted September 17, 2009 at midnight

RED BLUFF - Ann Minch's vow to stop making payments on her Bank of America credit card has captured a nation.

Upset that the bank raised her interest rate to 30 percent, the 46-year-old Red Bluff native vented her outrage on video and uploaded it to YouTube.

She calls the four-minute, 28-second clip "the proverbial first shot in an American Debtors Revolution," and it has struck a chord with the public.

Minch will be in San Francisco today doing a live TV interview for the "Fox & Friends" morning show. She also has been contacted by MSNBC and local TV and radio and did an interview for The Huffington Post.

"I have just been bombarded with media," said Minch, who's a case worker for Tehama County Mental Health.

Minch posted the video Sept. 8. It had generated nearly 177,000 hits as of Wednesday afternoon.

"I did it that night. The next morning, I went to work and didn't really think about it too much," Minch said Wednesday by phone from her Red Bluff home. "My friends started to call me and said, 'You are famous; your video has gone viral. It's all over the Internet.' "

Minch was laid off from her job at Tehama County Mental Health but recently was rehired to fill in for somebody on medical leave, she said.

Minch's fury with Bank of America ignited in August when she got a letter from the bank that said the rate on her credit card had been raised to 30 percent. Minch, a 14-year bank customer, was carrying a $6,000 balance on the card but had never missed a payment.

When Minch started going over back statements, she realized the bank in January had raised her rate from 12.99 to 24.49 percent. But Minch said the bank didn't send her a letter, so she missed the change.

On the video, Minch says, "Now, these are my terms: Unless you return my interest rate and monthly installment amount to what it was before the rate hike ... you're not getting another penny out of me."

Bank of America spokeswoman Colleen Haggerty said the company is aware of Minch's YouTube clip but doesn't comment on specific customer accounts because of privacy concerns.

"Regarding credit card rate increases, customers are notified in advance of new rates and are given the opportunity to reject the new rate and pay off the balance under the existing rate," Haggerty said in an e-mail.

Minch is aware of the policy.

"But who has $6,000 just lying around?" Minch said. "The bottom line is that because of the bailout, this is what is making people angry. The banks are the ones that created this whole economic disaster in the first place. The taxpayers bailed them out, albeit involuntarily."

Minch said middle-class America is fed up.

"That is the reason why my video has gone supernova and has resonated with so many people," Minch said.

[AppyPappy]

That’s why she needs to take her business elsewhere

[CSM]

When ya play with snakes, don’t be surprised when ya git bit!

Thanks Diana and INBN for the ping!

Dave Ramsey Fan Ping List.

If you would like to be added to the “Live like no one else, so that you can LIVE like no one else” list, feel free to Freepmail me

[Chickensoup]

My cc rates have been raised on most of my cards except the balance transfer I did a few years ago. My credit score is gold plated. I have never missed a payment in thirty years and pay off my payments each month.

[Graybeard58]

And you’re ok with using the banks money as long as it doesn’t cost you anything. That seems immoral to me.

Immoral? What's immoral about it? They offer it and I accept it. It's a business agreement. I don't pay a cent in interest and yet the c.c. company makes money on every c.c. purchase I make because they have business agreements with merchants I make the purchases from.

Free enterprise at its finest.

[CSM]

Awesome link! Thanks.

[GWMcClintock]

My hubby and I WERE completely debt free until we were transfered. We’re now waiting on our old home to sell, so that we can pay off the new digs.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

Not until the fine print in a change of terms abolishes your grace period on purchases.

I use a CC as a convenience, so that I don't have to lug cash or a checkbook around.

I don't intend to ever pay a dime in fees or interest to any CC issuer. If they ever pulled a stunt like what you described, I would have no further use for the CC.

[The Comedian]

Are you a freeloader?

Dearest weirdo, I pay more in taxes every year than you have probably made in the last decade. I support several generations of family, and charities would feel my absence.

I'm not sure of your point, if you had one, but my original statement stands.

I wish the woman the best, hope she is a lesson to many about entering open-ended contracts of any sort, and I hope all the banksters die crying in the rain.

Clear enough for you?

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[4Godsoloved..Hegave]

We never paid a balance transfer fee. We only chose the ones without BTF. I haven’t looked at them in quite awhile. Will look the next few times we get one in the mail. No debt & 100% interest free are the only way to go. Purposing to get out of debt, vehicles and mortgage free was our goal for many years. Being thrifty became a science. It was worth it and our children have all learned the art.

[Still Thinking]

If she were paying it off in a reasonable time at the old interest rate and refused to pay the increase she would have a point.

Where would the disincentive to the bank be for the chicanery? If they do this to 100 people and some people go along and the most assertive just keep doing what they would have done anyway, what does the bank have to lose. Also, it's a credit card account, so she determines the amount she pays each month and the difference over or under the total of purchases and interest changes the balance. So the extra interest she supposedly wasn't paying would just accrue to the balance, and if she wanted to get out of paying she'd have to negotiate or have a showdown with the bank at some point anyway to get it taken back out.

[SkyDancer]

Seems you’ve already drank from the well ... LOL