Egg credit card interest rates?

Today I received an email from egg stating that as they personalise the service to offer their customers they%26#039;re going to increase the interest rate on my card by 5% !!! I%26#039;ve never even been late or missed a payment with them. Has any one else received anything like this and is it legal? Surely any increase has to be reasonable, this seems practically criminal.

Egg credit card interest rates?

Yes, this has happened to me, even though I always pay my balance in full. Your credit card company%26#039;s raising your interest rate, so long as they give adequate advanced notice, is completely legal. It doesn%26#039;t matter whether your rate is fixed or variable. In fact, your Terms and Conditions (i.e., the fine print) probably spell out exactly what they were allowed to do.

What they are doing is playing a game. They are testing you to see whether you will ignore the rate increase. Sadly, many people are afraid to confront an authority like a creditor. Even more are so ignorant of their rights, or can%26#039;t understand fine print, that they do nothing except vent to everyone except the creditor.

Even worse, a few will try to punish the creditor by not paying, and these few end up seriously damaging their own credit history.

You may be subject to the dreaded Universal Default. Your creditor (call them A) tells you it is establishing a Universal Default clause as an addendum to your card%26#039;s Terms and Conditions, reads your credit report regularly, finds some other negative information reported by a different creditor (call them B), and raises your rates even though you have excellent payment history with A. It can be anything that lowers your credit score, something so simple as maxing out a different (B%26#039;s) card even though you pay it on time.

A secret: You may have a major advantage: if you%26#039;ve never missed a payment, you may have a high enough credit score to be able to transfer balances to another company. Use this as negotiation leverage with your creditor.

If you want to be an effective advocate for yourself: (1) Let go of your disbelief and negative emotions. (2) Call up the creditor and tell them that you are thinking of transferring your balance to another card. Ask %26quot;Is there anything you can do about my interest rates today?%26quot; Be polite, cheerful and unemotional. Believe it or not, the customer rep is trained to retain you as a valued customer, not get you annoyed. They want to keep you, especially your lovely balance. It%26#039;s expensive for the marketing department to get another customer as good as you are. If they ask you to fill out a form so that the rate reviewers will look over your account, say %26quot;No, thank you.%26quot; (It%26#039;s a delay tactic.) If the customer rep says no to a rate drop, ask for his/her direct supervisor, pleasantly. Start over, pleasantly, naming the name of the first rep. Same routine: thinking-of-transferring and question. Take notes, people%26#039;s names, and the time and date throughout. If the super gives you a no, ask for the Customer Retention Department. You%26#039;ll get a rep, so do the same thing. And if you get another no, ask for his/her supervisor. If you get 4 no%26#039;s, one from each person, thank them poilitely, no sarcasm. It%26#039;s finally time to look for a balance transfer with another company. You%26#039;ve just tested them back: you now know beyond a doubt that your credit history doesn%26#039;t meet their requirements for a rate drop.

Under NO circumstances should you close the account, even if they suggest closing or they ask you whether you want to close it. Don%26#039;t do it. Closing an account can potentially hurt your FICO credit score in 3 ways. And closing an account can never improve your score.

What happened to me: they lowered my fixed purchase rate slightly, to 17 3/4 %, but also gave me a special promotional rate of 3% (and 1.9% on balance transfers), effective immediately, for the next 6 months, then told me to call them back in 6 months and they%26#039;d talk to me again about my needs. See the game here? They give me a nice, delightful but temporary break, then wait for me to get lazy and let the promotional rate expire, or prove in 6 months with a phone call that I still want it.

Conclusion: polite communication, gently using a threat that you%26#039;ll leave if you don%26#039;t get what you want, is powerful. Did all this help you?

Egg credit card interest rates?

loan

Look in the paperwork originally given to you with the credit card or check online for their disclosure. Unless the paperwork states otherwise, it is legal for a credit card company to change your interest rate, the minimum payment and most anything else after proper notification to the consumer.|||I also received an E-mail yesterday and like yourself I have never been late or missed a payment so this morning I rang them, paid off the balance with my Debit Card and cancelled the account with immediate effect.

If it it%26#039;s Egg%26#039;s way of increasing their take from interest then it has badly backfired.

Cheers,

David.