Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Credit! Who Needs It? Me!!

Well for the third time in as many years, we got a letter from our only remaining credit card company saying that they are going to raise our interest rate....and it's all the government's fault!

I read over the letter and tried to decipher the fine print....yadda, yadda, yadda. We are raising your rate to almost 16% even though you are a great customer...blah, blah, blah. You have until November 27th to decide if you like your new deal. If not, you can close your account, keep the interest rate you have now and make your regular monthly payments. Wow, I am so excited!

My initial instinct was to close the account. It makes me so mad when you pay your bill on time and you always pay extra....and...they don't really care.

I talked to Michael because he is really, really up on credit scores since he did tons of research before they bought their house and he said to try not to close the account if we can. We have had this account for over six years and it's a positive on our credit score. I really don't understand all of that, but the balance on this one is way too high to have a 16% interest rate. I had decided to close it and give Discover a piece of my mind! :)

So, we applied for a new card with another company because I hate being without a credit card in case of an emergency. The new one arrived, so I called to cancel the Discover card. Get this...the lady literally bent over backward to get me to keep the friggin' card. The interest rate will go up a half a percent, not to the dreaded 16%, but you are such a good customer, please keep it....etc. etc. etc.

Now I was really confused. Keep it? Close it? Keep it? Close it? I told her I would call back. I called Michael and he said to keep it. It will help our credit score to have that good credit history on a card we've had for that many years. So, darn it anyway....I have to keep it. We have good credit and I hate for my score to drop too much in case we do decide to move at some point and need to borrow money. I don't want to be working hard to get my score back up....I would rather work to make my good score an excellent score.

Darn you Discover! I wanted the satisfaction of telling you to kiss my butt....and now I can't. I will continue to pay my bill...on time...every month and one of these days...I won't owe you a penny! So there!!

3 comments:

Lanyardlady said...

Don't get me started on credit card companies. Evil, evil, evil. Thank goodness you had Michael's advice.

Niki said...

Ack! I know what you mean! I got one of those dreaded letters from Wells Fargo. Like you, I pay mine on time, usually some extra. It's a sucky time for people with credit cards.

Shellie said...

I am also tired of getting such letters, Now I am looking for some credit repair secrets to improve my credit score. Can you tell me some ??

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