In recent days I have noticed that my interest rates on some of my credit cards are being increased over 4 times there current rate . When I call the credit card company's they tell me that I was mailed a letter with a deadline that has allready passed that would have enabled me to lock in the interest rate at the low rate that I was promised for the life of the loan if I had called before the cut off date and opted to close my account . It seems that no one at the credit card company's can even give me a date that they supposedly sent this letter . I was told by the credit card company that it was not there responsibility to make sure the United States Postal Service delivered the mail . I'm not sure what legal stand I have on this matter, can anyone give me advice on what to do ?

Clark wouldn't like it.. but I paid my Chase Visa..as a deduction from my checking account for four years..never late..never missed a payment.. My rate recently went from 5.99% to something like 12.43%.. with the prime of 3.25% and some greed cushion..piled on.. I called Case..with controlled fury.. for a few minutes..I knew they raised it because of other people defaulting..What made me more angry..were the lies to hid the real reason.."due to market changes"..blah..blah..blah.." "bull crap..you are reading from a script!"..I said.. with some anger."You are not citing the real reason !" I threatened to file a complaint.. with the FTC and with my Congresswoman..who has yet to get back to me..The silver linning was.. it made me angry enough to pay off the account..instead of managing the payments..with some adjustments.. to my spending.. the $9k debt.. should be gone in six months..Also..I did not expect..but did get a letter from Chase..restoring my old interest rate with no reduction in my credit line..But..it's too late..I am now bent on firing Chase..once and for all..

You know, the problem is that some people (like HA on 2/19/09)can't or don't want to see the big picture. It's so much simplier to just blame the whole econmoic mess on "people living beyond their means". Is that part of it, yes, but a small part. The Federal Reserve created and flooded the market with cheap money, creating the credit bubble. This was done on behalf of Wall Street, Investment Banking Corporate America and Banks. Compounding this was Congress removing every safe guard (Glass-Segile Act) that was put in place during the last Depression. Congress allowed these regulations to be removed because of the huge sums of money they were taking from the banking lobby. The entire system is corrupt, they allowed banking to be turned into a loan shark operation. Should people not have over spent? Yes, but, again the whole consumer economy was created by the Feds to keep a bankrupt economy going. There still doing it, by proping up every bankrupt financial insitution on the grounds their to big to fail. Ha, I'm glad you can live within your means, but remember the average working person has not seen their wages increase (against inflation) for over 30 years, Expenses kept going up and they borrowed against their homes. Not saying it was a good idea, but, they followed the advise of the financial industry. Not everyone who is in debt, bought more home than they could afford, or borrowed againsted it to pay for vacations and cars. You say your only 25 yrs old, great, learn about the monetary system and how it really works. You still have time.

I find it funny when people get upset when their interest rates go up and want to complain about it. DONT USE CREDIT CARDS THEN! And furthermore your interest on other "loans" probably went up too, but you're too busy fussing about a credit card, that you BORROWED money from a bank and they are charging a fee to do so. Get over it. It's life.

Citibank raised my rate from 12.9% to 24.9% recently. I called to find out why and they said they needed to make more money to offset their issues with the poor economy. Luckily, they put my rate back where it was and adjusted my payment/interest accrued for the duration of my membership till my current card expires in 2010. After that my account will close but I can still pay off at my current interest rate. Make the phone call-it's worth it.

Citibank is one of the worse offenders for rate jacking. My card is going from 6.99% to 14.99%. I have been a good customer for a number of years, this is how they thank me. I had my college aged daughter get a student card from Citibank last year. They had been dropping her rate since she got the card, now they have almost doubled her rate. I am shopping for a new card with a better institution!

Brian - What are the typical terms for a hardship plan and how do I qualify? I haven't missed payments but have a lot of outstanding credit card debt, all of which is now at a much higher interest rate. We have our own company and only have a contract until May. Thanks.

I have a 3.99% rate until the balance is paid off, never been late. I just got a statement that raised my minimun to $463.00 a month. There offer is to raise my rate to 7% for a year at $180.00 a month. If I'm ever late, interest goes to 29.9%.
Can't we do something ??!!!!!

I can certainly understand why Citibank needs to raise their interest rates. After all they have to buy a new Jet to fly their incompedent CEO and Board of Directors around. Same with B.O.A. their VP "couldn't" live with the office he inheritied, so they just had to spend a few million on getting it fixed up. Gee, if the office had a desk, chair and phone what else could he possible need. Yep a $65,000 toliet bowl. The funny thing is that these same bank executives go in front of Congress and tell them they have to raise interest rates to manage their "risk". The only risk is their mis-management. No insurance against that? Sad time in America. The bankers have sold us all out.

Just received a notice from Chase that they're raising our current interest rate of 8.99% to 12.99% starting March 2009! Options are to accept or opt-out and have our account closed! What these credit card companies/banks are really doing is double-dipping; i.e. gov't bailout money thanks to the tax-payers and rate-jacking! What are the politians doing to protect us?! NOTHING! THANKS FOR LETTING US GET HOSED!

I just got my notice from Chase on one of my 2 cards with them jacking the rate to 14.99%. It's outrageous. They also state that I may have to forfeit my mileage award if I opt out of the increase. Doesn't that get regulated by United instead of Chase? Now I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop for the 2nd account. These new rules need to go into effect immediately. The banks are just making use of this lead time to rate jack everyone before it goes into effect - and then who is it protecting? They should at least freeze any changes that are not a result of late or missed payments until the rule is in effect.

I thought I would pass along that I just got a rate jacking notice from Chase on my 2 credit cards with them. Although it is not a huge increase (prime plus 7.99%) I was at 7.99% before this so it is jacking non the less. The scary part of the notice was "They will apply to current and future balances on your account" Another laughable statment that was made, "The principal factor we considered in amending your account is maintaining profitability on your account". I carry a number of cards from different issuers so I believe I may just decline these changes. What will these banks do if we all pay off our cards and go to a cash only basis? They may have their money back but if we don't borrow it again how will they make more? I know that's nearly impossible but one can dream.

I have been an excellent paying customer with CitiBank for over 6 years!I have "never" been late on a payment, always pay over my minimum payment and keep my balance below my credit limit. I opened my account with CitiBank by transferring my balance from a competitor, and was "promised" that my interest rate would remain at 7.99% unless I exceeded my balance or made late payments. I just received my January bill that showed a rate increase from 7.99% to a whopping 14.99%, and I was "never" notified by the bank that the rate would be increased! I called the bank, and pulled the statement that they "claimed" included a notice of the increase, and there was no such notation provided. I advised the same to the "Customer Jacking" Manager, who expressed no empathy at all, and basically explained that either A)I accept the increase as is and keep the account, or B)Decline the increase, keep the lower rate and "not" expect to have another card issued after the card expires in September 2009. My job requires that I travel! I use my card, then submit my expenses to be reimbursed, so I NEED MY CARD!! CitiBank is unfair and has proven to be a very dishonest company! They are taking advantage of good paying customers by "forcing" us to pay the balances of others! If anyone has any suggestions of any actions that can be taken against CitiBank "please" pass on to Clark Howard or notify the news media! Broomhilda the so called Customer Service Manager at CitiBank informed me that I only have until January 31st to make my decision. The government has helped these con-artist banks with major bailouts, and in return CitiBanks account holders are being royally screwed!!! We need a BAILOUT NOW!!!!!

hey Clark,
I just got a notice in the mail from Discover doing just this. They are raising my rate on ne purchases and on my existing balance. Now we were planning to payoff this card but now are even more determined to do so. Wanted to comment since I didn't see anyone else mention Discover.

If the banks would stop raising rates arbitrarily and punishing good customers, people might lose some of the fear and start spending again. Wouldn't that be better for our economy? I don't want to use my cards at all now that I see how unscrupulous the banks are. It's no wonder everyone is just hunkering down and paying off existing debt, instead of buying anything new on credit. Congress should put these laws into place immediately to protect the consumers.

If I opt out, the card will expire on my next renewal rate. Will this hurt my FICO score?

It seems from the posts that Citicard is the worst offender of the "ratejacking". That's kind of ironic since they just borrowed $25 billion dollars from us the taxpaper. Form Citibank the new rules should of went into effect immediately.

I agree that this long delay in implementing the new rule (July 2010) is just one more example of the average consumer getting the shaft. There isn't any logical explaination that they could give that would justify 189 months to get the new rules put into place. If they can change our rates in 15 days, they can certainly incorporate the new rules with 30-60. It's just giving the banking lobby time to buy off Congress.

I use my card but don't carry a balance (maybe a few hundred at a time, and it gets paid off within 45 days.)I am never late, and have a good credit score. yet Citibank is raising my rate by 10 percentage points! I am canceling my cards.

I'm not an advocate for carrying balances on CC. Granted it's a poor financial choice. But, let look at the big picture as there is enough blame to go around. The Federal Reserve and Gov. created a cheap money supply in an effort to encourage "consumer spending" in hopes of keeping the economic wheels turning. Without the consumer spending on "trinket" and "vacations" ect. The U.S. economy would of collapsed 15 years ago. Again, I'm not advocating the CC balances, but this behavior was encouraged by our gov. and financial insitutions.

I really don't understand Brian's position. While I agree that people shouldn't carry balances, the reality is that they do. Most do responsiblily. Just because they do, doesn't/shouldn't give the CC companies the right (regardless of "the agreement") to impose "usery" interst fees. I don't have a problem with CC raising interest on new charges, but, I do have an issue with this "retro active" charges on existing balances. Most states had laws to protect consumers against these practices until the banking lobby bought off Congress (What's moral about that Brian?)and had them over turned. Why don't you look into the facts surrounding why a company like Citibank would moved it's credit card division to South Dakota? Their corporate headquarters is in NY.

I agree in principle with all the posts about not getting into debt, paying the cards off ect., but not all of us are in the same financial position. I realize that people like Brian are just smarter than us all and I hope for your sake that you are never faced with a true emergency. Just like AIG, Citicorp, Lehman's, sometimes all the money in the world can't cover the bill.

The very best way to handle these credit card companies, is to use your credit card as a charge card and pay the balance off each month. If you start this habit your life will be so free from the hold these companies have on you, and want to keep you there.So do yourself a favor and get yourself there.

sorry fellas. only idiots don't know or want to know that 99+% of all credit cards have interest rates that can be set by the cardholder at their whim. credit card issuers and holders both have a legal and moral obligation to follow the terms of the agreement you signed. nothing more, nothing less. The vast majority of those with credit cards who carry balances carry virtually all of their debt not for huge emergency medical procedures, but for consumer trinkets, vacations, dining out, trips to the mall and other totally discretionary expenditures. Again, it really does not matter why you carry credit card debt. The fact is that merely having credit card debt is an indication that you are living beyond your means. What happened to actually saving money for that "emergency" like the car broke down, i broke my leg, the furnace needs replacing, etc, etc, etc? Most people with credit card debt have zero savings and have spent their paycheck by the day they get it. For these people every expenditure beyond normal recurring expenses is an emergency that goes on the card. So what do you expect to happen? Stop blaming the credit card issuers for your failure at self control.

The days of cheap money and credit to anyone who fogs a mirror are gone. So wise up and become a saver. Living beneath your means is the only way. Anyone at any income strata can do it if they set their mind to it.

I've recently become a "victim" of Citibank rate jacking. A lot of people seem to be under the misconception that this is only an issue IF you carry a balance. That's not quite true.

I do a lot of international business travel and used my card for it's favorable 1% Foreign Transaction Fee. Citibank sent me new terms that they would be raising this to 3%. I opted out, and can now keep my current rate until 2010 when my card expires. Upon expiration, they will close my account and I will take my business elsewhere.

If you ask me, I think Citibank is making a big mistake by letting a customer go that routinely charges 25K a year on their card, but that's their business.

Why wait 18 month before these new rules go into affect? Other than what Clark mentioned about given them time to get the rules overturned, it also gives them time to raise the rates. Or is there a freeze in effect? Probably not, so I would anticipate that a lot more people will be getting ratejacked. You know, one rule that should of have gone into effect immediately was that if you were a financial insitution (like Citicorp) that got a "bailout", you shouldn't be able to raise the rates until you pay back the $25 billion you "borrowed" -Like we will ever see a payback on that. It's funny how the worst offenders of a rule or law are always the one crying the loudest for help when the tables get turned. Citibank gave their customers 21 day notice on ratejacks and they get 18 months advance notice from the Feds. Just great. It's easy to say "get the cards paid down", but we're in a terrible cycle of bad economy, home devaluation, loss of savings/investment, job loss.