Orchard Bank and HSBC are some of the worst predatory lending companies in business today as a far as gouging excellent customers with interest rate spikes. My wife has 3 cards with HSBC and Orchard Bank and I have 2 with Orchard Bank. We got them 3 years ago to help rebuild our credit. We both started at 15% on our 2 Orchard cards each and She got the GM card a year ago with 0% APR for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers; and the 8.99% afterwards.
We recently noticed that our Orchard Bank cards shot from 15% to 27% and 29% APR, and her GM Card hit 31.33%. We have neevr missed a payment with any of these cards, nor any of our other cards or accounts that we have had now and in the past years.in fact we just bought 2 new Honda Civics last September at low prime rates becasue we have had no bad issues (collections, etc..) on our reports.
In fact since getting these cards and our others, our scores have migrated into the low 700s and 2 at 696 and 690. Our reports are so much better with higher scores now and we are happy to see the prime offers coming in now. We have a American Express and Citibank card with high limits and low APRs. We even prequalify for a low 4.5% fixed home loan, but are waiting to save up to pay closing costs and anything else associated with home buying. So you would think that a company will rewards always paying on time and never going over your limit; as well as improving their credit reports and scores.
When I called and spoke with several different supervisors and CSRs, they kept telling me that the rate hike was due to bad information showing in my credit report (i.E. Chargeoffs unpaid, collection account, etc...). I asked each one to please tell me when they pulled our reports and what they claimed was bad in them. The dates they gave for pulling our reports for review were inaccurate. We had not one inquiry from Orchard Bank or HSBC on our inquiry list at the end of all 3 credit reports. I know because I called them on it while I had our credit reports pulled up on our computer (beauty of cell phones). Noone could even tell me what was bad on our credit reports since there was nothing to find. I let them know they were full og bologna.
I read off our FICO scores from MYFICO as we talked and asked them if a 715 experian score means Im a terrible credit risk? I got no response.:-)
I shared with each company our total disgust in how they handled our business with them and apparently thousand others from what we see on this website.
What they are doing is a simple bait em and switchem interest rate routine. Give them a good low interest rate for a year or so and literally "make up" and excuse using a pulled fake credit report scheme to jack their interest rate to almost Usary violation levels. I had one manager tell me that if they wanted to jack the interest rate to above 100%, for no reason, they could and would to make money. I simply responded "Thank you for your honesty. We now know what your company is all about and how you all operate. We will be closing our account over the next couple weeks after paying them off completely."
This company must be in good with some mobster group, because they know how towork a crime perfectly. I mentioned that a company can do what they want using loopholes and dirty tactics to make tons and tons of money each year of the public, but that life and Karma always find a way of paying back the evil doers.
We have paid off and closed all accounts with this company and urge anyone to stay away from them. If you would like to build history, there are much better companies to get in with for long standing credit history. We hated to close 1 and 3 year old accounts, but we don't like being robbed by credit card companies, much less anyone. Keep posting about this company so our voices don't go unheard. Good luck everyone.:-)
Wyoguy
Cheyenne, Wyoming
U.S.A.
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