My financial difficulties began last year. My life partner injured his back at work and has been on compensation off & on since then. We have not had a consistant flow of income so we had fallen behind on some bills. As time went on the bills were getting paid but were a little late. Direct Mechants Bank jacked the interest rate from 19.9% to Over 28%. I had two accounts with them Visa & MC. On both accounts they slammed me with high interest rates and late fees. Within a year my balance doubled (not from purchases but) from all of the extra fees. It got to the point that I would send them $200 and $198 was applied to the interest & fees.
Direct Merchants Bank decided to close my visa account because I had sent them one too many late fees. I was fine with this decision. After aprox 3 months later I noticed on the billing statement that Direct Merchants Bank RAISED THE CREDIT LIMIT!
The account was supposed to be closed but they did it anyway. I had called the company to find out why they raised the limit on a closed account and they told me because I had established good payment records again. Which was BS. I told them to close it and they never did.
Knowing my circumstances, my MC account was still open and they increased this limit anyway.By litterly thousands of dollars just to accrue more late fees & finance charges! (Over 28%) Even though I still had late payments.
Direct Merchants Bank is not a friendly bank who will help you out when you need it the most. They don't care about the customers circumstances. I am a mother of two working as hard as I can and now my life partner has to udergo surgery and is disabled at this point in time. Our family of 4 has been living off $100-$150 a week with no other income.
28% aren't there any state or federal laws on capping the interest rate?
0 comments