When I received my statement for my payment that is due 9/23/08, I discovered that Washington Mutual had increased my interest rate from 9.86% to 19.52%. This is an increase of 198%.
I called WAMU, and was told that they had sent me a letter in May letting me know that they were going to increase my interest rate, and that if I didn't want this done, I could opt out and close my account. When I told the representative that I did not received this notification, she said well the company does periodic checks on customer profiles, and this prompted them to increase my rate. I told them that I had never been late with a payment, and that I knew there couldn't have been anything in my profile to give them reason to raise my rate. The representative just kept repeating the same thing over and over, and when I saw that I wasn't getting anywhere, I told them to just close my account, if they couldn't lower my rate, and I'd find a way to pay them off and get rid of them
I also have knowledge that they are doing this same thing to soldiers who are now serving in Iraq. My nieces husband had his APR increase approx. 200%, and they have perfect credit.
This company is in trouble financially, and it appears that they are taking advantage of their customers in order to bail themselves out. What they do is charge you so much interest that you have to increase your monthly payment in order to keep the account from going over the limit. Otherwise, They force your account over limit and then access your account penalties in order take more money away from you. At the rates they're charging, you can never get the account paid off.
If there has been a class action suit filed against this company, there should be. How does one get a class action suit filed?
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