Direct Merchants Bank
Ripoff, unjustified monthly APR increases on members in great standing with platinum Mastercards

My wife has had a DMB MasterCard for many years now. She has never ever missed a payment, been late or gone over limit. She uses the card here and there for small purchaces and our car insurance premiums every 6 months. She makes much larger than required payments each month to cut down the balance on this card also.

Over the past few months from July through October DMB has increased her APR from 17.99% up to 24.57% on purchaces. The cash advance APR has gone up to 29.57%. I had her call DMB customer service today to complain and find out why. They told her it was because the "prime rate" had gone up each of the past 2 months. I looked up the "prime rate" and they were right it had gone up twice over the past 2 months, by. 5%, lol. A whole 1/2 of a percent. Since when does 1/2 a percent justify APR increases of over 6% over a 3 month period? They did review her credit and since she is in perfect standing with them they dropped her APR by 2% down to 22.99%.

Luckily we are in a position to pay this card off within a few months and thats exactly what we are going to do.

Our FICO scores have been continually rising from year to year and we are both currently in the 680 - 700 range. So I think DMB is soaking it's customers and would not recommend them to anyone.

I have been told that it's not a good idea to close credit card accounts because it can drop your FICO score. Is there any truth to this?

Steve
Grand Terrace, California
U.S.A.

Company: Direct Merchants Bank
Country: USA
State: Oklahoma
City: Tulsa
Address: PO BOX 21550
Phone: 8003797999

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