Advanta is stealing money from it's customers. They are shot gunning changes in existing rate agreements without notice. These changes go out and show up just like a million other solicitations you may get from credit card companies.
I received a statement that had gone from 7.99% to 25.78%. I did not realize this because my bookkeeper handles paying bills. She had pre-written our monthly bill for me to sign, stuff and mail. We did not see additional fees had been added. I had also gone over my limit (for the first time in 4 years) and no-one contacted me to notify me nor did they send me a notice in my daily report that comes via email. They just put in fees (and rightly so for my bad on the over draft) I had agreed to that under the terms of my agreement. Unfortunately, we had not agreed to the increase, however the way the increase is handled is where I see them bilking millions from unsuspecting customers.
The way they are doing this is they tell you in the new notice of change that you are going up to a specified fee. At the very end they tell you that you can opt out by freezing the account and locking in your rate. If you keep using it you pay the higher fee.
They are sneaking this by. This card was my business card. I used it daily for everything. I do not read every piece of mail that comes in from credit card companies and I am certain that most people that own their own businesses do not take the time to do this either. Credit card companies should be required to have signed authorization to changes in account charges. If you are using this company I would be very cautious or cancel it and use another company. Other companies that post these types of issues have hundreds of angry cardholders who they bilked money out of.
I have a perfect payment record until this last incident. I brought my account current by paying in advance and their added charges. They told me that was the only way they would talk further about freezing the account at the original rate while I paid it off and they would not send any type of notice too credit. I have a 720 credit score and work my ass off to keep it. They sent it to credit because I rec'd a notification from my Equifax and they would not freeze the account. They did refund $400 but I am still going to pay 25%, more than 3 times my original, agreed up rate. This is scandalous. I smell class action lawsuit!
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