My wife received an offer for a 1.9% credit card from Chase. She accepted the card, transferred balances from other cards and happily made minimum payments for many months. The payments were automatically made, significantly before the due date, through her bank.
Suddenly, her minimum payment increased $9. Not knowing this, the automatic payment was insufficient. The results were:
A $39 late fee and an increase in interest rate from 1.99% to 18.24%! That is a 917% increase in interest rate, not for a missed payment, not for a late payment, but for a payment that was $9 short.
Why did the payment go up $9? To quote the bank rep, "That month had 31 days."
In addition, as a member of the Chamber of Commerce, I spoke with the manager of the local Chase branch. "I will institute a review immediately. I can't do anything more than that as I have no relationship with the credit card department." Two weeks later, the credit card dept. Had still not started a "review".
When asked what the pay-off amount would be, the response was "I can't tell you that. You can pay the current balance and then we'll bill you for the interest due."
For the millionth time I repeat, "The worst Credit Union is better than the best bank."
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