Blog for Carson Tang

Interest Rate Surprise! This jaw dropping insight will make you think twice before doing business with Chase or obtaining a card from them even if you a A+ credit rating!

Unbelievable and true — you can be charged a 55.48% interest rate in just six months from a 9.77% rate by just paying your bills on time? In my case it was paying more than I owed each month! Here it is .. Chase baits people in to use lines of credit or balance transfers at a low rate and once you’re in .. wham!!! the interest rates taking a flying leap into the ionosphere!

Banks, as businesses, deserve to make their money. When they jack the interest rates shortly after you incur a running balance and keep increasing it as you pay down what you owe it forces you to fall victim to an insane game for making money (although diabolical, ingenious and unethical). You are no longer dealing with fair trade practices, a good corporate citizen, nor dealing with a business that is making just a last ditch business decision when what you have going on is unfair, unjust, predatory, and unnecessary.

Here is an actual example of how they raise interest rates, using my account as a case history and accounting of what actually happened:

June 2009 — $9.77% (Effective APR) — $53 min payment due
July — 10.47% — $52 min due
September — 15.42% — $24 min due
October — 17.52% — $10 min due
November 2009 — 55.48% - $5.62 min due

I was paying off more than the amount due each month on the Chase credit card. As the balance got lower the bank raised my interest rates (on a monthly basis!). This ultimately required me to pay more interest instead of principal as I got closer to a zero balance. As you can see from my minimums I was making as much over payments as quick as possible to get the hell out of Dodge before I got stuck in a payment trap set by the increasing interest rates.. which hit home at 55.48% just as I hit the final pay offs I was making in the account.

It is unconscionable how these practices are not brought under the scrutiny of those who protect tax paying consumers from such predatory and unethically deliberate methods of the banks making money when they are already receiving billions of tax payer dollars to help them out.

For me the account was just paid off and will be closed very soon after having seen that interest rate hit 55.48%. My issue is no longer because I learned my lesson. However, I cannot imagine what is and will happen to struggling families and individuals who do not have the credit worthiness or opportunities to get out of the vicious trap set by banks like Chase who bring in credit card customers at low interest rates where the family knows they could afford to pay it off and really need the money to pay the bills.

Then one day wham bam thank you sucker!

When you hear or see bad things happen to others it is important to think about whether it can happen to you or loved ones as well and empower yourself to be an more informed and protected consumer. Before you get suckered into a credit card, balance transfer or line of credit issue where you may run a balance, even if you will be able to pay off the predicted minimum, expect there to are bad guys like Chase out there who will prey on consumers without the knowledge just shared with you above and will lock you in by just kicking up the interest rate each time you get closer to paying off a balance so you can’t afford to get out of the rat race.

Attached is a copy of parts of my actual Chase statements so you know I am not making this stuff up! Do boogie men exist? Yes, they reside behind ivory towers and huge wooden desks on Wall Street.

Shame on you Chase! I wonder what you did with the stimulus money you received from our tax dollars that you have to resort to such predatory lending and unethical practices on innocent people? By the way Chase is not the only guilty party to these incredible and despicable acts so are Capital One, Bank of America, and HSBC.

If you have a business, work with customers who are your life blood.. this could be a great lesson, and even better think about the banks out there that are working within the framework of remaining ethical in their practices and not taking the load road.. wouldn’t this be a great marketing and pr opportunity to talk up how they don’t and will never treat their customers?

Sometimes your customers will pay more if you show them you are on their side, give them value, and operate an a level of integrity that makes the customer feel  they are looked after and come first, not a sucker to be taken for a ride and racked over the coals for every penny they have.

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