Credit Cave

It happens to everyone. Your credit card interest goes up. Its a fact of life almost as certain as the tides.

Just because you have stellar credit does not mean that a bank or finance company will not test your boundaries. They will move your interest rate up often times just to see if you are paying attention.

Then there are the other reasons for rate increases. General interest rate rises as tracked on the LIBOR or through Prime Rates. Missed or late credit card payments. Too many over draft fees. Your balance gets to high for the credit card companies to keep that warm feeling about your ability to pay, so they raise your rates.

Take Steps to Lower Your Interest Rate

It is certain that if you do nothing, you will pay a higher rate. You have nothing to lose from trying to lower your rate.

1. The best way to proceed is to pay off the balance. This isn’t always possible, but this is the best way to avoid interest rate increases.
2. Call your credit card company and simply ask for a lower rate. Many credit card companies are waiting for your call. They do not want to lose your business as they make too much money from you. So their call center employees often have scripts or transfer lines standing by awaiting a call with a request to lower the rate. Use this Option!
3. Transfer your balance to another account with a lower rate.
4. If you are going to miss a payment, go over your credit limit or any other event that might trigger a negative check on your credit, call your credit card company. Tell them the situation and tell them what you are doing to address it. They may only take note of it in their system, but that note could be valuable for you when someone is confronted with a decision to raise your rate later.

The bottom line is that you do not have to suffer the rising rates. You can act and you can get your rate lowered. The old saying, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” applies both to you and the credit card company. You won’t gain savings if you don’t try and lower your rate, and they won’t gain more profits if they don’t try to bump up your rates every now and then to see if you are paying attention.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Credit Cards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.