With the latest bail-out of Citigroup costing us, the American taxpayers, approximately $20 billion dollars, you'd think they'd use the money to put some of their assets in order. Well, at least you'd think they'd not turn around and rob us for even more money. Wrong!Yesterday, like any other day, I came home after a long day at work and checked the mail, sat down on the couch, and began sorting through the bills. One of these envelopes I had received contained a letter from Citi explaining to me that starting December 1st of this year, the APR on the credit card I hold with them will now have an interest rate of the Prime Rate +13.99%. Oh, but wait, I'm not finished. The minimum APR cannot ever be below 19.99%. So, right now the Prime Rate is 4.00%. So, with the 13.99% added it would be 17.99%, which is really high, but since it can't be below 19.99%, it will default to 19.99%.
Keep in mind that this credit card is a monster anyway. We've had issues with Citi for a long time. Knowing that they've been in trouble, though, now it makes a lot of sense. I've been trying to get the balance down for years. I don't use the card, but the minimum payment is almost $200. I pay a little more than that each month - as much as I can afford - but the balance never really seems to move. Once year I used $900 of my tax return and 9 months later the balance was right back where it started. It's so frustrating! With this change, I don't know what we're going to do. The minimum payment is going to jump to probably almost $500, which I cannot afford. That will incur late charges, which will make the minimum even higher.
I wrote my Congressman today, and my Senator. I really think everyone else needs to do the same. This credit mess needs to be addressed, and handled. If anyone in this economy needs help, it's the people. I'm not asking for money. I don't want taxpayer money. I just want the government to stop handing it out to everyone else, and I want them to stop letting companies rob us blind! There needs to be a cap on credit companies - some kind of regulation on how they handle business. It's gotten out of hand. A good percentage of the country is going to have to file for bankruptcy at this rate.
4 comments:
I subscribe to Consumer Reports a non-profit organization that is currently working to promote regulation of the credit industry. I think its an important thing that needs to be done.
Oh thank God I cut mine into half (mine isn't with Citigroup though). I hope you would get good reply from the Senator (although i doubt it is of much use).
In my country everything is UP including transport, medical, petrol (I think you call it GAS), etc. :(
I've been in credit card debt a couple of times over the last years and it really is depressing to be paying off interest and seeing no change. Soul destroying, in fact! The only consolation I can give is that it does eventually go away .. no matter how much it seems like it, the lenders don't actually want you to lose everything. They want you be able to continue to use the credit card for many many years!
I wish you good luck, Sadie!
I found your article through Stumble. I don't think writing to the politicians is going to help you at all (apart from use up time, and add to your frustration when nothing happens).
Phone up the company and ask if they can freeze the interest. The other option is to go on a complete economy drive and ear-mark money to get the debt down. Paying a little more than the minimum won't help - you sort of need to pay double the minimum to get the debt down. But it's easier said than done.
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