Saturday I was catching up on paperwork and noticed that the interest rate on my Chase credit card had jumped from 3.99% to 13.24%. It took a long frustrating phone call and talking with a manager to find out what actually happened. Although I had a lifetime interest rate of 3.99% and for almost two years had made electronic payments every month on the last day of every month, suddenly it took Chase nine days to post that payment instead of the usual two or three. And, because it took nine days – it was late! Being late aliowed them to jump the interest rate by almost 10%!

Now the frustrating part was although the manager could see that the payment had always been made on the same day and always took two days to get there, it didn’t make a difference. It appears that Chase’s policy is to flatly refuse all requests for reconsideration. Concern for the customer or even valuing my viewpoint was not part of the policy. Instead the policy is to instruct their customer to write a letter to appeal.

I hung up the phone, frustrated to say the least and thought, “oh forget it—it’s not worth the bother”. And then I thought, “is this what they’re hoping for?” How many customers have given up in frustration? How many times do we lose because we don’t bother to speak up for what we need? Or because we don’t follow through?

Anyway, the letter has been sent. We’ll see what happens. I’m hoping that I’m wrong about the intentions of Chase. I still like to think we are all in this together and that we’re not taking advantage of each other during this financial mess we’re in.

Still looking through rose-colored glasses. Am I blind?

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