Want Lower Credit Card Rates? Spend 750 bucks every month!!

Credit card companies LOVE to screw customers. After making them deal with the shock and horror of one time credit rates around 8% get JACKED UP to 29%, Citibank has decided to "make nice" with their customers:

Those who meet the spending minimum , in some cases $750 a month , will be able to get a rebate on their total interest charges for that month. The rebate could cover some or all of the interest rate hike. Customers also need to make payments on time to qualify for the rebate.

Yes, that's right, they want you to spend almost a GRAND every month in hopes to get you trapped further. Unbelievable!

Got Perfect Credit? It'll Cost Ya...

Let's see....banks get money from taxpayers to save their sorry behinds..check...

Now what do banks do to forthright customers who have perfect credit? They charge them for it!!

The banks are starting to charge fees to reliable customers in response to a slew of new credit card industry regulations that will limit when banks can hike interest rates. Cardholders who get a new annual fee notice in the mail will be in a no-win situation.

"They can either pay that fee or they can close the account, and if they have had the account for a while and they close it, they are potentially going to hurt their credit card score," said Woolsey.

Improving your credit score based on New FICO method

The latest update to FICO's scoring model may result in a very good thing for many people...a higher score. Some changes include:

Under the updated scoring model, called FICO 08, small, missed payments lingering in collections with original amounts of $100 or less will no longer do damage to your credit score.

Consumers also are less likely to be penalized for any single delinquency if it occurred two or more years ago - and if their credit history is otherwise unblemished, says FICO, formerly Fair Isaac Corp., which developed the FICO scoring system.

As noted in this article here, even if you get a credit limit cut, it may not have that much of an impact on your scores.

Of course, if your scores are really bad, you can go into a career of making cover songs about the financial crisis, much like this Pink Floyd remake:

When Debtors Default: How debt defaults are at levels last seen during "Shay's Rebellion"

Pretty bad when the most relevant comparison of today's level of consumers not paying on their credit cards is best compared to a revolt in 1786!

The deteriorating relationship between Americans and their creditors has not yet reached the level of Shays’ Rebellion, the 1786 uprising by poor farmers in western Massachusetts during a recession. But the basic issues are strikingly similar, suggesting an eternal tension between creditor and consumer.

Boston merchants, who were suffering themselves, aggressively sought payment from their customers. When the folks could not pay, which was often, they were jailed. The incensed farmers sought “reforms that would permit repayment on less destructive terms,” writes Bruce H. Mann in “Republic of Debtors,” a history of bankruptcy in early America. “Creditors replied with lectures on frugality, luxury, virtue and the sanctity of obligations.”

Shays’ Rebellion provoked mixed reactions, then and now. Were the rebels trying to remedy grievous wrongs in the spirit of the Revolutionary War, or were they threatening public order and the fledgling state — acting as terrorists, in the modern parlance? Shays’ followers were quickly arrested and quickly pardoned, although two were hanged.

Fixed Plastic A Thing Of the Past

Looks like the days of a fixed credit card are jusssssst about over.

Full disclosure: I have several credit cards with a variety of companies. My cards that are with Chase (aka JP Morgan) all sent me a notice in the past month strong-arming all cardmembers that 1) if you owe a balance, your rate is going up 2) we will bend you over and *$(& you in the arse if you use a balance transfer by charging you 5% of the amount 3) If this pisses you off, close out the account and pay us back.

On the other hand, Home Cheapot increased my credit line by 1500 bucks. Lackluster sales, maybe?

Advanta, which issued cards to small businesses, shut down their company altogether and just wants you to please pay them back. Capital One may be next, which is why they absolutely HAD to buy MD based Chevy Chase Bank.

The days of leveraging credit card advances and playing the balance transfer game. The entire American economy and most of its population (including this author) all fell for the trap of debt and overleverage at some point and in some manner.