Citi

Warning extremely BAD idea

be very careful...it may sound good but you can very quickly get hosed heres how:

any payment made late will on a credit card up the interest-even if its on the due date-these days very substantial rate hikes-a conventional loan only a fee but the interest stays the same-you could go from 4.99 to 18 or 20 overnight(maybe more ive seen up to 29.99%)

if your credit status were to change they can up your rate

some companies are raising rates for no reason at all-if you read your contract its there and they can do it

if you have the means and decent enough credit-please for your own sake get a conventional loan-seriously one bad paycheck or unexpected bill and youre in deep shit-i dont know your balance but if its more than say 2 grand do it yesterday

also there is no such thing as a non variable credit card read the fine print

 

Brick, good points. Totally agree.

The bad thing is you may think you have sent your payment on time and then they post it late so it looks like you are late. Welcome to 24-29% interest.

And yep, Brick is referring to the Universal default. They can look at your credit history and if they see anything they don't like, your 4.99% rate becomes 24-29%. Heck, they don't even have to see anything they don't like to raise your rate under Universal default.

The best answer is to pay this sucker off quickly. Start putting as much as you can towards this card and knock it out. You have added a bunch of risk to this equation even more than having the car loan in the first place.

 

I just cut up my citgo credit card and mailed it back to them over that very thing. I am Never late.

 

Reb, did you mail the payment in? If so, couldn't they tell you the post date or were they just trying to pull a fast one?

It's good to be able to just say screw 'em though if they try to pull one over you.

 

did you write a note telling hugo chavez to go fuck himself?

 

Actually they did it twice. I called them on the first one and they apologized and then they did it again the next month and I said, fuck it, I'll just get gas on my Visa card.

 

Wow! Thank you for the info. I didn't realize they were so sleezy!

I have it set up on automatic payment, so I'm not worried about the payment reaching them on time. And I have great credit, so I'm not really worried about them seeing anything on my credit report. That said, though, there is always a lousy economy and layoffs to be concerned with, or someone could steal my identity and mess up my credit.

Anything can happen.

I will keep a very close eye on it. Thank you again for the warning.

 

Stargazer,
The bad thing about Universal Default is they could look on your credit score, see nothing bad, and still raise your rate to 24.99%. Congress is debating about smacking these guys around especially because of the Universal Default Provision and it's usage by CC Companies (For the record, I don't believe Congress should do anything to them, I just believe people should stop doing business with them and then Universal Default becomes a non-issue). The thing to do if they do raise your rate at some point is to go threaten them that you will transfer the balances to another card if they don't drop your rate. And if they don't drop your rate, transfer your balances and never do business with them again.

 

[sarcasm]You mean there's still competition in the CC world(?). I figured they'd bought each other up by now, eliminating competition.[/sarcasm]

 

Whew!

I just got a snail mail from them. After reading all your advisories I was hesitant about opening it! They've upped my credit by $2500 so I'm hoping that means I'm ok ... at least for this month.

But who knows?