its just amazing to me that they are a c*nt hair away from my default rate and i haven't even technically done anything wrong. every rate increase has been "due to current market conditions"

 

when you said revolving i assumed you meant that i have a big balance, i pay off some, i buy more stuff, pay off some, buy more stuff, and the balance never really changes.

this is not the case. i have a balance which i am working to pay down.

 

My impression is that you are assuming that credit card companies adjust their interest rate only in response to the spending and/or payment habits of the borrower. Or at least, that they ought to behave in this manner.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth.

When you signed up for the card, the lending institution disclosed to you the fact that they would charge you an amount of interest between certain upper and lower limits. They may or may not have provided any explanation of the decision-making process which would be employed to determine what rate to charge within these constraints. (I honestly don't know if they're required to disclose this, as the exact method could be considered a trade secret.)

Thus, your rate may be going up as a result of the CEO's cocaine habit, the phase of the moon, a change in the size of Equador's marmoset population, or as a last-ditch effort to grab as much cash as possible before the new regulations go into effect. Unless your interest rate is tied to an external metric (such as the prime rate) then any of these reasons are sufficient grounds for a rate adjustment.


Know also that so long as a balance of any kind exists, the credit card issuer may charge interest based upon the entire original amount of each transaction which remains partially unpaid.

So if you bought something which cost $1,000, and have by this point paid the balance down to $1,000, you may still be accruing interest based upon the original $1,000 principal.

 

Ever since this semester started and things around here really went down...and my hours got cut...I think my credit situation has turned into a revolving credit. But now that I have this new cooking job where I actually make decent money and have a **** load of hours, I'm going to get this thing paid back down to a resonable level. I seriously accumulated around a grand in debt or more since August because my income got cut by about 2/3 because of this ******* economy. I will NEVER wait tables again! Now I'm in the kitchen at a Holiday INN, and have been making more money that I used to make when waiting tables was good.

 

aren't you glad obama fixed the economy?

 

Even the College Station economy is down...that's bad news folks.

Still waitin' on Obama to pull more cash from his stash...

 

79.9% interest. That's a hell of a business model.

Credit card's newest trick: 79.9 percent interest - Yahoo! Finance

 

I have shitty credit because I only pay cash for any and everything. I haven't had a car payment since 2001. The only notes I carry are student loans.