Credit Cards

[Anonymous]

I have about 55k in credit card debt.  Four of the cards are personal and two are for my business.  I always pay on time and not just the minimum.  I was making some headway when one decided to raise my rate from 8% to 22% (Discover) and another raised theirs from 8% to 12%(Bank of Amreica)  The reason they gave was my available limit to balance was bad.  I was not aware of the  30% mark and of course they don't tell you until it's too late.  To add insult to injury, I finally get some paid down so my ratio is better and now they reduced my available limit for the same reason.  I had good credit, but thanks to this it has suffered and is also very irritating.  Is this what Obama is trying to regulate?  I doubt it will help me, but somehow we have to get the word out to EVERYONE that these companies are not our friends.  When I do get this paid off I doubt I will ever use credit cards except to keep some open with small or 0 balances for the credit score.  Is it even worth it to try and talk to these companies.  They were'nt  very nice when I called about this.  The attitude is "too bad sucker".  Is there some method or angle that works with them?  I never had this come up before.  Phil in Phoenix

[haulingthescoreup]

Hi, Phil, welcome to the forums!

I'm afraid that in the current climate, $55K in revolving debt is a pretty huge amount. Anyone with balances, especially large balances, is going to look like the fatted calf to lenders, and they will cheerfully rate-jack you to increase their interest income.

If you can kill off that debt, it will really help. This is tough once they rate-jack you, of course. If your credit is good otherwise, you might look into an installment loan to pay off most of the CC debt, but of course, you have to be fantastically self-disciplined and not let your CC balances go up while paying off the loan.

Just as a for-instance, I have somewhere around $120K in total credit limits, and there is currently around $90 in debt showing on my reports, all of which has already been paid off. If I don't owe anything to my lenders, they have very little power over me.