Juniper card, late payment & increased APR

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2012

I've had an open and active Juniper cc since 2006ish. I've pretty much had a balance on it since it was opened, always paid more than the minimum and always on time. In Sept 2009 we purchased our first home. The week we moved, my cc payments were due so I set up payments online knowing our net would be down for a while. Once our net was set up at our new house, I saw the email confirmations of my payments for all my cards except Juniper. I logged onto their site to see my account and my payment never went through, there was no record of my payment. I called to pay and find out what happened - the payment was due the day before. They mentioned maintenance of their site and suggested it might have been a bug but nobody really knew. I paid it, they assured me I would not have an APR increase and everything was fine... until they raised my APR a week or two later. I called again, they said it was in my Terms and not to worry because a new law had been passed saying 6 months of good payments would bring the APR back down (It was something like 14% bumped to 29%). I decided I could live with that even though my $35 payments doubled for that 6 months. However, 6 months later and they said I wasn't eligible for an APR decrease and they don't know who or why one of their reps would tell me it would go back after 6 months. I've tried twice since then too - have never paid late other than that one time (and I was literally like 8 hours late), not on that card or any other card.

Any suggestions? My credit isn't awesome atm, mostly due to high utilization so my credit score certainly won't get it dropped on its own.

Thanks in advance!

pizzadude · ‎05-09-2012

@Anonymous wrote:
I've had an open and active Juniper cc since 2006ish. I've pretty much had a balance on it since it was opened, always paid more than the minimum and always on time. In Sept 2009 we purchased our first home. The week we moved, my cc payments were due so I set up payments online knowing our net would be down for a while. Once our net was set up at our new house, I saw the email confirmations of my payments for all my cards except Juniper. I logged onto their site to see my account and my payment never went through, there was no record of my payment. I called to pay and find out what happened - the payment was due the day before. They mentioned maintenance of their site and suggested it might have been a bug but nobody really knew. I paid it, they assured me I would not have an APR increase and everything was fine... until they raised my APR a week or two later. I called again, they said it was in my Terms and not to worry because a new law had been passed saying 6 months of good payments would bring the APR back down (It was something like 14% bumped to 29%). I decided I could live with that even though my $35 payments doubled for that 6 months. However, 6 months later and they said I wasn't eligible for an APR decrease and they don't know who or why one of their reps would tell me it would go back after 6 months. I've tried twice since then too - have never paid late other than that one time (and I was literally like 8 hours late), not on that card or any other card.

Any suggestions? My credit isn't awesome atm, mostly due to high utilization so my credit score certainly won't get it dropped on its own.

Thanks in advance!

You can always keep trying with them, call again next month and ask them to lower your APR. Explain the situation each time ( I'm sure that you have ), you were in the middle of a move, etc.. At least they didn't stick you with a late fee, right ?

What are the interest rates on all of your cards ~ do you have any way to do a balance transfer to another card with a lower rate ?

March2010 FICO® ~ 695 TU, 653 EQ, 697 EX

john398 · ‎05-09-2012

Here are the rules pretty much: Explanation and re-evaluation of rate increases

If your APR is increased by your card company then it must tell you why. Under this new credit card rule, if your APR is hiked by your creditor, it must re-evaluate that rate increase every six months. If appropriate, it must reduce your rate within 45 days after completing the evaluation

.

Anonymous · ‎05-09-2012

Thanks for the responses. Do you know the conditions required upon re-evaluation? I guess I'm asking if I can make them lower it back to the original rate because I have held up "my end of the bargain" ever since the increase. Either way, I appreciate the info... it will give me specific language to use when I call them back.

I have considered transferring the balance or even closing the account (although I don't know what that'd do the age of credit), but I was told I needed to keep making timely payments... can't do that with a 0 balance.

Chris123nTx · ‎05-09-2012

@john398 wrote:
Here are the rules pretty much: Explanation and re-evaluation of rate increases
If your APR is increased by your card company then it must tell you why. Under this new credit card rule, if your APR is hiked by your creditor, it must re-evaluate that rate increase every six months. If appropriate, it must reduce your rate within 45 days after completing the evaluation
.

Every credit card app, and or terms and conditions that i have seen latley, all spell out the reasons how they can apply a penalty rate, and every one of them says that that rate will apply indefinatley.