Reducing percentage rates on cards

[Anonymous]

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@MyLoFICO wrote:

Aparantly the art of doing this eludes me. I called Customer service on my Wal Mart Mastercard and my Amazon Prime Store card and was just told no. Is there a method to this that I am issing? A special group I need to call? The Walmaret lady said no but we can close the account if you like and make payment arrangements for hte balance. I was like, what? No, I don't want to close it. She was an idiot. I bet her parents never call her. She was mean. Amazon Prime Chat just said no, its based on the card agreement that you got when you applied. Can it not be changed? 

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As others have stated, it really depends on the lender, the individual card and the cardholder's history. I have not heard any success stories of Synch, Capital One or Chase lowering an APR (at a cardholders request) but other banks will lower APR depending on various factors.

Recently. there have been MyFicoers here that have recently expressed success at lowering their Citibank APRs. Not me. Chat and CSR no go. In one breath they thank me for being a valued cardholder for 18 years and then say unfortunately there are no offers on your account. LOL. I did have a candid CSR that told me the main reason was because of lack of useage on my Thankyou Premier. Fair enough. 

And while it is great to pay in full, not everybody can and most people would benefit from having one or two low APR cards around just in case. And just like some chase high credit lines that they will (hopefully) never use, some like to chase the best (lowest) APR that they can obtain. To each their own. 

[MyLoFICO]

First I want to thank you all for your input. I love these forums and the great advice they offer. They say you learn something new everyday and that day was yesterday for me. I went through all my card, balances, and APR and realized I am in a really bad situation as far as my UTIL. I think I already knew this but did not want to see it. Anyway, My balance is @ around 32k right now and I have about 10k to throw at it which made me look into these in more detail. After that 10k the large amounts to put towards it will be scarce barring a miracle. My promotional rates on some of my cards is going away this year at various times and that is when I will lose my ability to keep up with or pay them down. 

So my new plan is to pay as much as I can using the snowball method but at this point I think my only hope is to get a new card with a BT option in the next 3 months and a decent limit, even if it will only take a portion of my balances. Thankfully my number of inquiries in the past 12 months will be 0 for two CRA's and 4 for the third as of April. I hope that helps me prequal for a good card. I'm not in panic mode yet because I will not lose this fight. I have been through Ch7 before and I don't want to do that again. Plus, I did this so I should be the one to get myself out of it using every possible avenue I can. 

[MyLoFICO]

I have a couple of avenues I might take if my scores improve from the lost inquries and lower UTIL once I put this large payment towards them. PenFed, AMEX, and NFCU are a few on here that I see large CLI's and SL's. My Disco card is perpetually secured so no hope there. I just hope my scores rebound enough to actually get in with them. I only need about a 20k limit at 0% to relieve a lot of the pressure this is going to create in a few short months.