advice re: Chase

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2005
advice re: Chase
4
Tue, 05-10-2005 - 3:27am
Hi,
I'm new here, and am hoping for some advice about transferring the $6,000.00 (groan)I just put on a Bof A Visa card, to Chase which is offering 1.99% until April of 2006. We already owe about 32,000.00 to Capital One and AT&T -- both of those are at 2.99% until paid off. The new 6,000.00 was for an emergency vet bill. I have heard that Chase is not easy to deal with -- so I'm wondering if they will come up with some way to increase the interest rate -- I've heard they like to do that -- maybe they will decide we now have too much debt. Anyway, any advice is appreciated. The B of A rate is about 14%.
Thanks!
Avatar for cl_phocid
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Tue, 05-10-2005 - 7:45am
If you transfer the money to chase, keep your BofA card at a zero balance so that if chase does try to do anything funny (and they always do, IMO), you can simply transfer the balance back to BofA.

All my best,
Danni

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 05-10-2005 - 11:03am

I haven't had any more problems with Chase than anyone else. In fact, now that our credit rating is so good, they've treated us quite well. I used a balance transfer offer from them about a year ago to take advantage of a 0% rate. We left the balance for a year, and are now transferring to a new 0% offer with another company.

During that year, the only thing that happened out of the ordinary was when my bank's auto-pay came through two days late one month (the due date on my Chase bill is not always the same, though it's always within about five days, but I didn't know this when I set up the auto-pay). Chase charged a late fee, and began charging interest. I called them, and they removed the fee, the interest rate, and the accrued interest without a fuss.

So, anyway, I like the advice to keep your other card open and transfer the balance back if they do anything funny, but other than that, I'd go for it.

The other thing that many credit card companies do, is they lure you with a great interest rate, but with the caveat that you may not qualify for that excellent rate. They accept your application, and require that you apply for any balance transfers you want with your credit application. Then they actually issue you a card with a higher rate, and transfer your requested balance on to the different, higher-interest card.

They can only do this if the details are disclosed in the offer, though. Look closely for wording to the effect that if you don't qualify for the card they will issue you a different card at a different rate.

Good luck!

Heather

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-09-2005
Tue, 05-10-2005 - 11:14am
Hi,
Thanks so much for your reply. I think we will probably go with Chase and set up a recurring payment 10 days or so before the bill plans to be due. Hopefully that will save us from disaster. Talk about unplanned emergencies. Thanks again.
Megan
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-26-2005
Thu, 05-26-2005 - 12:55pm

Be very careful. Chase raised my rate to 29+% because of the amount of revolving debt I have. I have always paid on time but that doesn't seem to matter. I have contacted them several times about reducing the rate, but all I get is transferred from one person to another and none seem to want to help. I would stay away from Chase if you have a large amount of credit card debt.