Closed Chase
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| Tue, 07-05-2005 - 12:15pm |
I am so happy. I closed my Chase CC today. Yippee - hooray!!!!! I called just to check that my payment had been received and I was at a zero balance. I told the girl I wanted to close my card since my interest rate had gone to 21.99% (I have a 750 credit score!). The girl informed me that there was no opportunity to lower the interest on the card at this time. I told her I wouldn't even charge $5 on the card with the interest rate they had given me. It had jumped 10% from the interest rate I previously had. I thought whether this was the wisest thing to do, close part of my credit history. I heard it is best to keep them open, but I don't want to even have the temptation to use that card and I also wanted to in some way tell Chase to s***w themselves. I have another card at a lower interest that doesn't change the interest rate overnight to some ridiculous amount. So I may have affected my credit score somewhat, but at the moment I don't need the score. My car is paid off, I have just completed my refinace on my condo and my other CC is at a zero balance. What do I actually need that history for right at this time or even in 6 months? By the time I need anyone to look at my credit again, I probably will have sufficient history to have a good credit score. At the moment I am just paying for it with cash. I don't want any of these 'nothing to pay till 2008'. I don't want anyone near my credit history.
I just enjoyed telling the girl how happy I am to be rid of them. She sounded a little deflated and that made me feel even better. She told me not to use the checks they send through, and I told her I shred those the minute they come to my house and have never used one. Hip hip horray the Wicked Chase is dead!

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Congrats on paying off that debt. It feels wonderful to call and cancel an account when a company has been really horrible to you, doesn't it? I just wanted to suggest that you call them next month and check that you don't have any outstanding fees on your account. I closed a cc acount a year ago and thought I had everything paid off. Turns out they added in all these weird charges and mysterious interest. They didn't send me anymore bills and, thinking it was paid off, I didn't realize it right away. It was a few months later that a friend told me that she had had problems closing her Chase card that I thought to check mine. Nasty company.
It couldn't hurt to call next month and make sure everything's okay.
Lynne
Good for you! Feels good, huh?
As for keeping accounts open--there are pluses and minuses to this. First of all, one thing potential creditors like to see is long relationships with creditors. So it's a good idea to have one credit card that you keep open for a really long time and never close. You don't have to use it--just keep it open. Ours is a Sears Mastercard--frankly, not my favorite creditor, but dh has had the card since before we were married, it's been open about twelve years, so we leave it open to show our long history with them. But we don't ever use it! We also keep open an account with USAA, because we like them and if we ever do use a card (which dh does for business, and then gets reimbursed), we want to do it with them. Actually, we now have two of these type accounts, because sometimes it's easier to use a credit card and then pay it immediately--like on vacation, although we had the cash saved up for it, it was much easier to charge everything and then pay it all off immediately when we got home. But this requires discipline, of course, and a card with a zero balance, so you don't accrue interest on it.
The other factor is that your credit score is affected by how much open credit you have versus how much credit you've used up. The number I've always heard as acceptable is 50%--if you have used 50% or less of your available credit, you're okay. Of course, if you close one account, it reduces the amount of available credit you have, thereby raising your percentage.
But, of course, as you pay down existing balances, your percentage will go back down anyway, so I generally don't think it's a good idea to keep accounts open for this reason, unless you're applying for new credit (mortgage or car, for instance) in the near future.
On the other end, creditors *don't* like to see huge amounts of open credit--so closing some of your accounts, if you have a ton of available credit, is probably a good idea.
Anyway, I doubt what you did hurt you much, and it's certainly good for morale. Have a cup of tea to celebrate! Congrats.
Heather
Congratulations for paying off your card!!! But your story is making me really nervous --
We just put 7,000.00 on Chase card (sick dog) -- do you have any idea why they upped the interest rate? Clearly Chase is the card I'm going to target! Yikes.
Megan
"there was no opportunity to lower the interest on the card at this time"
I *Hate* that phrase.
All my best,
Danni
If it makes you feel any better, I'm one of the few people who has not had trouble with Chase. I think it depends a lot on how they view you as a credit risk. I have only had my Chase card since our finances have been under control and our debt relatively low (although we owe a total of nearly $20k, most of that is owed to family members and our total "visible debt"--the amount that shows on our credit report--is under $4k) and our credit rating high.
Given those circumstances, my experience with Chase has been positive. Soon after we opened the account--in order to take advantage of a 0% transfer offer--they did charge us a late payment fee and start charging interest. It turned out that, thanks to changing due dates on the account statement, my bank's auto-pay went through a day late. I called about it, and they immediately removed the fee and interest without a fuss.
Granted, in an ideal world they wouldn't change the due date each month, and I wouldn't have had to call in the first place. But they did make it right quite easily.
We left the balance with them for a year, and then transferred it to a new 0% offer as that one was getting ready to run out, so I have only one year's experience with them, but it was mostly positive.
Good luck, and personally I wouldn't worry about targeting that card particularly unless it is the best card to target for other reasons as well. Just keep paying regularly and well, and worry about it only if they cause you a problem. Remember that any credit card company can be a pain to deal with, so one is not necessarily worse than the others.
Blessings,
Heather
Lynn -
Thanks for the great advice. I am going to put it on my calendar to call them next month. Knowing Chase they will come up with something!
Heather
Thanks for that. I feel much better that I closed it now. The card I have open is the one with my longest history, and it is currently paid off. I have just my gym membership coming out of that each month - $45 and I pay it off each month. It also had the largest amount of credit available. I am waiting for a few months to see what happens to my credit score so I can lower the interest rate. I have this one through my credit union, and they don't suddenly jack the rate up, unlike cards. Once a rate is agreed it's fixed - no loop holes.
I'm not really too sure why the rate went up, but I am guessing it is because I paid the card off at the beginning of the year, plus my other credit card. Then a couple of months went past and I didn't need to use either card. I then had my cat pee on my bed and ruin it. I bought a new king size bed of good quality - so that took up the space on my other credit card, and then I needed new bedding plus things for my sales trip to Orlando so that went on the Chase. I was in the middle of a refinance, so I knew that I would be getting the money to pay both off once again. I really needed a bed, so I couldn't wait for the refinace in order to buy the bed.
I guess my balances went too high to the limit in a very short amount of time, and I was considered a credit risk. I'm sure they still have my old salary information on file, and I make $10k more than that now this year. I don't think they realise I am actually pretty frugal and careful with my money, but like anyone things come up - like the medical bills I am still paying off that happened 2 weeks before my insurance kicked in last year.
I know that Chase wanted to raise the interest on my grandmother's card or cancel her card, something crazy like that, because she paid it off every month. I guess they don't like it when you pay it off every month and they really can't make anymore money off of you.
I had no problems with Chase for the first 1 1/2 years. I had them reverse fees and everything. Then this sudden rate hiked made me realise - fixed does not mean fixed.
Well it just seems so unfair and arbitrary -- you weren't late and you weren't over the limit and you had a good payment history. We have gotten 3 (!) balance transfer offers from Chase in the last 2 weeks. So maybe they want more customers because the others are leaving !!??
Megan
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