lurker with a ? about credit cards
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lurker with a ? about credit cards
| Fri, 08-05-2005 - 1:30pm |
I have heard in the last few days that cc companies are raising the minumum payments from 2% to 4% ,doubling them.while I am doing fine paying on mine .this raise in minimums could be a problem. Could I ask how you plan on handling this problem ?I have a chase card and while mine hasnt been raised yet I know a couple of people with chase that have already had thiers
Any advice on this will be apreciated,
Carol

We also have Chase cards (3 of the 4 we own are now Chase cards) and have talked to them a couple of times about the issue. Here's a summation-
For a long time, minimum payments were 4% of the amount you owed. Then when the economy was booming and life looked grand the credit card companies lowered that amount to 2% in most cases. This was fine except that as people began charging more and more and interest rates began rising it put consumers in a position where your interest each month could be more than the minimum you were paying.
Someone (I could look up who-DH knows) ordered the credit card companies to raise the minimums so that it would not be possible for you to pay nothing on the principal each month. Several credit card companies chose to raise their minimums across the board. We were told by Chase that they are raising minimums on groups of people that have high interest rates but are not currently planning a rate increase across the board. We have 12,000 on a card with them at 2.99% interest and were told that minimums would not be going up on that.
I'm a skeptic-I've looked at how much minimum's would increase and for us it would make the extra money I bring in from teaching per course become an essential part of the budget instead of debt repayment/extras money. Of course, a higher minimum payment means I pay that CC off faster and that's not a bad thing!
Taleyna