Cool Credit Card Experience….
So I’ve had this Teamster’s Credit Card through HSBC for almost five years now. I transferred a balance for some auto work I had done onto it because it came with a great 9.99% rate, which I don’t think is too shabby. I noticed that my rate had flipped to an variable APR which is a pain in the ass. I had loved my nice little 9.99% rate. It made me happy.
Well being the astute observer I am I didn’t notice this change until well after the rate had taken effect (like six months even). So I called them tonight and asked them about the rate and how I would go back to my darling little 9.99%. I went back through my records and noted my Variable APR had ranged between 12.99% at it’s highest and 10.99 at it’s lowest. LAME. But it’s still not bad.
So I called HSBC, which manages the Teamsters credit card I have, and asked them about it. Now, right now banks are not on my happy list. They’re shitty
money grubbing leaches preying on the American people. Right now they are getting “bail out money” (translation welfare) to “bail” them out of a fiscal crisis they have put themselves into, but putting people in loans that are impossible to pay off. And now they are getting government money (MY and YOUR money) to keep them in the business of ruining peoples’ lives, and we still have to pay our loans. Which means esentially we’re paying our mortgages twice. Lame eh? God Bless the USA and what the political nonsense has made of it. Anyway I digress…
So banks are on my shit list. But I called HSBC and asked them about my rate and asked simply if it could be changed back to a fixed rate…
The answer? Hells Yes. Well it was a more proffessional answer and remarkably in non-accented English, I asked and the call center was right in Nevada, not India, nice eh?
So score one for the Upper Lower Class in America. If you have decent credit, and aren’t behind on your bills it might not hurt to call and ask.
If you don’t know what your credit rating is, there’s a slew of websites that’ll give you your rating for nothing, I got this list from none other than Clark Howard (the e
veryman’s financial guru). Check it out and see what your rating is, it pays to have this information in your arsenal when dealing with banks, loan officers, car dealerships (they stack on points on your loan, if the bank says you qualify for 6% the dealership gets you the loan at say 8% and harvests the difference, which is a reason never to buy from a dealership an certainly a reason never to get a loan through them), so anyway.
Do you best to squelch your debt and stick it to the banks. Over the next few months I’ll be swapping my bank accounts to Credit Union accounts, I’m done with banks and as far as I know credit unions are more stable. But what do I know. Maybe I’ll use a bank to store my money after all, the river bank and a mason jar.
Here’s an update: I just hit creditkarma.com and got my wife’s and my credit rating, how nice is that. Both of us are in really good credit rating shape. How nice is that… I bet it goes up after I get rid of some of this debt!
I use a credit union. My bike loan is only 5 percent, when everyone wouldnt accept my offers for used, they finally haggled with me to half of the bikes price and I could build my credit.
There are plenty of ways people just leach money without even thinking. Cable TV for instance can be reduced by simply going to them, telling them you are willing to switch to satalite. If you say that and a few keywords (wait for my DIY article) they will either give you the new customer rate for 6 months, or a reduced rate.
Credit unions for the win. I’m gonna have to go down to ours and see what the rumpus is about.
Good deal, never considered busting the Cable TV company’s chops, I wonder how far a guy could take this…
My wife once got me pants discounted again after being on sale because they had what looked like drywall dust on em. Washed right out, but the girl behind the counter said “Oh yeah we can take xx% off of that, no problem.”
Your credit score, so long as you keep the ratio of credit card debt to total credit down, and you pay everything off religiously, should never be a problem. After that, it just comes down to a function of income.