11/20/08

An article in todays Wall Street Journal describes what banks are doing with credit card fees and credit limits lately. They are basically increasing fees to cover their stupid subprime bets. WaMu must be jacking their rates on even good customers sky high to cover their stupid loans.

One thing caught my eye:

"In some cases, cardholders may be able to decline the new terms -- although they'll typically have to close their account. Citibank will let users opt out of the change in pricing terms and pay down their balances under the old terms, although they will have to close their account when the card expires. Amex cardholders, by contrast, cannot opt out of the new terms."

If you are a WaMu credit card customer and have gotten your rates jacked up, please try this and let me know if WaMu allows this under their terms.

The article goes further to say:

"Opting out can hurt your credit score if you carry a balance on your other cards, says John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at Credit.com, a financial-services Web site."

Huh? Why? My guess is that if you close one credit card and have high balances on others, the ratio of your debt to credit line goes up. But the statement above without any explanation or justification seems pretty worthless.