Discover Card Beware of Unusually High Interest Rate Salt Lake City Utah

Hi. I work for a credit card company and I may be able to explain a little about why you had an increase in your APR. When it comes to credit cards, the due dates are taken very seriously when it comes time for payments to be received. All of these details are explained in the terms of the credit card agreement. When a single payment is late the APR will typically not change but fees will occur. After a couple late payments credit card companies will reevaluate the customer's payment history to determine potential risk. Please keep in mind during this process creditors may "reprice" you, meaning they are looking at your other account histories (loans, mortgage, other credit cards) to determine whether or not you are more of a credit risk. I am not saying you are, but for example, if you are late on your car loan the credit card company may use this to evaluate your risk potential when determining an appropriate APR, thus giving you a higher rate. A very important factor to consider is the current state of the economy. Large lenders are not nearly as generous as they used to be simply because they cannot afford to be. Lenders are taking more control of the credit they are giving out and are more often than not sticking to the rules. If you are still unhappy about the hike in your APR keep in mind there is light at the end of the tunnel. After 9 months of good payment history the typical cardmember has restored his ability to negotiate terms of the credit agreement such as APR. At this time you can see about getting your new rate lowered again.

I have also been a consumer of Discover's for many years. I know that Discover does value the relationship with their customers. However if you are late on your payments, you are at fault not the company. I know from experience if you truly are someone who pays on time normally, reads your billing statement and if you had called when it initially happened the issue would been handled differently. Not months after when you realized it went up (the company raises your interest rate when you are late then again the next time you are late. It is system generated.) So it is not a processing error, or some other issue people come up with to blame the company it is yours, take some accountability. On top of which I would to clarify what a "Fixed" rate is since so many people are unable to read the information sent to them and assume they understand. "Fixed" does not mean your rate will not change when you are late it simply means it will not vary with prime. So even if you find one of your wonderful companies in la la land, if you are late you will be held accountable for it get used to it. Also I would like to add when you reach a 29.99% with Discover you either have terrible credit and pose a risk for Discover to carry a loan with you or you were late more then 2 times. So it is proabably better you moved on from Discover so that you can now blame another company for your lack of accountability.

I understand your resentment.  The only thing I can say is that pretty much all credit card companies work in the same manner.   Credit card companies as a whole are ALL a bunch of crooks.  They are a big part of the reason that this countrie's economy is in the shape it is.  The best thing you can do is either not have them or not have any balances on them. 

I'm sure it might not have been your fault at all.  The way most of them work, even it is a mail delivery delay, and it gets there a day late and perhaps it was only the first time this has happened to you; they boost your interest rate.  It seems unfair but I just wanted you to know it's not just Discover.

I notice a lot them now are continually lowering your credit limit.  Say you have a $1,000 limit.  If you get it paid down to $500, then they drop your credit limit to $500.  They even do it to oddball amounts too.  If you get your balance down to $413, they can drop your limit down to $413.  And it doesn't matter if you have NEVER been late.  They have the right to run a periodic credit check.  So beware of this happening on your other cards.  Because of your issue with Discover, you could easily see this happening with some of your other credit cards.

Plus, this will hurt your credit score since your credit score is not only calculated by whether or not your payments are on time but also by how much 'available' credit you have.  So if you owe $500 on a $1,000 limit card and they drop the credit limit to $500, your credit score just took a nose dive.  On the other hand, if you have a $1,000 balance on a $1,000 limit credit card and you can get them to raise your limit to $2,000, then your credit score will go up.

Again, I know it's screwed up but I just thought that might be some helpful information to those of you out there that don't know any of this information.