When Did You Know the Love Was Gone?

[ozarkmiss]

I still have a love for my main creditor, USAA. They never questioned when a fraudulent charge was made and just wiped it off. They would call pronto if they suspected fraud. They never screwed with my low rates. They are the best. I am so sad to go bk on them.

On the other hand, GMAC can suck it. For years I tried to get assistance with my note when hubs became unemployed. Was just sent to India to be read a script.

[helpme2010]

I knew the love was gone in 2 stages:

1. When the credit card companies cut my credit lines: Especially when my mortage company cut my home equity credit line (that was never done before and I always counted on those lines to help me inbetween jobs).

2. When the credit card companies refused to lower my payments during the time of unemployment, start charging me penalties each month, refuse to work with me each week when I called them.

3. When the credit card companies called me 6 - 10 times a day harassing me for the money.

I will never use credit cards again. My debit card rocks and it takes the money from my checking account.

Discover and Chase and Citibank can all bite me!!!

[carlsbadmike]

My love was lost in 2008 and 2009 when American Express, Discover, BOA, CitiCard, Chase, all cut my credit lines to a fraction of what they originally were, started racking up over limit fees, changed my due dates and started charging late fees because I had no idea the due date had been changed, raised my rate to 29.99%, and doubled my minimum payments. On one of them, I paid $8000 one month and then tried to access some of it the next month via cash advance and I was told that my credit line had gone down after my last payment and I no longer had access to that $8000. My BK7 was finalized in August of 2010 and all of that debt and all of those creditors went away. Now I'm starting over. Best wishes to all of you.

[Flamingo]

After reading many of the responses on here, everyone needs to take a moment and know that most of what you are complaining about you actually allowed them to do - if you read the entire pamphlet of information you received after you were approved for/signed for credit and all the fine print, all the account closing, notices, fee increases, reduction in limits, etc., etc. were all authorized by you, the creditholder. They can close your account at any time for any reason. They can reduce limits if there is a red flag on your credit reports they do not like. If everyone took a moment and read the information that came with their credit card, many would not want to obtain the credit. So many people are surprised at what occurs when they start having financial hardships or miss that one payment...and it's all laid out in black and white. Also, many people receive notices in the mail as to changes regarding their credit accounts and never read them, toss them in the trash, etc. and state they were never notified. If you do read them when then arrive, the majority of the time you are given the option of "opting out" of increased rates, etc. by not using the card anymore or closing the account.

The wake up call came to me when all our rates were increased since we just made minimum payments on large balances after my husband's job loss. The banks took notice and checked credit reports. Then the rates started rising and we got the notices in the mail. I realized what we had dug ourselves into and within a year, we had to file as there was no way with a 70% loss of income we could keep up with what was happening.

[Peeps]

Me again...

Thanks everyone for the responses. I know this is going to be a great thread to revisit when I get through the whole mess and need to figure out if I'll ever get a credit card again. Right now I keep seesawing between "No Way in H..." and "But I'll need a good FICO to get (fill in the blank) someday." Hopefully the recap of all our joyous credit experiences will help others in the same boat.

[helpme2010]

After reading many of the responses on here, everyone needs to take a moment and know that most of what you are complaining about you actually allowed them to do - if you read the entire pamphlet of information you received after you were approved for/signed for credit and all the fine print, all the account closing, notices, fee increases, reduction in limits, etc., etc. were all authorized by you, the creditholder.

Flamingo, I guess the tough part of this situation is many of us either don't read the fine print or are just panicing when something bad happens. For example, my situation occurred right around Christmas time a couple years ago, I find out I lose my job, the recession kicks in, I then find out my home equity line is cut (that's the first time that ever happened). Then later a credit card limit is cut, so I made sure to use my other cards for bills and items I needed such as groceries, etc. before they cut those cards.

I did not file BK due to bad spending habits, but instead out of survival to help me pay my bills while being out of work.

I will never use credit cards again after the way they treated me.

[Flamingo]

Flamingo, I guess the tough part of this situation is many of us either don't read the fine print or are just panicing when something bad happens. For example, my situation occurred right around Christmas time a couple years ago, I find out I lose my job, the recession kicks in, I then find out my home equity line is cut (that's the first time that ever happened). Then later a credit card limit is cut, so I made sure to use my other cards for bills and items I needed such as groceries, etc. before they cut those cards.

I did not file BK due to bad spending habits, but instead out of survival to help me pay my bills while being out of work.

I will never use credit cards again after the way they treated me.

I almost always have a purpose to my postings when I respond to something...in this thread it is to "Always read the fine print" and to save those brochures and fine print credit agreements to refer to when and if problems arise. A credit account is an agreement / contract. Most people never read all the verbiage in an agreement or contract when they sign but they absolutely should do so.

[brokejoker]

I began to get angry when my husband first got hurt and I called them ALL to tell them what was going on and to see if we could make some kind of arrangments for the accounts since we had no idea how long he'd be out of work and we'd have zero income for the foreseeable futture. We paid for that handy "credit protector" crap on our two big cards. All of our cards were very sympathetic - until a few weeks later when the letters stating they had slashed our credit limits started rolling in. GAH! I tried to activate the credit protector and, even though we jumped through all the hoops, we were told that although hubby couldn't do HIS job he could do "A" job so they wouldn't pay. WTF? Find another job? What job lets you lay flat on your back for 6 weeks then allow you to limit your motion while you are in a back brace for three months after that?

Then we missed our first payments a few months later and it got ugly. Quadruple interest rates, late fees, overlimit fees (thanks to those slashed credit limits), and then the collection calls... I soon learned that no matter how nice they were when we were forking over the money every month, we were still just a dollar sign and not actual human beings to them.

[BKlooker]

@flamingo.....you are correct about most people never reading the print, and you are also right in that we allowed ourselves to get into the financial mess we are all in.

That being said, I think when you have so many millions in society who are losing everything, having rates jacked above usury rates, and not even being told in writing in some cases that their limits are changing, it's really an issue of our government not regulating the industry as a whole enough. Sure, on a individual basis, you can point and say, well you made you bed and lay in it. But as you can see from the volume of this thread and in this county, the real issue is the general over-extension of credit in this country. Yea it's your fault for racking up 10K in debt....but it's also partially the CC companies fault for ALLOWING you to do so, REGARDLESS of the risk to them.

Same argument for the housing industry. You could argue individual responsibility on the part of buyer, particular the ones who got the absurd ARM reset deals...but ultimately, 1 person or a couple who likely have a minimal amount of financial knowledge as it relates true banking and loan security contracts other than basic checking/savings account knowledge made a handful of poor choices in opening a couple cards and getting a bad mortgage. The CCs and banks did this millions upon millions of times over, knowing full well how the movie would end. They knew they were overextending credit left and right, but were busy following industry trend and lost sight of things.

So I think in the end, we can all say read the fine print..but at the end of the day, it's about survival. In some cases, if it's between you or a family member going hungry/sick/cold and you being forced to pay 165% interest on a card because the fine print says so, many would still do it because you have little choice. Just my 2 cents.

[helpme2010]

I almost always have a purpose to my postings when I respond to something...in this thread it is to "Always read the fine print" and to save those brochures and fine print credit agreements to refer to when and if problems arise. A credit account is an agreement / contract. Most people never read all the verbiage in an agreement or contract when they sign but they absolutely should do so.

Flamingo, I have read many of your postings on this board and found out a lot of valuable information that was helpful to me, namely BK related. I was ignorant about my home equity loan. I naturally assumed that this was money that would always be available to me to use as I please, as long as I made the payments on time. I always kept a lifeline in my savings account, and used this home equity loan as my other lifeline. I was shocked when this was cut off.

It's like that picture of the rat that is caught in the rat trap and all the rats are standing in line to do horrible things to him. The caption, "when you are down and out, everyone wants to screw you"

I will defintitely build a much larger reserve and live as cheap as possible when I get my job, so this never happens to me again. Never will I give my business to credit card companies again. I will use my debit card and cash for now on.

[helpme2010]

@flamingo.....you are correct about most people never reading the print, and you are also right in that we allowed ourselves to get into the financial mess we are all in.

That being said, I think when you have so many millions in society who are losing everything, having rates jacked above usury rates, and not even being told in writing in some cases that their limits are changing, it's really an issue of our government not regulating the industry as a whole enough. Sure, on a individual basis, you can point and say, well you made you bed and lay in it. But as you can see from the volume of this thread and in this county, the real issue is the general over-extension of credit in this country. Yea it's your fault for racking up 10K in debt....but it's also partially the CC companies fault for ALLOWING you to do so, REGARDLESS of the risk to them.

Same argument for the housing industry. You could argue individual responsibility on the part of buyer, particular the ones who got the absurd ARM reset deals...but ultimately, 1 person or a couple who likely have a minimal amount of financial knowledge as it relates true banking and loan security contracts other than basic checking/savings account knowledge made a handful of poor choices in opening a couple cards and getting a bad mortgage. The CCs and banks did this millions upon millions of times over, knowing full well how the movie would end. They knew they were overextending credit left and right, but were busy following industry trend and lost sight of things.

So I think in the end, we can all say read the fine print..but at the end of the day, it's about survival. In some cases, if it's between you or a family member going hungry/sick/cold and you being forced to pay 165% interest on a card because the fine print says so, many would still do it because you have little choice. Just my 2 cents.

BKlooker, I agree 100%. Everything I learned about ethics and compassion in college is meaningless. What makes me mad is how my car company, my credit card companies, my mortgage companies, my city, my state, my country, all were bailed out by the government and us the taxpayers. So when the corporations run into problems, they get all the money and help they need from the government. And this help was given to them with the expectation that they would also help those of us needing loans, yet the opposite happened.

There is something really sick about companies that charge insanely high rates to those that are in the most desparate situation, then jack up those rates and add penalties to those that are suffering at the worst possible time. Then these people are ultimately driven to bk and some to being homeless.

I see very few people looking out for the individual, but instead for the special interests, including corporations, financial institutions, credit card companies, banks, mortgage companies.