What the fuck, bank? So I’ve had this credit card for a few years and I need to get a temporary credit limit increase for my upcoming vacation. The card was issued in my hometown, I now live 3.5 hours away in the same province.
Today I go to a local branch of the same bank and they tell me I NEED TO GO TO THE ISSUING BRANCH TO GET A CREDIT INCREASE.
WHAT THE FUCK
JUST…WHAT
What the fuck are you supposed to do if, say, you went across the country for university? Or if you’re moving cross-country? Who the fuck would think a Visa card issued by a national bank could only be changed at the issuing branch? Isn’t the point of a national bank to be, well, NATIONAL?
So now I’m flailing around trying to change my credit card information for this trip that is going to be charged to me on Monday and the tour company probably thinks I’m a totally flat-broke flake when really my bank just fucked me over a desk with a red-hot poker.
The banks tightened up their belts a few years ago when they overextended themselves and nearly collapsed our economy when the housing bubble collapsed.
I have a credit score of 810 and had an excellent credit history with them for over a decade, yet AMEX forced me to do a financial review (I had to give them access to my tax file) when I asked for a measly **$2000 ** credit limit increase so that I could charge my daughter’s tuition without going over the limit. I passed, but it took several weeks.
You might have better luck opening up a new card on-line. Chase, among others, will give you an instant answer. Not sure how you’d get the credit card number, though.
Canada hasn’t been hit nearly as hard - you can still easily get loans and such here.
I eventually found out that they could up the limit over the phone, but that because it was the card I got when I was just starting out, my mom co-signed it and she’d need to be in a conference call.
Some time back my bank (a major US BAnk) instituted a monthly fee for returning cancelled checks, saying the images were just as good.
I found out last night that they just started a fee in the same amount for providing the check images in the monthly statement. I did not see any notice of this on the bank’s web site, nor any indication of how to get the statement without the checks.
Customer service, my ass. It’s a nuisance fee plain and simple. I’d be more upset if I had actually been opening and reading my statements these past several months.
Excellent credit, do however have a terrible habit of carrying a significant balance on my credit card, yet have never missed or even been late with a payment.
Yet a major US credit card company whom I had been with for over a decade at a fixed 9.9% decided in light of the sudden economic downturn that such rates were unsound and bumped it to 17.9%
Needless to say I took my business elsewhere.
Did they think I was stuck and would just pay the higher interest? I’m certain a lot of folks were stuck and too overextended to get a better deal if any elsewhere. Dirty pool if you ask me.
Didn’t banks tighten things up so even with lower introductory interest rates, it would still be insanely high? So they might have thought you wouldn’t be able to get a better rate?
Quite possible. I did have to do a fair bit of shopping around before eventually finding a 10.9% fixed (they are never truly fixed but you know what I mean). I certainly am willing to believe that someone with even a small blemish on their credit history might find it difficult to get a worthwhile rate. Consider also that most card companies are charging between 2 and 5% for balance transfers as a further disincentive.
All I can say is there better be some bank managers getting x-rated bonuses in the next few years. What with all the public bailout funds provided through the Fed, and all the public bailout funds provided through the interest hikes and refi schemes.
There are no laws regulating fees. They can zap you whatever they feel like. They have no appreciation that the tax payers bailed them out or that they would have lost their high paying jobs without our intervention.
Kushiel, do you bank with the “blue and gold lion” Canadian bank?
I always had problems with them. I had accounts with them dating from age 10, but they gave me the run around constantly. Branch to branch banking apparently meant nothing, not when I had my wallet and bank card stolen in 1989 and I was going to University in Montreal. Lucky in those days cheques were much easier to use, and for two months I had to get friends to cash cheques for me because the branches in Montreal wouldn’t talk to Thunder Bay without a $50.00 telephone fee. 22 years ago, that was a horrific fee. It still is.
Then there was the whole “have to go to your home branch” thing when I had moved back to Thunder Bay from Vancouver. My TBay account was the same one I had since I was 10 years old, but the Vancouver one I opened (to avoid the same scenario as had happened Montreal) had a slightly negative balance because of service fees. They kept insisting I had to go to that branch in person to get things sorted out before they helped me.
I basically only deal with the “green armchair bank” now because they don’t give me problems. In 16 years with them I had one f-up, for which they apologized and made restitution.
No, I’m with the “red movie bank”. Maybe I should have opened a new credit card, at least this trip would have gotten me a shitload of free movie tickets.
Oh fuck the “red movie bank” my bf’s business accounts got closed there because there was no activity for three months. Uh yeah, the economy crapped out and the business pretty much folded. He had just ordered new cheques too> Business cheques cost over 100 bucks.
Not to be an ass, but if you are not happy with the credit card you have, get another. I have some I have had for over twenty years, and others I have switched around. The one thing I do not do with a credit card though is carry a large balance. Leave a couple of hundred on it to keep em happy, but any more is plain idiocy.
Seems so many in this day and age can not figure out that if you need credit to go on vacation, you probably should not be going in the first place.
The inevitable, “I have no balance!” whine is sure to follow, but that is weak. If your credit card limit is so poor that you can not afford a $25K vacation on it, you are full of crap and have terrible credit.
Oh cut the sanctimonious bullshit. Tonnes of people run purchases through their credit cards for convenience/loyalty points or whatever and then pay them off within the billing cycle. That is not irrational, or somehow risky behaviour.
Or he knew that he would be spending more than his limit on vacation (easy to do if transport and lodging are being carried), and has the cash saved up to cover.
Reminds me of me on a cruise we took - had to get the credit limit raised to give a cushion for everything.
My tour group operator is in the US, I am in Canada (it’s a niche tour). If I could walk into their office and give them a big wad of cash right now, I would. The money is sitting pretty in my bank account, just waiting to be applied to the credit card.
I guess I could ask if they’d take a Western Union money order. :rolleyes: