Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Chase Rate Increases Letter

In light of Chase deciding to increase my purchase APR by 9% despite my flawless payment history, I have written them a letter in an attempt to get them to reduce it back to its original level. My argument is that they are punishing their reliable customers and are discouraging these reliable customers from using their services in the future. Especially when I have received no rate increase notification from any other bank or lending institution. This is my second letter, my first letter was greeted with a fairly standard "Sorry, but we aren't breaking the law, and we think we are competitive enough, you can decline the rate increase, but we will immediately close your account, peace!". That is unacceptable, so I am sending another letter and invite everyone else to do the same:

Hello,
I do understand that you review your practices in accordance with the law, but I would hope that you would feel compelled to treat your responsible and reliable customers a little better than what the law requires; especially considering that these customers, including myself, are the customers that will carry your company (or not) through these tough economic conditions.

I have received no notifications of this sort from any of my other credit card or credit line providers, indicating that you are at least not staying competitive with them, despite your claim of reviewing your competitive position in the industry.

When looking beyond the economic slowdown, my company will look back on this decision and evaluate it in comparison with your competition. Your actions have indicated that despite our reliable payment history and responsible uses of credit, you feel the need to increase our rates for future purchases. How can we trust your organization not to do this again, especially because we have given you no cause to do this on our behalf?

I do not want to close my account, but I also do not want my rates to increase. So I will leave my account open, with the hope that your company will see the error in your ways, and will decide that its reliable customers are worth treating well. I will consider this fulfilled if you do not increase my purchase APR and keep my account open. If you have already increased my APR, I would request that you lower it back to what it was before your notification was sent. That, to me, would mean that you are a trustworthy and reliable organization that my company (and myself personally) can do business with in the future.

No comments:

Post a Comment