Chase cranks up the gouging

The Banking Industry is amazing at demonstrating its insatiable greed and then rationalizing it with utter lies.

Case in point, our Chase card. Last month I was lamenting Chase ending its relationship with MGM so we would no longer be earning Vegas Points (really, vouchers for the MGM resorts good for practically anything at MGM resorts, except gambling). However, we weighed our options until we read the fine print of what the benefits of the Chase Freedom card were. So we decided to let it convert at the end of August, then the $1000 worth of Vegas Points would be converted to $1000 worth of other things we’re cool with such as iTunes cards, vouchers for restaurants we like or cash back.

Then today I went over our online statement because today was payday, a time we drop a big chunk of change on the balance because we mainly use the card to pay bills online and then clear it ASAP. The strategy was to rack up the (now) doomed Vegas Points and the card was a buffer since I didn’t want to give the gas company direct access to our checking accounts. Anyway, I saw that Chase jacked the rate from our hard-earned 6.25% to 13.25% Naturally I was pissed. I got on the phone with Chase, talked to an “advisor” named Rob (at least he was a Westerner) for an explanation. I received the boilerplate crap on the changes I was informed of back in June on Chase’s policies, you know the junk we usually throw away and its written in such tiny legalese you would need Dr. Elizabeth Warren, her grad students and couple hours to decipher it. My favorite lie was Chase having to compensate for the “new, government” regulation. Having enough of Rob’s lecturing, I told him to put this down in my file to his superiors, “I don’t buy this crap because Chase isn’t hurting and after we get our stuff converted, my wife and I are most likely going to close the account.” Last year, we (American) taxpayers loaned JP Morgan Chase (the parent company) $25 billion to keep their collective ass afloat. They have also posted quarterly profits of $2.1 and $2.72 billion for the first half of 2009. Then again, I’ve been called a communist and socialist for daring back legislation to rein them in under the old usury laws which the Supreme Court unravelled at the end of the Seventies. Rob’s rebuttal was 13.24% being as good it would get anywhere. I called bullshit again by stating Junipers/Barclay is 11-12 percent. Then came how the card is an immediate loan. Sure, for the dumb. I countered with how my wife and I use it as a line of credit; if he bothered to look at our history, he’d know.

Still, I apologized if I got curt with him being a fellow call-center employee. I told him to put my ire in my record for his bosses which they’ll probably hand over to a DHS Fusion Center since I hate America so much. Weighing my options I discovered that my credit union only charges nine percent. I called to verify what their Web site stated. It was true. The employee (probably a fellow shareholder) said the rate was based upon my credit score and she knew it was pretty stellar because it was the lowest they offered. Once again, credit unions prove their superiority over banks by showing how cooperative ventures triumph while the for-the-profit organizations continue to fail; never mind the bankers quoting their Ayn Rand stroke books as they use TARP money to survive.

Now I’m armed with another damning fact when I have another conversation with (probably) a tier two “advisor” at Chase. The other is pointing out the zero percent balance transfer offers they all keep using to entice new customers. I’m going to press hard too. Why? Over a year or two ago, I did get our rate lowered by five points by politely asking. The other factor is the cost of acquiring new customers. According to Elizabeth Warren’s interview on Fresh Air, it costs those credit companies several hundred dollars apiece to gain a new customer, therefore they’re reluctant to give up easily. I also know this from experience in my past dealings with Citibank when I gained a very nice rate to pay off three grand racked up by car repairs (Somara’s truck and my VW).

I am sure I’ll let you know the outcome, especially if it turns ugly.