Reader mail: WaMu credit card interest rate increased to 31% despite NO late payments
I was fascinated by your interactions with WaMu. Whatever happened after you refused to pay? I ask this because last month they raised my APR to 31 percent and I had never missed a payment and my FICO score was 680.
After one hour, I finally spoke with a supervisor and told her that if my APR was not reduced I would default or file bankruptcy. She refused to help. What a scam. My balance with WaMu is @ 6,500. I closed the account. I may not pay at all unless they work with me. Comments?
WaMu made daily harassment collection calls until the account was charged off. As of last month, the WaMu bank accounts and credit cards were sold to Chase.
I can’t give any advice to others on whether to pay when I know nothing about their situation. Generally speaking, if you’re near judgment-proof and especially if you have large unsecured debts, don’t pay.
Chase, BofA and Citi are the major beneficiaries of the bank bailout.
They are actually WORSE than WaMu and if everything goes according to their plans, they will buy up many banks and they will finance the deals for the people behind the curtain, takeovers of public utilities and many corporations who are forced into bankruptcy by the banks.
The banks are trying hard to get debtors to pay on delinquent accounts, offering matching payments, waiving fees and interest, etc. Don’t be a sucker and pay UNLESS they will delete all recent derogatory data.
GENERAL comments on credit (there are exceptions):
That they will report the account as “current” once it is current will NOT help with the extremely important RECENT lates.
Even a 60 day late is a MAJOR derogatory for FICO scores. If that’s what’s reported, you might as well let the account charge off.
Unless you can get ALL delinquent accounts reported without recent lates, your credit is SHOT.
IMPORTANT: They will NOT hesitate to LIE to you. Record all calls and agreements.
An interesting article on credit card debt.
UPDATE: I couldn’t send the URL to the reader because his email address on the contact form resulted in a “malformed DNS server reply.” Hopefully he’ll find this post as he continues to research WaMu. If he or anyone else negotiates WaMu accounts with Chase, please let me know how it works out.
Posted by Christine on 10/15/2008 at 06:53 PM
Reader mail • WaMu 26% interest rate • (0) Comments • Permalink
