iWillBeDebtFree.net

It is a few days past the one year anniversary of the iWillBeDeptFree.net blog and I decided to tally up my credit card dept and check the progress after 12 months.

I am very disappointed. After checking the numbers, I now have $15,773.94, which is only $479.69 less than the $16,253.63 that I had on May 12, 2009.

This is where I stand on May 17, 2010

Chase Visa $2,230.31
Discover Card $8,832.22
Bank of America $4,711.41

Total: $15,773.94

And there is what I had on May 12, 2009

Discover Card: $7,235.97
Bank of America American Express: $4,736.97
SST Visa (formerly Sharebuilder Visa): $1,230.15
Chase Visa: $3,050.54

Total: $16,253.63

The bad news is I added $1,596.25 to my Discover Card account. This is a high-interest account. I am paying out 27% interest to this company. I need to review and see how this money was spent. I recall using this account to pay off my cell phone and cable company bills. I will analyze my account and detail my mistake in another post .

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I have managed to chip away on the balance of my Chase Visa card. The debt is now down to $2,630.58 from $3,050.54 in May 09. But I was hoping to trim it down even faster. I looked at the APR, and was surprised to see that Chase was charging me a whopping 27.24% interest! This is insane considering that I have never made a late payment. In fact, I always pay my bills at least two weeks before they are due.

So I did some searching on the Chase.com website and came up with a customer service telephone number and after three minutes of getting through a series of automated questions, I finally got to speak to a human customer service rep.

I told her my story about how I have been a good customer and requested an interest reduction. She told me that I was already paying the lowest rate! I was shocked to hear that 27.24% was the minimum. She added that my account was up for review and that the rate might go lower, but she was unsure when my account would be reviewed.

Out of curiosity, I asked her what would happen if I was late with a payment. She said the interest would rise to 29% but would not go higher.

I asked again to lower the rate from 27.24% and told her that I had offers from other credit card companies that were much lower. She again refused to budge and said she was sorry but that was the rule.

So it looks like I’ll be shopping for another card. To pay 27.24% is crazy.