YouTube credit card rant gets results - "You are evil, thieving bastards."

[2QT2BSTR8]

Source: CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- "You are evil, thieving bastards."

That's just one of the scathing comments from Ann Minch, a disgruntled Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) customer who says in a YouTube video that the bank "jacked up my interest rate to a whopping 30% APR."

Her rant went viral, and Minch says the bank scaled her rate back to its original 12.99%. Citing customer privacy, a Bank of America spokeswoman said she could not comment on individual accounts but confirmed "we did ... reach a mutually agreeable resolution based on additional information that we reviewed."

The video, titled "Debtor's Revolt Begins Now!," has been streamed about 350,000 times and earned a five-star user rating since it was posted on Sept. 8.

In the video, Minch claims she wasn't over her credit limit and hasn't been late with payments, despite the fact that she doesn't have a full-time job.

She says she tried to negotiate with Bank of America, where she has been a customer for 14 years, "but they weren't willing to negotiate anything."

"I could get a better rate from a loan shark," she adds.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/29/news/companies/youtube_bank_of_america/index.htm

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I totally agree with where she is/was going with this, but all I had to do is call and bitch to my credit card company, threaten a good-bye, and their tune changes. At least it did in my place.

[truedelphi]

1. I'm glad for you that you got somewhere with them

Without having to make a video.

Good.

but you have a "Male" indication in your profile, and it is really true that those of us with a "Female" designation often do not get as far.

Then too it depends on whether you are working or not. It depends on what you do for a living. If you are the project manager for hiring legal consultants for an entire industry, they will duly note that in dealing with you.

If you are an attorney, often it is simpler for them to concede.

Or maybe you just got a reasonable person at the beginning of the week, whereas she got a less reasonable person at the end of their work week.

There are many variables - but the fact of the matter is that although 30% interest rates are much like loan shark rates, the credit card companies have been allowed such usurous practices by our bought and paid for Congress critters. The 1999 Banking "Reform" Act is such an intricately convoluted piece of legislation that even well paid foundations that work on the behest of the poor and working class do not know how to handle the provisions inside it.

[SacredCow]

2. Good for her....

as for me, calling Chase after they jacked my APR to the moon did absolutely no good. Unfortunately, I had been a couple of days late with a payment (because the statement email went directly to my spambox and I didn't realize it until too late). So, they had a leg to stand on to screw me. But the fact that my payments for the past year or more had been 2x and 3x the minimum just didn't matter to them at all. I cancelled the card and paid the balance in full in the next few weeks.

[DLnyc]

3. By what logic can a company lend at one rate, then suddenly start demanding

a higher rate for the repayment?

Answer: by the logic that they own so many congress-critters that they feel laws don't really apply to them and they can re-write contracts any time they feel like it

Bank of America is a criminal enterprise.

[Mariana]

4. By the logic that when you sign on the dotted line

you agree that the can a company can lend at one rate, then suddenly start demanding a higher rate for the repayment. Of course, it's in the microscopic print, and written in such confusing language that it difficult to understand just what the hell it says, but it's there.

That's their logic. I hate the dishonest bastards. Criminal enterprise, indeed.

[Deja Q]

5. Huffpo had a piece on that, too

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/debtors-revolt-message-re_n_293937.html


(my response)
"Credit card lenders are soaking hard-up customers after a $700 billion taxpayer bailout -- people are mad as hell about that."

Yup. We're struggling to keep up with education and technology that colleges won't pay for (despite tuition costs, which are ridiculously high) and to get "green" as the media loves to hype about... especially with jobs whose future wages are so low that CNN and the ilk say "$12/hr is the new 'good' wage"... and getting good grades to help buck the easily-proven-B.S. that offshoring is going on because Americans aren't educated and everyone else does it better for less... (and if what we've seen so far is an example of "better", I hope nobody is exempt from having to use it...)

In other words and, this time, without meandering, credit is more a necessity than a luxury. In 1979 value, $12/hr was AWESOME as bread was 60 cents per loaf, the minimum wage was $2.90, I could go on spewing enough stats to make an accountant or statistician fall into a coma. Anyone saying $12/hr is great in 2009 wages is high, stoned, drunk... anything but sober, sane. Try 'senile'.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/04/news/economy/green_jobs/index.htm?postversion=2009060412
(end my response)

[Omnibus]

6. $12/hr is a living wage. Barely.

Not even that, in some areas.

[2QT2BSTR8]

7. Of course that would be a lot more...

if insurance premiums were not so high with no sign of stopping any time soon.

[Joe Chi Minh]

8. They're the daddy of all loan sharks over there, it seems. Good for her!

And bad publicity for BAC.