Apparently, Citibank has turned into a no mercy credit card company. Even if you’ve been with Citibank for over a decade, watch out. If you have just one late payment, they may raise your APR to 29% or higher! I’m not talking about a missed payment, I’m talking about a late payment!

Not only is this discouraging to all Citibank cardholders, it’s also discouraging for financially disadvantaged cardholders. Charging almost 1/3 of a balance per year would make it almost impossible for low-income individuals to ever pay off high credit card debt.

I plan on paying off my balance as quickly as possible with my Citibank card, and canceling my card immediately thereafter. Treating long-time customers like short-time customers, and trapping low-income individuals into an endless cycle of debt is despicable, and quite possibly evil.

If you’ve had your APR jump up to astronomical numbers, because of just one late payment, I encourage you to call the customer service number on the back of your card. In most cases, they will lower your percentage rate by 1/3 to 1/2 if you just ask them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 at 5:23 am and is filed under Credit and Debt. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.