I got a letter in the mail today from Dodge. It said, “Important information about your vehicle” on the front.
I thought it must be some kind of recall or something. Or at least that it could be. But no. It was an offer.
“We will give you 100% of the amount that you owe on your car if you trade it in on a new vehicle. You will have zero out of pocket expense, and your payments will remain exactly the same as they are now, for the same amount of time, because your credit is better than it was when you first bought your car and we can offer you such a lower interest rate.”
Or something thereabout.
It sounded like a pretty good offer on the surface. Two weeks ago I would have taken it. Or at least looked into it more.
But not this time. I can see the fallacy plain as day. Can you spot the problem?
The problem is this: I have no intention of paying on my loan for the duration. I am going to pay it all off ahead of time, so if I were to get a new car at this time, it would increase my balance owing, and increase the time it takes to pay it all off. Not to mention that it would be stupid for me to buy a new car at this time in my life because it depreciates so quickly.
So no thank you, Dodge. I’m good.
B of A decided to raise my interest rate. From 12% to 21.9%.
I wasn’t late on a payment. I wasn’t over the limit. In fact, I’ve always been on time. They didn’t specify why they were doing it. They just did it.
So of course I immediately called them on the phone. They said that according to the Terms of Service, they could adjust the interest rate however they wanted. But that wasn’t my point. I wasn’t disputing the fact that they are allowed to change the interest rate. I called them to tell them that 21.9% is outrageous and that I wasn’t prepared to pay that much in interest. They agreed to lower the rate. To 18%.
I have approximately a $7500 balance with B of A. That works out to somewhere about a hundred dollars a month in interest. That’s just outrageous. I told them that I’ve never had an issue with them and that I would prefer to continue to do business with them, but that I was just not prepared to pay usurious interest rates.
I get offers all the time for zero percent balance transfers, and I’m prepared to use them if I need to.
So how did they respond to my latent threats? They offered me a debt consolidation loan. At 16% interest.
Well thank you, but no thank you, B of A.
My intention is to pay off one or two of my smallest debts which are just a pain to have to pay every month, and then move directly to the B of A account. I have a transfer available with zero percent for 12 months, with about a $3000 limit. After that is transferred, I will put them on top of my list of debts to pay off.
Once I pay them off, if they want to lower the interest rate below some of the other people, I would still be open to transferring back to them, but as it stands now, I intend to transfer some and pay some and eliminate that debt within the next two months.
Because really. 21.9%? You gotta be kidding me.
