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Jan 21

WaMu Cardholders Beware

Published in Untagged  by kvan Print PDF
Washington Mutual was the 6th largest US bank when it went under in September. JP Morgan Chase bought the assets which included the WaMu credit card business. I have used my WaMu card only for balance transfer offers, which have been fairly beneficial for me. Today, I received a letter from Chase outlining the new rules as Chase absorbs the WaMu credit card business. I see nothing but downside in the new terms. If you have a WaMu card, you can probably expect the same. Some of the highlights:
  1. Balance transfer fees are a straight 3% with no cap. WaMu had a $150 cap. As part of my credit card arbitrage strategy, I moved about $13000 in debt to my WaMu card with a 1.87% interest rate. My fee was capped at $150 dollars. Under the new rules, a transfer like this would incur a $390 fee.
  2. Chase prohibits balance transfer and check-writing between accounts. I have a Chase card that I use for daily expenses, which I pay off every month. This rule would prohibit my using a balance transfer between these accounts. I don't have plans to do this anyway, but it might affect some people.
  3. The new rules explicitly state that Chase can change the terms at any time for any reason: "At our discretion, we may increase, reduce, or cancel your credit line". This unfriendly clause is a main reason credit card company's finally triggered congress and the Federal Reserve to act, though none of the consumer protection actions take affect for quite a while.
  4. The new terms also explicitly state that Chase will apply payments in a manner which most benefits them. As I've discussed in the past, this is a common predatory practice where your payments pay down any low-interest balance, preserving any high interest balance to grow fees as much as legally possible. Of course, this is opposite of what you want. You want to pay off high interest debt first, not low interest debt. This feature also will be changed by Federal Reserve rules, and the congressional Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, if and when passed. Unfortunately, it will be a while before any new regulation or law changes this.
  5. Minimum payment will be $10. Or if your balance owed is less than $10, then entire balance is due. I'm not sure what my minimum was before, if any. It is actually a good thing that there is a minimum, to avoid extremely small required payments dragging on month after month.
  6. Chase also is changing fixed interest rates to variable interest, tied to the prime rate. If you carry a purchase balance, this will likely affect you. For me, the variable rate on my card is so outrageously high, that I don't even consider using this card for anything other than a beneficial balance transfer offer. My purchase rate is going to be prime rate plus 26.99%, currently resulting in a 30.24%!!!. Wow!

Chase is letting me opt out of the changes, by closing the account. In that case, I'm allowed to continue payments under the current terms, including my special 1.87% rate until that expires. I feel like I'm winning the battle with this card, as I've exploited it a couple times for low-interest balance transfer offers. I can't help but wonder if they're hoping I just close the account. They must have some grading system, and I'm sure I'm a failure on the customer profitability scale in their eyes. I'm somewhat anticipating that they'll reduce or eliminate my credit limit at some point to get rid of me. Until then, I'll keep the account open, to preserve my credit limit, which helps my FICO score. Closing an account would increase my debt compared to available credit, reducing my FICO score. So, I'll stay the course until my low interest rate expires, then look to transfer the remaining balance to another low interest rate card. I have an outstanding offer with Bank of America, currently at 3.99% and a $30 transfer fee. Afterwards, I'll leave the WaMu account open, and wait to see if Chase comes up with any other attractive balance transfer deals in the future.

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Washington Mutual 1.87% balance transfer offer
written by Dee, July 15, 2009
Thanks you so much for your post. When Chase bought Washington Mutual all my troubles began. I did a balance transfer with Washington Mutual in October 2008, with a 1.87% balance transfer offer. When I receive my statement for the next month from WAMU, they did complete the balance transfer and charged me the balance transfer fees, but did not apply the promotional APR of 1.87%.

I called customer service and they acknowledged and said that they would change it immediately, and I should see the changes on my next statement. A month later, still no promotional APR of 1.87%. But the APR was 18.9%, absolutely way to high, and not worth doing a balance transfer for. I called back again, and by this time Chase had bought out WAMU, and there began the most absolutely, disgustingly, rude customer service I have ever experienced from any company, ever.

And long story short, after 10 calls to customer service over 6 months, and talking with 4 managers, and six different stories from Chase about why the 1.87% APR was not applied, Chase refuses to apply the 1.87%. I have paid over $1,200.00 dollars in interest alone because of this error, that Chase refuses to fix. And to make matters worst, I could have transferred the money over to another card months ago, but continued to stick with Chase because after every call, I was told that they would research the problem and fix it.

Bottom Line Chase will not change the APR unless I can provide them with the 1.87% APR offer that I submitted for. Unfortunately, I donot have this offer anymore. Do you by any chance still have a copy of your offer? Or know anyone that also received a 1.87% balance transfer offer from Washington Mutual, before the buy-out. I really need to prove them wrong, because they are indeed wrong. I’m determining how, I would go about suing them, or taking this to the Press some how because this is absolutely wrong.

I also went to consumer affairs.com and learned that I am not the only former Washington Mutual Customer that Chase is doing this to. There are 1,000s of complaints on the consumer affairs website against Chase since they took over Washington Mutual. Any help that you or anyone out there can provide would be extremely appreciated.

Thanks so very much
Dee


Dee
kvan
...
written by kvan, July 16, 2009
Hi Dee,

Unfortunately, I don't have any of the paperwork for that offer. I went back and checked exactly when I executed the offer. I see Sep 20th as the date the transfer occurred into my Bank of America account (that's the one I was paying off with the 1.87% offer).

I can tell you that these offers frequently have very precise terms and conditions, in keeping with the card companies ultimate goal of hoping you trip over an obstacle and pay higher fees. One condition is usually meeting the deadline for the check to be presented to the card issuer. Unfortunately, you don't have firm control over this. You write a check, and a few days or a week later, it gets presented back to the bank for funding. If for some reason the check gets presented late for some reason, you could easily get jilted. Its best to write that check well before the deadline, say a couple weeks.

It could be that you have no recourse. I would do just as you did - issue a complaint to consumerAffairs.com. If there is a legal issue here, an attorney will eventually take a look at it (or so the site claims).

I would next see if there is any way to get some of the interest fees credited back to you. I'm guessing you don't have any written communications? In that case, you're stuck asking them if they have a history of the conversations (they should). If they have a record of an agent promising you the 1.87 percent, then you can show a reason that you kept the balance there instead of transferring the balance out. They should be willing to refund interest fees from that date. Of course, they may never admit anything.

You could also let them know that thousands of consumers are in the same boat, and that attorneys are taking a look at it based on the consumerAffairs complaint system, and their behavior may lead to a class action suit to which you will be a party.

Lastly, you might post a note at www.savingAdvice.com, a popular financial forum site, that I've mentioned in some of my posts. There are quite a few experts lurking there that generally have good suggestions.

I wish there were better answers, but these card companies know all the tricks. Hopefully the new legislation will help crack down on them. Until then, we all have a little more pain to get through. Good luck to you!

kvan

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