Chase not a FICO lender... HA!
Date: Thu, 03/06/2008 - 04:53
The explaination letter I got basically said they didn't like the changes on my credit report. At that time I just paid the card off to a $0.00 balance and of course they ratejacked me 2 days after that.
I never realized this happened, and charged a 3700.00 boiler unit for our new house on the card - a few days later is when I got my statement and the new interest rate. I never got any notice from them about being able to cancel my account and keep my old rate - and they say they sent it. Whatever.
So fast forward from June 07 to now. I've been on them ever 2 months to get them to lower my rates. The answers are all the same - its because they don't like my credit score. My score has been the SAME range since I got the card 2 years ago - between 640-650. I have perfect credit history, but what's holding my score down is my balances on my cards.
So I finally get a hold of someone who suggests I talk to a credit analyst. The credit analyst tells me the same thing, but after me arguing with him for a bit, he starts to see my side of things I guess and I get a bit of sympathy.
I explain that I know they consider me a risk cause of my high balances. I know they also want me to pay for other peoples delinquencies by ratejacking me. I tell him I feel that Chase is treating me like a criminal with the 29% apr for me not ever doing anything wrong to them - never late, never missed a payment. He told me that Chase is not a FICO lender (which totally threw me because isn't that what they reviewed to give me the darn card in the first place?)
He says at this point maybe we should get a supervisor - and I told him they would tell me the same thing. He was somewhat positive and told me "it never hurts to ask". Well I should always remember that, but I was just so burned out trying that I gave up I guess.
We got a supervisor on the phone from "operations" who was very nice, gave me the same spiel, asked me why i had such high balances etc, and I thought I was done for again. Then he said the magic words - that he could reverse the decision to ratejack me. It still has to go to another department to process but that was music to my ears.
Moral of the story - don't give up. Someone out there is destined to help.
Most creditors are turning to this new system in which they do a
Most creditors are turning to this new system in which they do a soft hit on your credit to determine your "risk factor". That's why he said they don't use your FICO score. I believe it would be illegal for a creditor to check your actual FICO without your permission. From what I understand though is that most creditors will only raise your interest rate if they see that you have made a payment late to anyone of your other creditors. I know you said you have a perfect credit history but could it be a possability that you had made a late payment to any of your other accounts? How recently have you reviewed all three of your credit reports?
I review my credit reports on monthly basis at the least, I moni
I review my credit reports on monthly basis at the least, I monitor usually weekly through a triple monitoring program and within the past month have actually obtained paper copies of my credit report. I have NO late payments or derogs from the past 4+ years.
I'm religious about monitoring my reports and paying on time :)