Woman refuses to pay credit card in protest

From: MSN Blogs/Money Central

The direct interview with her, and the YouTube video, is at the Huffington Post.

I first saw this link on my MSN Today news links. I found it interesting because we are seeing more of this kind of thing happen to more and more people during this recession. Then, after reading the article, I found that she had lost her job and the increase in her interest rate was most likely the "straw that broke the camel's back."

In any case, I was particularly intrigued because the job she lost was a county job (Mental Health Case Manager) in Tehama County, California. Prior to moving to Germany, I was the former Legal Secretary of the Tehama County Counsel and I was very familiar with the county departments and it's staff. Not only because I was an employee, but also because my mom was (and still is) a county employee (in the same building where this woman worked). I happen to know the woman and, in my opinion, she was horrible at her job and it's her own fault that she lost her job. Now, I don't agree with the credit card companies (in this case, Bank of America) raising interest rates with absolutely no reason, but for her to go and say she is not going to pay her bill is completely ridiculous.

While I agree with the reason she is doing it, I think it is going to have the wrong effect on her. This was stated in the MSN Article:

why didn't she just shop around for a more attractive offer and do a balance transfer to another card issuer? Banks actually like 'revolvers' - people who pay only the monthly minimum - compared to 'transactors', who pay in full each month; despite ostensibly being responsible lenders, the truth is that all of the banks are fighting for market share, and sales staff are after their bonuses.

In Australia, I worked for a bank that gave a minimum of A$5000 credit limit with a balance transfer rate of 0% for six months, and in many cases overlooked their own strict ID and credit assessment criteria just to steal customers from other banks.

I wonder if Bank of America will ever heed this advice.

This woman is dumb, dumb, dumb. Her credit rating is no doubt already wrecked, but now it will be eviscerated. BOA might have raised her interest rates, but it won't have been with "no notice." They will have sent her a booklet with lots and lots of small print, wherein the interest rate was buried in the middle somewhere. Perfectly legal.

Her "principled stand" is even more stupid, because Congress has already passed legislation (back in May) to stop the credit card lenders from perpetuating this kind of shenanigans. BoA would have a perfectly valid argument to refuse to work with her on her issue, because of this legislation and because she isn't the only consumer who has a balance on their cards. Anyway, the problem has already been fixed by Congress to a large extent.

Here are some of the practices to be curbed:

Some of the law has already taken effect. The rest of the legislation goes into effect next February.

We had two credit cards, one of which we use (and pay off every month), and the other as a back-up, which almost never carried a balance. We've had to cancel the back-up card, because they're now charging us for not using it. A lot of Americans got notification from their credit card banks this summer, changing the terms before the new laws started to go into effect. Unfortunately, the changes weren't outlined very clearly. So we got a booklet on the new terms, but not a comparison with the old terms. We had to pull out the old booklet and try to sort out what was different.

@dangermouse: The credit card issuers are in a panic about how the new laws are going to affect their cash cow. You can still find cards with free balance transfers, but they're harder to get than before. It's also harder to find cards with cash back deals or no annual fee.

I watched her video she looks like a f***** idiot.

I agree with Veronica.

glad to have reporter across the pond, cinzia.

The reactions to what this women is doing are interesting. Most seem more concerned about what this would do to their credit rating than the fact that they are being charged a usary fee of nearly one third of what you borrow.

I know it is strange to think that you can live without being in debt but there are some people who manage it.

Not me (got a mortgage) but I know a lot of people who have zero debt.

She may have been late on her mortgage or something and that can cause them to jack up her interest rates on the credit card even though she was never actually late on the credit card. I really don't understand why somebody would want to owe money on a credit card for years, even at 12% interest rates. You can do better than that.

"Raped and pillaged"?!?!?!? Is this woman serious? Nobody MADE her sign up for the credit card, and nobody MADE her carry a balance. Sure, this is a common thing to do in the States, but she can hardly act as if she was unknowingly taken advantage of. Plus, the bubble on the video says her rate is actually only around 23%. So, not only is she an idiot, she enjoys exaggerating for fun, too.

Twat.

Seriously? Is that legal. Making you pay extra on one bill because you are late on a separate one? Not that I would be even slightly surprised if banks do things like that.

That's one of the things that has been outlawed in the new legislation, steven.

It's going to be tough on credit card companies, but they've brought it upon themselves.

Its the squeaky wheel that gets the grease!

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/29/news/companies/youtube_bank_of_america/index.htm?cnn=yes

What a wonderful specimen. One of her arguments for why she thinks the bank jacking up her credit rating is wrong is because the bank got a federal bailout, so it's unfair for them to raise a taxpayer's interest rates when taxpayers paid for the bailout.

Now that that's resolved, she's going to stage a tax revolt. From the link above:

She wants it both ways. What a stupid, stupid woman. I hope she doesn't stop till she's imprisoned for tax evasion.

She could easily transfer her balances over to other cards at special rate. There are plenty of opportunities for that. The CC companies have been finding ways to jack up interest rates and reduce limits with one of the most widely reported ones being where you shop. there are plenty of stories out there of people who shop at Walmart seeing their limits slashed causing them to be over the new limit and, therefore, paying penalties and extortionate rates. As cinzia stressed, there are laws in place now to stop this kind of behaviour.

Chances are her financial problems run much deeper than she is letting on.

Furthermore, I suspect she's hoping to raise some money to pay off those debts with payments for talk show appearances.

Otherwise, her conflict with the credit company is resolved, so she would just go away.