They are in business to make money at our expense. Who is really shocked here?

They are a greedy, evil, heartless corporation. What more reason do you need than that?

BofA needs cash badly and raising fees and rates is about the only way they can do it. With CRE lending starting to take a dump, BofA is in trouble.

Folks, if you are a "pay it off every month" kinda person , the banks are trying to run you off so that you get a "free" 30 day loan someplace else. You're simply not an attractive customer for them. The lady in the article said that she faithfully pays in full every month (on time)... Great for her , but BOA and other companies really can't make any money off her so they want to fire her as a customer. Now ,she said that she already has a credit union issued card at a lower rate,so she's not going to get hurt , but look at your own finances now before they do this to you and your options narrow.If you educate yourself and play the game intelligently , the banks that pissed all of that subprime money away through greed and stupidity cannot shift the cost for their mismanagement to you.

(Go to cuna.org and find a CU before you pay BOA's tab)

Anyone still banking with B of A at this point after all the articles on Consumerist over the years about why you shouldn't is paying a stupidity fee.

I had a BOA card and they sent me a notice that my rate was going up. I took advantage of the opt-out which required a written request (and you can't incur any further charges, or else the rate will reset to the higher level). I then transferred the balance to another card (with a 3.99% rate for the life of the balance). I was in the midst of paying down my debt (I will be credit card debt free in 3 months!!! thank god), and always paid much more than the minimum, but BOA would have continued to make money off of me from interest in the meantime. If getting rid of me as a customer was their goal, it worked.

@Craig: Unless you haven't been charged a fee...yet.

@Snarkysnake: Do you understand these people get paid for every single transaction you use your card on?

@Snarkysnake: That's not right. They get 1-1/2% to 3% of every transaction. I make my bank a pretty good chunk of change every month. Besides, how is raising rates running of people like us? I have absolutely no idea what my interest rate is, because whether it were 9% or 79%, I'd still pay the same amount of interest every month.

Greedy little wenches. This'll bite them in the butt with the mass exodus of cardholders as they move to greener pastures.

@Snarkysnake: If we pay it off monthly, we don't care about interest rate because we don't pay interest. This is about trying to run off the people who are deadbeats and not good customers.

I use BofA because I have not personally had any problems with them and so far my card is not suffering from this horrid interest rate. But even if it was, I just got a rewards card from another bank that also came with a great interest rate -- it's still simple to get a card if you have good credit and no debt.

Now if they DO start giving me grief, I'm gone, but I like having an account at a bank that exists all over the country, including where I plan to move soon.

The Best Buy of banks.

I have BOA and thus far have not received any notification of my rate increasing, so BOA is not all bad. I'm actually pretty happy with them. I've had horrible experiences with WaMu and Wachovia and in the 3 years I've had BOA, they've been the best out of the bunch.

@Craig: I agree. If you're still doing business with BoA you deserve your dumbass tax.

@darkened:

"Do you understand these people get paid for every single transaction you use your card on?"

Yes I do. But they split the money according to some formula with whichever brand is on the card...And that fee is really paid by the merchant (I know because I pay it myself) But that is not where the real money is. Lots of revenue to be sure,and relatively risk free, but the real pot o' gold is fees and interest... Otherwise they wouldn't try to run these folks off IMHO. If they are generating sufficient revenue from transactions,they would just keep them. As for being "deadbeats" , just as no one made cardholders take the damn things ,nobody made BOA issue the card. If they are not making enough scratch off these folks ,by their own terms and conditions,they can raise their rates or cancel their cards. But by the same token , customers can minimize their fees and charges and thats just the way it is...

@laserjobs: I would agree, after the subprime fallout a lot of these banks are over extended so by shoring up their credit industry they can cut back on cash obligations quickly.

All in all its not a bad business decision to try and get rid of potential high-risk business ventures (not customers) in order to limit liability and exposer should the economy get worse quickly.

Oddly, my Chase and Citi cards both look like they've cut their rates for me since I've stopped using them...

@Buran: Oh contrair: the people not paying off their cards every month aren't the deadbeats, you are the deadbeat in the company's eyes; they're not making any money off of you. They're making tons of money off of anyone with a balance. They get money at, what, 3ish%? And they lend it out at 24.99%?

If anything, the credit card companies want to ditch you, the 'deadbeat', as a customer and keep the people who have a balance and make minimum payments, simply because they make money off of those people.

This has me kinda worried...I have two BOA cards one that I never use and has a 0 balance on it, and the other one with less than $400 on it which will be paid off next month. Never a late payment with them on either card. One card has a low interest rate on it the other one is moderate. I'm waiting for my note from BOA that says I have one of these outrageous rates. Hubby has one BOA card too with a moderate rate which is always paid on time. Waiting for a letter for him, too.

I'm just really surprised hearing how high interest rates are. My BOA is a 8.99% and that is AFTER a rate increase a couple years ago. Then again, my husband and I have a lot of accounts, so if they do decide to screw with our rates, they'll be losing not only our checking, savings, IRA, and business accounts, they'll be losing 3 credit cards.

I checked my Compass Bank card, the rate has actually gone down, so as long as they don't screw with it, I'll be happy.

Just got off teh phone with BOA, my rate was a full point lower then I thought it was, my guess is these increases aren't across the board...for now.

I got 2 of those rate increase notices in the mail (2 different accounts). Fortunately, being a good Consumerista, I knew what to do. Wrote in and rejected the changes, and cut up both cards. If BOA raises my rates by more than 10 points and won't offer any decent explanation as to why, they must not really want my business that much.