David closed his Chase credit card account instead of accepting a rate increase earlier this year. That should have been the end of it, but it turned out Chase later went ahead and increased the interest rate anyway.

He writes,

We had a business credit card account with Chase and earlier this year they sent us a notification that they would be doubling our interest rate. I called them and we opted to close the account rather than pay the higher interest rate. After that we have been steadily paying off the balance but the interest rate is still fairly decent so we’re paying off other, higher interest rate loans first.

I hadn’t been checking the statements closely because they are set up to auto-pay and the account is closed so there should be no new charges or changes, right? Well, I went back over the statements the other day and discovered that they had boosted our interest rate after the account had been closed. I called Chase, explained the situation and they told me that they will still retain the option to raise interest rates and that we would have to opt out of any interest rate increases they notify us about. I think they know this is not completely on the up-and-up as it was pretty easy to get the agent to undo the interest rate increase and process a refund for the extra interest that had been charged. The situation makes very little sense as we already opted to close the account rather than pay additional interest and there’s nothing we need to do at this point other than to say “No”. I think they’re counting on people not watching these closed accounts carefully.

Moral of the story is to be aware of this practice and watch out for credit card companies to attempt to slip in changes and extra fees/interest on accounts that have already been closed.

(Photo: TheTruthAbout…)

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