Amendment to Your Credit Card Agreement:
"All standard Annual Percentage Rates (APRs) will be variable rates that will change each month with the Prime Rate. The Prime Rate will be selected at the end of each month, and will be applied to all balances in the same biling cycle as when selected. Variable default rates will also use the variable rate formula disclosed below...An increase or decrease in the index will cause a corresponding increase or decrease in your variable rates on the first day of your billing cyc that begins in the same month in which the index is pubished...If the Wall Street Journal does not publish the U.S. Prime Rate, or if it changes the definition of the U.S. Prime Rate, we may, in our sole discretion, substitute another index."
Translation: You will never know until after you use your card each month what interest we are going to charge you, and we, in our sole discretion, are going to do whatever we damn well please.
Bank of America: "We are making the Amendment in this Notice primarily because of a change in our business practices."
This is the second change of terms letter I've received from the Bank of America in the last couple of months. And one of several received over the past few years.
The business practices of banks, it appears, are changing so that agreements are meaningless, so consumers have nothing they can count on, and so that banks can continue to feather their own nests:
With bailout money
With deceptive business practices
With lax regulation
At the expense of consumers
Do I support a new Agency/Director of Consumer Protection? Absolutely. We need one place to take our complaints, tell our stories, and to be heard.