How to Prevent Your Credit Card Minimum Payment from Increasing

Your credit card company plans to increase your minimum monthly payment from 2% of your balance to 5%. You cannot afford this increase. What will you do? Follow these easy steps to stop the credit card company from increasing your monthly payment.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Credit card account number
• Telephone
• Bank account
• Financial data, including details about your income and your major monthly bills

1. Find the telephone number of the credit card company. This is located on your credit card statement or on the back of the card.

2. Speak to a customer service representative. Explain that you would like to stop your minimum monthly payment from being raised. The first person you speak with may have to transfer you to another department.

3. Be sure to be civil. The customer service agent is not responsible for your increased payment, and you are more likely to get help if you are nice.

4. In order to stop your monthly payment from being raised, you may have to enter a repayment program. The credit card company will want to close out the card, preventing you from charging on it anymore. Be sure to decide ahead of time whether or not you are able to cancel this credit card.

5. Next, the credit card company representative may ask you detailed questions about your financial situation. Be prepared to describe your monthly income and major bills (such as mortgage, auto, loans, and other credit card payments).

6. Be prepared to deal with an increase in interest rate, if you had an exceptional interest rate to begin with. Personally, I had a very low (3%) interest rate on my balance for the life of the loan. Of course, the credit card company didn't like this. In order to enter a repayment program, I had to agree to a higher interest rate (6%). The good news was that I was given a specific repayment term, like with auto and home loans, so I now had peace of mind knowing exactly when my debt would be resolved.

7. If you agree to the terms, the credit card company will give you a revised minimum monthly payment. This amount may even be lower than what you were previously paying! However, don't let that make you ease up on paying as much as possible. The repayment program doesn't penalize you from paying extra, and all additional funds go directly to your balance.

8. Finally, your credit card company may ask for a banking account number so they can directly withdraw the first minimum monthly payment. They will give you a date to expect the funds to be withdrawn. This date may or may not be the same as your previous due date.

9. You might still receive a statement or two showing your old minimum monthly payment. Go ahead and pay the new amount you agreed to pay. Eventually, the statements will match the amount given to you in the repayment program.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have a good balance transfer offer, you might try to transfer the balance. However, be warned that many companies are raising minimum monthly payments, even on customers who have no previous problems, so you never know if the new card will raise your payment, too.
• Pay extra as much as possible to reduce your balance as quickly as possible.
• This worked for me; however, I don't guarantee it will work for you!
• Some credit cards are tacking on a $10 additional monthly fee. Be sure to watch your credit card statement carefully.
• Remember, this only stops the minimum monthly payment on your credit card from being raised. This does not decrease the amount you owe, even if your payment goes down!
• Be sure to pay your future payments on time. Failure to do so may cause you to get kicked out of the repayment program, meaning your minimum monthly payment might increase to an unbearable amount.

[axleskat]

on 9/3/2009 Great tips! we all need good advise right now! 5*