cut to the chase

I actually received some good word from Chase.

I originally had a 5.9% apr for the life of the balance deal, and at 5.9% I've been able to pay off a LOT. Last December I was informed that they were going to:
1. charge a $10/mo "maintenance fee" to keep the promotional apr
2. increase my minimum payment from 2% to 5% (WTF!)
no option to opt out (or the account would close and apr would increase by a great deal)

3% is a lot when you have a substantial balance - enough to put you over the edge if you're scraping by to begin with.

Anyway I called them when I got the notice and they offered me these terms:
1. increase from 5.9% to 7.9%, the $10/mo fee waived, and minimum payment remained the same
2. in 2011 my interest rate would go up to 27% apr (another WTF)

Imagine my delight when I opened my bill to find out my apr was reverted to 5.9% and the extra finance charges were refunded! Enough people spoke up, it seems.

They're still on my sh*t list for pulling their stunts, but I'm not going to complain about saving $4 a month in finance charges!

Welcome!

I'm starting this blog to chart my progress towards paying off all my lame credit card debt and reminding myself which banks f*cked me over so I won't ever do business with them again (you know, when I'm not poor anymore and need to get a mortgage or something).

While this blog will be pretty personal, I welcome anyone to share their constructive comments to inspire others towards a life free of cc debt.

A little background:
- I accrued insane amounts of cc debt during my 20s. I can only blame myself for the problem and fix it myself!
- I'm not planning on canceling my internet and cell phone and living in a cardboard box and realize it will take longer to pay off all the debt by making these choices.