Can you lower the interest rate on your credit card?
Curiously, yes you can. In the United States, for example, people are encouraged to deal with their credit card company and the reason is very simple. People who own these cards love money. Especially if they’ve borrowed it through a credit card and now see there’s no way to get it back unless they play ball to some degree with potential bankruptcies. If you file bankruptcy, there’s a good chance they’ll never see any of that money again.
In their anger, they may decide to hit you with a black mark that will severely limit you in what types of cards you can apply for later, when you come out of bankruptcy. How long the black mark will exist can range from a few years to never being able to get a credit card from anywhere again. Scary stuff, right? And unfortunately, it’s not just the current coach who can uphold the ban. Once you’re in the system, you’re stuck there.
Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to try to reach an agreement with the credit card company with which you have your card. If nothing else, which is rare indeed, it will at least take some of the stress off of you for a moment or two. These people are human, just like you. And also may have had the same problems as you. It is wise to remember this. Nerves calm down immediately. Just don’t get into the tone that you know they’ve been on your boat.
Check the back of your credit card. There you should find the information you need to contact the company. But before you do that, have some bargaining power with yourself. If you have a lot of credit cards, you probably have offers from those companies for interest rates. Find the ones that are lower than the one you are trading and have them ready to trade. Then call the company and get ready to talk.
When you arrive, ask for the credit card division supervisor. They’ll probably fool you with a million call buttons, but hold your ground. Press all of these buttons if you have to, but you should eventually be done with the overseer. This isn’t just being a huge pain in the neck. The supervisor can do much more for you than a customer service representative can. They are usually much higher up the food chain, so these are the people you really need to talk to.
Explain your problem to them and tell them what you are looking for, which is a decrease in the interest rate on your card. If they’re all too happy to discuss it, keep your other offers hidden unless you really need to produce them. If the rate you’re offered isn’t very close to zero or is zero, then make it clear that you have these interest-free offers elsewhere and you’ll be fairly prepared to move your balances elsewhere if it’s not possible to match these offers. . But make it soft at first.
Of course, your generosity will be matched against your credit card debt and credit card payment history. If you have a lousy payment history, you may not be able to reduce the interest level to zero. But anything will be better than nothing and at least the company will believe that you are going to play fair with them, so they will see that they are going to get some of their money back.
