An Open Letter (Sent) to Bank of Amerika

Hi.

I've been a customer now, according to your records, for some fifteen years. I just received "The" letter today indicating that you'd be jacking up my interest rate by 6 percentage points for, as far as I can tell, no reason directly connected to me or my activity.

I made a couple phone calls to your personnel and was fed the standard line of garbage about how this was tied to the economoy, etc, etc. Problem is, when I cited report after report of how interest rates were falling rather than increasing, no one had an answer other than that of double-speak.

So here's the situation as I see it: You guys are getting boned by myriad customers who have defaulted on their credit lines, failed to pay you, and generally screwed you out of your money. In turn, you'ved decided to screw me in hopes of recouping those losses.However, your new "strategy" has resulted only in a decline in your good customers and, no doubt, a tigher grip on those that you probably shouldn't have issued credit to in the first place. Nice move, bowel.

So there you have it. Instead of getting the 6.9% interest from me that you were getting, I've decided to freeze(and will shortly close) my account with you after 15 years of dedicated and, I daresay, loyal customership. Oh, and don't forget the on-time payments you've always gotten from me. Good luck with extracting payment from the other people who you've trapped into the 13% rate.

Before I close, here are a couple comments I think are worth mentioning:

When you increase an interest rate by a factor two, it's not "different" as your reps took such care to say. No. It's an INCREASE. It's HIGHER. "Different" would be a change from wanting US dollars to, say, having me pay in soda crackers or glass beads. More is still more regardless of how you spin it.

Secondly, the absurdity that you called my "option" of being able to keep my current interest rate but never again being able to use my card again was nothing more than insulting. That sort of verbal asshattery may be sufficient to fake out your marketing department, but in the real world, real people know when they're being hosed.

Here's a pretty cool quote from a money expert that I thought was rather salient:

Sean Gardner, director of MoneyExpert.com, said:
"Even when we started monitoring average credit card interest rates they were already around 16 per cent, so to see them continue to increase is testament to how much the card companies feel they can get away with."

But I digress.

I just wanted to let you know that I'll be sharing this letter, and my un-recommendation of your company with everyone I know, my blog, all of the forums I troll, and in general anyone I come across that might in the future have otherwise considered transacting business with you.

I sign off wishing you luck when you do eventually go looking for a government bailout, and the suggestion that you dump your current batch of "strategists" for those who do actually have something akin to a clue.

Sincerely,
"Gleno"