How to Reject Your Credit Card Rate Increase

Those of you who received rate increase notices from Bank of America or other banks recently, may have noticed something about being able to reject the rate change in the fine print. How does a rate increase rejection work? What do you have to do to reject the APR change? What's the catch? Let's break it down:

What does it say? In the Bank of America rate increase letter it states the following,

You do not have to accept this amendment. The steps you must take to reject this amendment are described below. You must act promptly to reject this amendment.
...
We must receive your written response by February 19, 2008.

What does this mean? You can write the bank within a certain amount of time to reject the increase in your credit card rates. This will not close your account or cause a negative record to appear on your credit report.

What's the catch? Rejecting the rate increase is only good until you use the card. Using the card after the stated date (in my example, Feb 19th) for a purchase is considered an "acceptance" of the new rate. Beware of automated charges or subscriptions services that could undo your rejection.

Where do you send the rejection? Rejections have to be received by the bank in writing at a specific address (not where you send your bill) before a specified date (not according to the postmark but the date they say they get the letter). For Bank of America customers, the address is

FIA Card Services, N.A.
P.O. Box 15565
Wilmington, DE 19850

Include your credit card number and full name along with your rejection request. You can't choose which term changes to reject. If you want to reject one, you have to reject them all.

If you have the rejection address for a different credit card issuer, please share it in the comments section below.

Also, we are looking for consumers in the Northeast who had their APR increase dramatically to appear on a network news program today. If you're interested, please call 415-901-1559 right away.

Emily Davidson – Credit.com credit expert and former TransUnion insider. Emily writes about credit reports, credit cards, loans and personal finance as the CreditBloggers.com moderator.

Comments

[Paul]

Here's a new one. I got one of these rate-increase notices from Bank of America awhile ago and rejected it by mail. I received no response other than an amendment to the original rate-increase notice, changing the rejection date by four months. I sent an overnight letter (signature required) and then had to call to verify. Yes, the account was closed. That was several months ago. I just received ANOTHER rate-increase notice, and I'm told by the "Customer Excellence Account Manager" (or something like that) that I will need to reject the new increase as well. So my recommendation is of course to never do business with Bank of America. But if you do, you'd better keep your eye on them.

[Jon]

Why even bother paying them at all. I think everyone is just throwing good money after bad. My CC company raised my interest rate and lowered my limit by about 50%. That put me at a debt ratio of 98% when it was about 50%. They did more damage to my credit by doing that than I could ever do by paying late. I was making my payments on time and paying double the minimum. They used to get paid first. Now they are last. The credit card companies deserve everything they get. Everyone should just walk away. They are not holding there end of the deal and we should all cut our losses.