Student Credit Card and Credit Education Blog

My girlfriend loves fancy expensive handbags. We walk by them in a department store and I hear “ooh, isn’t that absolutely gorgeous?” I look at the $1,200 price tag and reply, “no”. If she had the extra $1,200 I’m sure she’d buy it although she isn’t going to spend $1,200 on a handbag when she needs the money to pay back her student loans and save up for a class she wants to take instead. Those things are slightly more valuable to her right now. The concept of value is what I want to explore a little bit today.

How can the same handbag represent no value to me and high value to her? The price tag certainly conveys price but it apparently doesn’t convey value. Would the same hand bag be as attractive at $10 in a bin at Target? That is up to you because an object’s value depends on you (or should) rather than the price tag. You assign value to things; the things don’t assign their own value. Keep in mind that the job of marketers is to try to do this for you which is why making things super expensive sometimes has the effect of inflating value to customers.

Thinking about and understanding the relative value of things in your life will help you to save money, to make good financial choices and to stress-out less about incurring debt. You are the master of value in your life and you need to learn to be a shrewd evaluator to stay out of debt and to get ahead in life.

Only you can answer questions concerning value. To illustrate this, here are some questions which I can’t answer for you due to reasons mentioned above. I want you to think about them and I bet you’ll find that you can argue both sides of the value discussion.

• Are 4 years at a private college more valuable than 2 at a community college and 2 at a private college given that the cost is vastly different?
• Is a more expensive new text book more valuable than a used text book?
• What is the value of an insurance policy?
• What is the value of an undergraduate degree? A graduate degree?
• What is the value of a new car vs. a less expensive used car?

If you decided that a graduate degree is valuable, can you point out how it will pay for itself at some point? If so how long will it take? Is there another investment you could make with that money which would be better? Let’s say you want to be a doctor and you feel your salary will be enough to pay back your loans and then live more comfortably than you otherwise would be able to. Fine, then don’t stress about the loans you take out. Now let’s say you want to be a software programmer. Can you calculate the value getting a graduate degree will have vs. getting extra time working in your field? That may not be so easy but as I say, it’s up to you but look at it through a financial investment lens.

A car is a bit more complex than spending money on college. You’ll find no shortage of people to tell you how purchasing a used car is smarter than buying a new car due to the fact that new cars depreciate. But if that used car breaks down a lot and you get fired from your job for being late, which was more valuable, the new car with the warranty and no mechanical problems or the cheaper car with the hidden defect?

What’s even more complicating is that the “personal” in “personal finance” means that emotions do play a part in our valuation of things. You’ll find no shortage of people who will tell you the sweetest smell in the world is “new car smell”. Are you going to graduate from college work hard and live your entire life driving somebody else’s fishy-smelling cast-off? In your valuation of things you also should consider emotional value. In reality most of us lean towards that anyway which is why marketers exist. What I am trying to get you to do is to consider a financial valuation of things rather than just emotional because that will help you make better and less stressful decisions.

My girlfriend attached an emotional value to that handbag, I attached a financial value to it and that is why it had different values to us. I suppose my girlfriend will someday have the $1,200 handbag. I’ll have to give it a smell when she does and see if it smells like a new car.

PS. Free things that can make you money are really valuable, like this code for 15 points at www.ScholarshipPoints.com. Enter GOODVALUE to get your 15 points.

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My buddy John claims that winning money is ten times sweeter than earning it. I must admit I agree with that statement. However, the problem with gambling is that the odds are never in your favor and most of us will end up on the losing end eventually. My proclamation is that saving money is far greater than winning it. I say why leave things to chance? Finding ways to save money can be a game in itself, and one I have mastered.

Here is a money saving tip for you. Do you have any or all of the following bills; Verizon home line, Verizon cell phone, DSL, or Direct TV? Personally I have them all, which was why I bundled them into one package and am now saving myself time and money each month.

I actually had my Verizon home & DSL on one invoice, wireless service on another, and Direct TV on a third. I was writing three checks per month and making three payments. Looking back it just seems foolish. I called a representative one day to see if I could combine the wireless and home line / DSL onto one invoice and was then asked if I had Direct TV. Verizon apparently partnered up with Direct TV in an effort to outperform cable’s “triple play” package. That’s when I was told about the deluxe bundle they could offer me.

In a competitive market value and convenience are what consumers are seeking, and they were certainly singing my tune. Just by bundling my products together and having all them serviced with Verizon on one invoice I saved about $40 per month. I went from $278 per month to $239 without changing any of my services. It worked out perfect for me.

Things to keep in mind: Certain areas do not have Verizon “FiOS” internet service. I have also heard that many consumers have been unsatisfied with their Direct TV service as well. My Direct TV does have some issues, probably 8-10 days per year due to in climate weather, but that doesn’t bother me. That’s when I break out the scrabble board. Hey, I’ve got a good word for ya, S-A-V-I-N-G-S! Let’s see, triple letter score on the V, double word score on the board, and let’s not forget my 50 point bonus for using all seven letters, that’s 88 points! Looks like I know how to maximize my savings everywhere I go.

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Want to be smart about how you approach auto insurance? Ever wonder about how to set your deductibles? Here is how I kept my insurance payments low by setting a high deductable and then only having to pay $150 of my deductable anyway. I recently crashed my 2007 Ducati GT1000 motorcycle last Friday on the way to work. I was taking a left hand turn and lost traction on a wet crosswalk the result of which landed me on my helmeted chin and my bike on its side. Other than a bruised ego I’m fine but the motorcycle needs $3,000 in repairs.

When I called my insurance company I asked them how much a $3,000 claim will impact my yearly premium. They said that it would raise my premium about $600 for the next five years. If you do the math, in essence I’ll be paying for the repairs myself over time on top of my regular insurance payments. So what are my payments for? Or better yet what were my 10 years of accident free payments for? Apparently only to have the slip of paper proving I have insurance. So while not every increase in premiums is going to mathematically work out perfectly like this, if you make a claim your premiums will go up and you will in essence start paying for the repairs yourself.

So how does this impact your auto insurance strategy? Since the payments you make all those accident free months don’t benefit you but rather your insurance companies own investment portfolio, you should keep them as low as possible. This means raising your deductibles as high as they can go. What if I get in an accident and I can’t afford to pay a $1,000 or $1,500 deductible you say? Sure you can afford and you can get the benefit of having your money work for you and not your insurance company.

Get an auto insurance quote with the minimum deductible and another with the maximum deductible. Figure out the difference and instead of giving it to the insurance company to have for their own investments, put it into a high yield savings account like the Orange Savings Account and let your money work for you and not them. (If you win a scholarship at www.ScholarshipPoints.com by entering the code: INSURANCE that will help keep cash in your savings account too.)

If you get into an accident it’s better to have a high deductible for which you’ve got a savings account set up. A high deductible means you’re going to end up claiming less because your claim is the total damage estimate minus your deductible. That means your insurance premium will go up less as well saving you even more money. Anyway you look at it making your deductibles as high as possible is the smart move. That is if you can be disciplined and save the difference between the two premium quotes.

Hopefully this saves some of you some money and encourages you to start saving more as a way to insure yourself. I also hope that you take it easy turning wet corners on crosswalks while riding a motorcycle or bicycle or razor scooter.

PS. To even make my point more exciting, my insurance adjuster just looked at my bike and since some of the damage is very minor and hardly noticeable he asked me if I would accept half the payment for a few items and in return the insurance company would lower the deductible I actually have to pay. For mt $1,000 deductible I am actually only going to pay $150 and live with a scrape on my kickstand and the bottom of my muffler which nobody can see so I saved lots of money by keeping my deductible high.

PPS. I should mention that if you buy and insure a nice new car today and smash it up tomorrow before you’ve had time to save the deductible you’re probably in trouble. This tip is a suggestion for those who can save. If you cant be responsible enough to save this might not make sense for you but if you are a saver this is the way to go!

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Ready? Here it is:

Relax and take a deep breath.

When faced with financial troubles remember that it’s only money, a man-made symbol of value which is traded for other items with perceived values. It’s not your life, your health, your family, your pet or anything that nourishes your spirit. It’s not always easy but if you can remember that and keep financial troubles from getting you down and letting your emotions rule your head you’ll come out of them far better off than if you let yourself get so down and depressed that you can’t see all the options in front of you.

The surest way to get into a financial bind is to let a small financial scratch become a major wound due to panicking or over-reacting with an emotional response. In other words very few financial struggles need to be resolved in 5 minutes unless they have to do with “Vinnie the Bookie” finally catching up with you in a dark alley. In most cases there’s a short term band aid and a longer term solution needed. It’s always a good idea to write an issue down on paper and then sleep on the problem or at least wait until your emotions subside about whatever it is. You’ll find your perspective will be a little different and you’ll see options you didn’t see before.

I have a friend who recently got into a bind with making a couple of late payments to some credit cards. He had a handful of cards between store cards and regular credit cards and was having trouble making his payments. He panicked went out and signed up for a consolidation loan with an interest rate higher than his credit cards had but it offered only one payment and a lower total payment than he was currently required to pay. For that benefit the loan was also going to make him pay more than double what he borrowed when all was said and done.

When he told me what happened I sat down with him and he said he didn’t have a budget so we downloaded the budget from http://www.studentplatinum.com/budget-template/ and started to look at his income and expenses. Once it was all in front of him he saw that he made more than enough money to cover his credit card payments and by listing them on his budget he was able to remember their due dates. I then gave him the credit card debt reduction plan and he figured out the smart way to pay off his credit cards. He took the money from the loan and paid back the loan and then started using a simple budget. Four months later he sent me an email telling me he paid off 4 of his 5 credit cards and was able to get the interest rate lowered on the fifth and was doing great.

The lesson is that there were two problems, one short term and one long term. He made a couple of late payments and that’s bad. In the short terms he needed to make the payments, call and see about getting the fees refunded but then calm down and take a look at the big picture. Long term he had to decide why was struggling? He thought he didn’t have enough money but really didn’t know where his money was going. In his panic he almost did something that was going to cost him a lot more money in the end to fix a problem that was really just a behavioral issue with the way he managed his money (it might have helped if he won a scholarship on www.ScholarshipPoints.com by entering the code: BESTIPEVR worth 10 points).

So remember relax, it’s only money. If you get yourself into hot water you can get yourself out. There will be penalties but you’ll want to make them as small as possible and to do that you need all the time available and a clear head to get the right solution. This doesn’t just apply to debt either. Letting your emotions cause you to buy a stock, a pair of $500 shoes or that timeshare in Kosovo is bad news. Think it over first and decide when you’ve had time to do a sanity check.

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I just reviewed our traffic statistics for Student Platinum, its been a good month for us but I was surprised to see that our second most popular page is one that’s not even directly linked to from the site. The page is a resource page for high school students and first year college students. It summarizes the important facts about credit score, credit reports and student credit cards. It also provides a short list of credit cards which are doing a good job approving students with little or no credit history.

If you wish to check it out, here for the first time is the link to the page everybody’s been talking about: The amazing student credit page.

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On February 13th I added a blog entry titled How My Credit Score Dropped 30 Points in One Day. This entry is a follow-up to that. To summarize the original entry, I paid off and closed my Chase credit card because they were jerking me around by raising my APR because I was paying my balance off too quickly after a 0% interest balance transfer. Aside from that being a highly unethical and downright evil way to treat me, I then screwed up in trying to sever my ties with them and they socked it to me- again.

I paid off my balance plus some extra to cover the interest that I calculated had already compounded for the current month. I then proceeded to pay no attention to the invoice the next month since the account was closed and I assumed they were just going to bug me about a credit of a few dollars. Little did I know, the interest they hit me with was $3 more than I paid with left the account open. Instead of a credit I owed them $2 which I didn’t know about and so didn’t make a payment. Chase was thrilled to charge me a $30 late fee, and then another giving me a balance of $63 which was over 30 days past due. This they submitted to the credit agencies who then rocked my credit score by an average of 30+ points. luckily I use a service that alerts me when somebody dings my credit report so I was made aware of this balance for the first time. I immediately paid the balance off and then called Chase hoping for a goodwill adjustmen. I was fine with surrendering the $60 to cover being late on the $3 but I wanted them to retract the negative mark seeing as it was obviously an mistake. Their answer to me can be summed up by: “too bad, don’t try to rob us of $3 next time”. No, they didn’t want to work with me on that.

Well I’m happy to report that my score corrected itself and went back up today to just a few points less than where it had been a originally. So if you are wondering how a late payment will hurt you it all depends upon how late and how many you have. I researched how this works and here is the deal:

One late payment hurts your credit score in a major way because you could potentially go 90 days late. 90 days late is what lenders really fear because after 90 days their odds of not getting paid without going to collections skyrocket. Once its reported that the late payment was made and you are back on track in under 90 days the penalty eases up on you to show lenders you are no longer a 90-day late risk. If you have a history of being 30-days late this doesn’t work out so well, the penalty can stick for repeat offenders.

Anyway, so I’m back on track and now I can look into taking advantage of the dropping interest rates to try and refinance my mortgage and save some money each month. I was about to do that when my credit score got socked by Chase. With the economy bogging down, credit requirements are getting tighter so that’s why my score dropping was such a killer.

By the way if you are a student who will be looking at private or consolidation loans in the next 12 months, don’t wait! You should apply now before the credit requirements raise higher! You can go here to learn more about how the credit crunch is going to affect your student loans.

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I’ve been warning students about the credit crunch on the horizon for a couple of months now in this blog. Now the crunch is really here and it’s going to impact you in a very personal way…in your ability to pay for college. So forget about the past posts if you want and let’s get to the point they made:

1. Credit score requirements are going to rise this year for loan borrowers and for cosigners
2. Student credit scores are likely to drop due to credit changes in FICO 08

Now to add abuse to insult and injury, experts are predicting the available funds for students are going to dry up this year as well. According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, 2008 is looking like the bleakest year since your parents went to college for students looking for loans to fund their educations. What’s worse is that students don’t realize it yet because the money they have now was were awarded last year. It’s not expected to be nearly so easy to get money for college in the fall.

The article quotes Mark Valenti, president of the Connecticut Student Loan Foundation, a nonprofit lender based in Rock Hill, Conn with saying “There is no question in my mind that, unless something changes in the marketplace, there will be a shortfall of funds available to make student loans, I’ve been doing this since 1978, and I’ve never been more nervous.”

What can you do about it? One thing you should do immediately is to look into applying for your 2008-2009 student loans right now before the funds dry up! Aside from this it’s important that you protect your credit score and work to make sure you have the best chance at being approved for college loans.

I would also mention that free college scholarships are still out there. They just awarded a $10,000 free college scholarship at www.scholarshippoints.com and give away another $1,000 every month!

Here is the original Wall Street Journal article; sorry for the re-post but it’s extremely important and I wanted to make sure you had access to the article even after it gets taken down.
Lenders Predict Harsher Climate for Student Loans
By ROBERT TOMSHO and JOHN HECHINGER
February 14, 2008

Amid a widespread tightening of credit, some student lenders predict college loans will be harder and more expensive to come by for the fall.

Without a break in the credit crunch — such as stepped-up lending by major banks — the situation could become far worse, these lenders say, leading to many students being unable to fund their educations.
“There is no question in my mind that, unless something changes in the marketplace, there will be a shortfall of funds available to make student loans,” says Mark Valenti, president of the Connecticut Student Loan Foundation, a nonprofit lender based in Rock Hill, Conn. “I’ve been doing this since 1978, and I’ve never been more nervous.”
The subprime-mortgage crisis has driven investors away from the asset-backed securities that are a crucial source of capital for many student lenders, prompting smaller concerns like College Loan Corp. and Nelnet Inc. to stop making certain kinds of loans. And in recent days, the market for auction-rate securities, a type of financing vehicle tied to student loans, has seized up.

Concerns were heightened Tuesday when the Michigan Higher Education Student Loan Authority, a state agency, said it would suspend a major student-loan program because it was unable to raise capital in the markets. “I think a lot of agencies like ours are going to be running out of money,” says Tom Saxton, a deputy treasurer for the state of Michigan. “It just hasn’t hit yet.”

Indeed, college financial directors say they aren’t yet seeing major problems with loan availability. One reason is that most students secured their loans for the current academic year before it began and won’t begin borrowing again for the next one until late spring. “It’s still early right now,” says Doug McNutt, the University of Akron’s financial-aid director.
Some observers are convinced that if lenders dependent on asset-backed securities leave the market, big banks with other sources of capital will step in and fill the void, especially for loans guaranteed by the federal government, which accounted for more than three-quarters of the $77 billion that students borrowed for the 2006-07 academic year. “This is a very good business,” says Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board, “and such a low-risk thing.”

SLM Corp., the biggest student-loan company, is poised to secure a new $31 billion line of credit. Spokesman Tom Joyce says there’s “no chance” current credit market conditions will damage its ability to make loans this year.

Even so, the company commonly known as Sallie Mae, struggling after years of stellar growth, has said it will tighten credit requirements for borrowers and emphasize making higher-interest private loans over those that are federally backed. Sallie Mae currently charges interest rates ranging from 5.5% to 13% on private loans, depending on borrowers’ credit standing.

Mr. Joyce adds that because Congress last year slashed the subsidies made to lenders of federal loans, Sallie Mae and others will have to scale back benefits they had previously offered to students, such as breaks on fees and discounts for on-time payments. “Unfortunately, there will be higher prices in the marketplace,” he says.

The subsidy cuts, Sallie Mae’s problems and the subprime-lending fallout have created “a perfect storm for the student lending industry,” says Terry Hartle, vice president for government affairs at the American Council on Education, a college association in Washington. Mr. Hartle says he’s “concerned but not scared” about loan availability because the number of lenders has grown so much in recent years that “you could lose some without there being a shortage of capital.”

Mark Kantrowitz, who operates FinAid.org, a Web site focused on college finance, says students will have fewer lender choices this fall, while the interest rates for private loans are likely to rise by one percentage point, with related fees rising by an equal amount. For the moment, he doesn’t envision a loan shortage, “but there is also the possibility that there may be more turmoil,” he adds.

Industry observers say they don’t know of any other state authorities poised to immediately suspend loan programs, but uncertainty in the credit markets has many nonprofit lenders weighing their options.

Brazos Higher Education Service Corp., which has a $15 billion student-loan portfolio, was one of the lenders whose auctions failed this week. Company executives have been working on related problems since the fall, when the market for auction-rate securities first ran into trouble, says Ellis Tredway, executive vice president. Nothing is clear yet, he says, adding that with the summer borrowing boom coming up, lenders like Brazos, based in Waco, Texas, are anxious.
“It is not hard to look down the road and ask whether there may be a funding crisis for student loans this fall,” he says.
The Vermont Student Assistance Corp., a nonprofit public agency that originates and guarantees student loans, says it has funds to keep making loans for the next few months but needs to raise $200 million in June and July for the next school year. In the meantime, a failed auction this week means it will have to pay higher interest rates on $300 million in bonds it has already used for student loans.

Don Vickers, the agency’s president and chief executive, says if the credit crisis isn’t resolved by summer, agencies like his may not be able to afford to keep funding students’ college tuitions. “If it’s not resolved by then,” he says, “it’s going to be catastrophic.”

With students poised to begin receiving financial-aid award letters in the next month or so, FinAid’s Mr. Kantrowitz advises that students should, as always, carefully focus on how much of the offer is in grants that don’t have to be repaid and how much is in loans that do.

Students should pursue as much federal and state loan money as possible before considering private loans, which tend to have higher and variable interest rates. If other state authorities discontinue loan programs, private loans may be the only option, but students can lower the interest rates they are charged by having a parent cosign.

Martha Holler, a Sallie Mae official, recommends that students get in touch with financial-aid offices quickly to work out their loan plans. Students tend to get financial-aid award letters in the next month or so but many wait until the summer to decide on loans. Ms. Holler says that students needing private loans should act promptly since credit standards are tightening. “Apply now instead of waiting,” she says.

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Warning, there’s trouble ahead. There’s a strong chance that a serious batch of credit problems are headed straight for students which threaten to swamp their ability to get student loans and credit cards. A series of changes in the economy could result in student credit scores dropping more than 100 points overnight as well as those of their cosigners. On top of this lenders are battening the hatches by raising credit requirements. If student credit scores drop at the same time requirements increase its going to sink millions of students who rely on student loans and credit cards to help them through college. The storm is a product of the struggling US economy and the mortgage crisis.

Rolling Thunder: Dropping Credit Scores

FICO 08, the new credit scoring formula Fair Isaac (creator of the FICO formula) is pushing out to the major credit reporting agencies is expected to drop the credit scores of more than 75 million consumers, many of whom are students. The new formula is specifically targeting some activities used to build credit such as being an authorized user on another person’s account. It is also going to be much stricter about repeat late payments and also about not having a good mix if different credit trips which students usually don’t. Fair Isaac is doing this in response to fall out from the mortgage crisis. See the article What FICO 08 Means for Students for more details.

Lightning: Lender’s Raising the Bar for Credit Score Requirements
All lenders including those that offer student loans and consolidation loans as well as credit cards are becoming far stricter about what scores they require for approval. This means that you may have been approved a year ago and now very soon you could be declined with the exact same score. Lenders are doing this in response to the tightening of the economy.

Punishing Wind: Cosigners Not in Any Better Shape than Students

Traditionally when a student’s credit score is too low to qualify for a loan, they have the option to apply again with a cosigner. There are also standards for what the cosigner’s credit score must be and these are generally pretty high. Now with the lender criteria raising cosigners are also going to experience the impact of credit scores dropping due to FICO 08. This means suddenly you might have a serious problem even getting a cosigner.

It All Adds Up to the Perfect Storm

We can see a scenario where your credit score drops below the level needed to get school loans, you then will not be able to get a credit card to help rebuild your credit or a school loan. When you try to use a cosigner to at least get the school loan, their credit may also have been effected (remember this is going to hurt over 75 million people!). This could leave you in a really bad situation through no fault of your own.

How to Stay Afloat

The best advice we can give you now is to find out what your credit score is, expedite applying for any loans or credit cards you had been intending to apply for before your credit score potentially is hit and finally if you haven’t already, start educating yourself about your FICO Credit Score and take steps to improve it right away.

StudentPlatinum.com offers the Student Credit Forum for your specific questions as well as the Student Credit Education directory and reviews of the top Student Credit Cards. For help acquiring student loans or consolidation loans you can visit our partners at the Student Loan Network.

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Platinum Stud assured me people read this blog when he left. I’m not so sure. Not that I’ll stop writing it, I just may stop using spell check if I’m writing for myself. Anyway I figured today I would perform a little test to see if I actually have any readers. Here’s how it will work:

If you read this blog go to the Student Credit forum at http://forum.studentplatinum.com and post a reply including the sentence “the Student Credit Blog rocks” in the Announcements section to my post about this blog. In a few days I will send everybody who has posted there a secret code good for 25 points and www.ScholarshipPoints.com.

You use these points for 25 entries into a monthly scholarship for $1,000. This month’s winner had only 15 points so 25 is a giid deal for something so simple.

Good luck!

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This is a very humbling blog post. It’s humbling but I also recognize that it’s an incredibly valuable lesson, particularly those with less credit experience than me or who are just starting out. Before I begin let me boil it down to one sentence for those of you in a hurry. READ EVERYTHING YOU GET FROM YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY IN DETAIL NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT IT MAY SEEM.

The Background

In February 2007 I decided to get a Chase Rewards Card in order to take advantage of a 0% APR for 6-months balance transfer option. I wanted to consolidate some smaller debts and free up some cash to pay down other debts faster. My plan was to pay only the minimum for 6-months while cleaning up the other debts and then when the normal APR kicked in I would have compounded available cash from the paid off debts to knock the Chase balance off in about 3-4 months.

I was diligent with my plan and executed it to perfection. When the regular Chase APR kicked in last summer I was ready to go and proceeded to make two consecutive quadruple payments. As I often do I called them one day to ask if I qualified for a lower APR since I was such a good customer (paid on time, more than the minimum, had a good credit score and history, etc.) The rep informed me that not only didd I not qualify for a lower APR but that they were going to move my APR from 11.9% to the maximum of 24%. I asked them why and was told it must be something on my credit report. I had a credit score of 730, no late payments in over 7 years, a great mix if credit including mortgage, auto loan and credit cards older than 10 years. The agent insisted that she didn’t know why then and there was nothing I could do about it.

I strongly suspected the reason that my APR was jacked up was because Chase made no money on me for the first 6 months due the 0% APR offer and some report revealed that I was a classic “gamer”. A gamer is somebody who takes advantage of low intro APR offers and never ends up paying the credit card company much in interest because they pay off or move their balance too fast. Companies who derive tons of money from fees and interest hate gamers.

The next day I made a balance transfer from my Chase Rewards card to my American Express and included an extra few dollars to cover any residual interest. Then since it was a new card anyway I cancelled the Chase Rewards card. I won’t have a long term relationship with a company who pulls out all the stops to earn fees off people unfairly rather than promote a lifetime business relationship.

Fast Forward to Today

All the Chase drama happened in November. I got a statement or two afterwards and tossed them assuming they owed me money and I enjoy when that happens because they owe me a few bucks and then have to spend money every month to tell me. Hey it’s a few cents every month but a small victory nevertheless.

Through American Express I have a service which alerts me of any changes to my credit report. It’s great, I like to tinker and see if I can always move my FICO credit score up but I have never received an actual alert- until today.

My alert informed me that I had a derogatory statement put on all three credit reports. I immediately logged in and saw to my disbelief that I am more than 30 days past due on my Chase bill. How can this be? I logged into my old Chase account to see that my “extra” payment made back in November was a couple dollars short of the interest charge. I had a balance of $3 which I didn’t pay for 2 months in which time it accumulated $60 in late fees and got me a negative comment on my credit report.

The credit report service from American Express allows you to also calculate your FICO credit score on the fly so I did that…30 points on average between the 3 credit agencies. My credit score got blown out of the water from this one thing!
I immediately paid Chase online and then called them to see if there was anything they could do about the negative report to the credit agencies. They passed me around to a couple of different people before informing me: Too bad, late is late and it’s your problem not ours.

So Chase got the last laugh. I now have to work even harder to get my score back up. I’m hoping the change will not be permanent and in a month or two when the balance shows I paid them their $3 and the account is closed it reflects that. I’ll let you know. In the meantime here again is the lesson learned.

READ EVERYTHING YOU GET FROM YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY IN DETAIL NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT IT MAY SEEM.

This goes doubly if you’re a gamer and move balances around frequently! Oh and I would personally not recommend getting involved with Chase for any number of reasons mentioned in this post.

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