How Bank of America also ruined my Merrill Lynch Platinum Plus Visa
About 3 years ago, I got a new credit card called the Merrill Lynch Platinum Plus Visa. The card came with a nice, big credit limit, and had a fixed interest rate of 5.9% for purchases, balance transfers, and even cash advances. I’d never seen a rate so low for cash advances. I did not plan to do any cash advances, but it was still nice to know that I could, without suffering a typical 17-27% cash advance interest rate.
Anyways, this card happened to be managed by MBNA. I used the card for all my credit purchases, and it was my favorite card for a while. Then, in February of 2006, there was notice in with my statement, which said that they were changing my terms, due to a “change in [their] business practices”. These changes included making the interest rate for everything variable, which came out to 8.9% at that time. I was carrying a balance of over $13,000 on it at that time, so I was not looking forward to this rate increase.
In fact, I was so pissed off about it that I did what it said in the small print on the notice: I sent them a written letter, refusing the new terms. This meant that I could keep the existing interest rate, until I paid off the balance, but if I made any purchases on the card, it would automatically constitute acceptance of the new terms. So, I went through and switched everything that was linked to that card (SmartTag toll transponder, automatic monthly payment for Hwar Do lessons, and a few other recurring payments) to a different card.
Well, two weeks later, I received a notice from MBNA talking about how their merger with Bank of America had completed in January, after having been given the green light by the FTC in December. So, I’m pretty sure this merger is the change in business practices they were talking about. They sure didn’t waste any time making unfavorable changes to their terms!
So, my MBNA card was to be come a BoA card, slowly over the course of the year — the same way my Fleet card became a BoA card the previous year. We put the cards away and did not use them for 3 months straight. They still raised my limit a couple times during those months, and kept sending me promos/convenience checks, in the hopes that I’d suddenly have a need for thousands of dollars and that the promo checks (with 5.9% rate — same as the fixed rate my whole account had since opening it) would make me forget about the fact that I’d have to accept all their terms if I use them.
Anyways, I thought I’d changed all my recurring payments to use a different card, but apparently I missed one. :( The University of Phoenix billed me for a $70 “resource fee”. This is a fee that you have to pay for every class you take, and if you don’t pay it manually by a certain date, they auto-charge it. You’re supposed to pay it by the date the class starts, but I’ve always (for about 3 years before) paid it after the class ended, along with my tuition payment. They’ve never auto-billed me for it so early. Yes, technically they did what their rules say that they do, but it really irked me that they’d never done that to me before, and had to chose this particular time to start.
I tried and tried to get ahold of anyone in the finance/billing department at UOP, but could not reach anybody. I left voicemails for several people, and sent them emails as well, but nobody called me back or replied to the email. Actually, one person did call me back, about 3 weeks later.
So, I automatically accepted BoA’s new terms. I eventually accepted that at least 8.9% was still better than the rates on any of my other cards, which had both suffered from merger-induced terms changing (the previously mentioned fleet card, and a chase card). Thankfully, the rate has not gone up any more since that one time, while my other cards have continued getting worse.
I think it’s time to shop around and find a new card, though, from a bank other than Bank of America or Chase, so I can just cancel both of my damn BoA cards. I’ll probably switch my checking and savings accounts to another bank while I’m at it, since BoA has just done one thing after another to make my existing credit cards suck.
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April 14th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Don’t expect the new bank to be any better. This is how that industry works — a shell game.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
[…] the FIA Card Services (aka Evil Spawn of the Bank of America+Fleet and Bank of America+MBNA mergers) Privacy Policy (emphasis added by me): This notice describes the privacy practices of FIA […]
January 25th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
[…] an automatic recurring charge for $101.95 went on my credit card (a BoA/FIA Card Services card, formerly MBNA, Merrill Lynch branded). I scheduled a credit card payment of $101.95 through USAA Web BillPay, to be paid from my USAA […]
February 26th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Drag, those auto payments are killers. I had a card canceled due to fraud (someone got ahold of my card number and used it) so the card company terminated it. I forgot about my web hosting account autopayment and they nearly deleted my website when the payment was refused. If I had been out of town or something and missed the 48 hour grace period…YIKES.