<p>A couple of months ago I posted about “what credit crunch?” when Citibank on its own raised the credit limit on one of our credit cards to a ridiculous $38,500. That is a frequent flyer card that I’ve had since 1986 and have paid in full every month since 1986. We decided to stop using that card and use a cash back card instead. The card is also issued by Citibank and we asked that the credit limit for that one to be raised. </p>
<p>First Citibank said they could just transfer the limit from the $38,500 card to this one. That didn’t happen. Then they said they’d just raise it on the other. That didn’t happen. Then we got something saying they’d only raise the limit on the second card if we sent them (1) our 2007 tax return with all schedules, AND (2) references from two different financial institutions.</p>
<p>No way.</p>
<p>Citibank has records of me paying the other card off every month without fail for 22 years, without a single late payment. I’ll just switch to another company, where I already have a high limit.</p>
<p>Well…strangely enough, I went to cancel a Citibank card last week with a $28M limit. It was a milage card, had a yearly fee and since I was no longer going to use it, I went to cancel. I got a call back with an offer for a no-fee card, a $40M limit. I guess they only up the limit when you dont want it. (I also have paid off the balance every month on time for 26 years)</p>
<p>You charge millions of dollars worth of stuff?</p>
<p>I had my Discover Card limit raised to $15K last year so that I could pay tuition bills with cash back (no penalties or fees at the kids’ colleges) and they had no problem with that. We’ve had the cards for about 20 years, home paid off last century and we generally pay for large items in cash. I should ask them to raise the limit just to see what they say. Discover is owned by Citi or JPM these days.</p>
<p>In general, I don’t like to have a limit higher than what we will conceivably use going out one year so I have asked them to lower the limit in the past when they raised it automatically.</p>
<p>Now that you mention it, missypie, I have also noticed that I am no longer getting daily credit card solicitations. I did get a letter the other week cancelling a credit card because I have not used it in 2 years. I think it was an Amazon or Gap credit card that I got in order to save a lot of money on a purchase, and then never used again. Still, I’m surprised that they bothered cancelling. </p>
<p>I can top all of you - I have had the same credit card since 1974! For the past 10 years or so, it has given us miles that can be used on any airline. We have two other cards that give us various goodies. All are paid off every month, and I am not sure what the credit limits are - I know that they are higher than we would ever use. I’m not sure whether they have been lowered, I wouldn’t notice unless they sent a letter about it.</p>
<p>I get those little 3 page “notices about your account”…you read the fine print and they are mostly raising interest and penalty rates. One AMEX card I have went from 7.99% to 10.99%, just because of the “increasing cost to do business”…blah, blah…all this while interest rates are falling. </p>
<p>Too bad my savings bank doesn’t raise interest rates…damn Fed.</p>
<p>recently opened a Chase ckg, the banker asked I am pre-approved for $20 K credit card if I want it.</p>
<p>It seems that people with decent credit have no trouble, but the low end may suffer. Also, I don’t get daily 2-3 pre-approved offers in the mail anymore.</p>
<p>The billions hasn’t reached the marketing dept. yet.</p>
<p>Gee…I’m also not receiving DAILY credit card solicitations from Capitol One (they were getting on my nerves…we would get FOUR of them…one for each member of the family). Gotta wonder how much they are saving just on the postage for those cold mailings.</p>
<p>I called Chase Visa and told them I was going to cancel my credit card with them if they didn’t lower my rate. They lowered it.</p>
<p>We’ve had a couple of unused cards closed out, which was fine. We have several with very high limits, which is fine too; it’s supposed to be good for the credit score to not use much of total available credit. I don’t pay attention to late fees and interest rates as I pay everything off online every month.</p>
<p>The way the crunch is affecting us is that H works at a company that supplies the auto industry, so if people aren’t getting car loans business suffers there and jobs are not certain.</p>
<p>I got one of those “generic” notices, but it basically said that no matter how low interest rates go, (even if prime is 0) the lowest they’ll charge for purchases is 6%, lowest for cash advances 21.99%(!!!)</p>
<p>Given that they are being bailed out by MY tax money and the fed is borrowing $$ that MY kids will have to pay back so that they can LOWER interest rates, I called my congressman and faxed him the letter.</p>
<p>We don’t carry a balance, and we don’t use cash advances, but it really ticked me off.</p>
<p>We got a letter in the mail the other day from GM card. We hadn’t used it in ages. As a result, they lowered our credit limit to $300. HAHAHAHA!!! I guess I’ll formally request that they close it … I haven’t called in to renew the new card we were sent two years ago. BTW, we have outstanding credit.</p>
<p>Just yesterday we got a notice that the limit on our main credit card was being lowered because we never spend anywhere near the old limit. Fine with me, I guess.</p>
<p>I hadn’t noticed until you all mentioned it, but we’re no longer getting daily credit card offers in the mail. We still get some, for example, we got a United Air Miles Visa solicitation today. But we used to get Capitol One offers all the time.</p>
<p>I don’t pay much attention to what our credit card limit or our interest rate is. We only charge what we can pay off each month, so we never rack up any interest. We do also charge our son’s tuition bill on it, and it earns Southwest Airline points.</p>
<p>Got one of those “we’re closing your account because you don’t use it” letters today from Amazon Visa. I only used it the initial time for a discount anyway. Capitol One stopped here, too. Used to get at least one EVERY DAY.</p>
<p>Speaking of COMPUSA, we just got an unsolicited call from some local finance company claiming to have gotten our info from COMPUSA, and looking to loan us money in some way (refi, debt consolidation, whatever). We have paid for an unlisted number for YEARS and I HATE that these people are selling our info.</p>
<p>Credit card offer letters and refi phone calls have been reduced to a trickle for DW and I, but DD (who is graduating from college this Spring) is now getting three or four a week. Citi threatened to cancel one card so we now use that for gasoline purchases. Gone are the low-cost balance transfer offers. Mortgage money is reportedly “plentiful” and yet no houses are moving. Hmmm. Good thing we don’t need the money.</p>