<p>"Credit-card issuers have drawn fire for jacking up interest rates on cardholders who aren’t behind on payments, but whose credit score has fallen for another reason. Now, some consumers complain, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC - News) is hiking rates based on no apparent deterioration in their credit scores at all. "</p>
<p>The best policy is to just never pay a dime in interest by paying it off every month. I don’t even know what rates I have but I’ve never paid interest so it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>But, if one needs to borrow money (hopefully for a good reason - not just a bigger TV), they’d do well to not use their CC as the lender.</p>
<p>When I get a notice like that I tell them thank you, cancel my card. The new rate is not applied to old balances if you cancel it. Usually they review the account and say it was a mistake.</p>
<p>Another thing they have been using for the last year, they will change your due date, moving it up 1-6 days earlier and won’t tell you. It will just come on your statement so one month, you may only have two weeks to pay. </p>
<p>If you have signed up for auto deduct from your checking account, they WON’T change that date so you will have a late payment with accompaning late payment fees and increase in interest. </p>
<p>Capital One and Citibank were also using these tactics to raise promotional interest rates but since the Congressional Hearings, they have curbed this some. Not Bank of America!!! They increased fees, arbitrarily raised interest rates and generally said “We own this country, we can do anything we want”. </p>
<p>Please let your kids know if they are with Bank of America on Credit Cards. They may logically think paying on time is responsible money management. Problem is, they never think to see if “on time” payment is the same date this month as last because they do everything online. Who would? They need to start reading the whole statement, not just look at transactions and payment info. </p>
True - but they should be purchased with ready cash as a luxury item rather than placed on the card to pay over time at high interest rates along with the surround sound system, big stainless steel fridge, GPS nav system, video gaming systems, iPod, or anything else one can buy at Circuit City or Best Buy - JMO</p>
<p>Maybe there needs to be a 'Satisfaction of Minimalism" movement.</p>
<p>Another thing that B of A does that drives me crazy is that they keep changing the mailing address for bill payment. No problem if you use their envelope and payment slip, but nasty if you pay online.</p>