Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike2000
Do the banks have the right to charge whatever interest rate they want?
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Yes and No. Credit issuers base their credit decisions off your credit. This could be one or all three FICO credit bureaus or even one of hundreds of different credit modals. Generally, the worse your credit is the higher interest rates you will pay because you are seen as a high risk, as in high risk of defaulting on your loan. Credit card companies do have some regulation but not much and have virtually no transparency when it comes to hidden fees, billing cycles, due dates and charges. I've personally seen interest rates as high as 40%! I agree higher risk borrowers should pay more, but 40%, thats insane!
Many people probably have seen there interest rates go up over the last year. Even people with great credit. This is because CC companies need money and also want to weed out some of the high risk borrowers on their books.
Coming the beginning of next year new credit laws will become effective making it illegal to charge extremely high interest rates on fixed rates. To get around this, many companies, such as Bank of America and Chase, have started switching their fixed rate cards to variable rate cards.
You can read more about the new credit laws here:
Credit Card Help: What the new credit card law means for you
And more about Bank of America and Chase here:
Say goodbye to fixed-rate cards; 2 major banks switching terms in months leading up to reforms
and another:
Fixed-rate credit card seems on its way out - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
There's a lot more info out there, just google new credit card laws and/or fixed/variable credit cards.
Hope that helps.