Screw you Chase Bank!

I have a portion of my flight school loan on a credit card. Not just any credit card....a Chase credit card.

I used a promotional offer more than 3 years ago for a low interest rate for the life of the loan. In this case just 3.99%. I have never missed a payment. I fit the minimum payment plus a little into my budget. This worked fine for 3 years.

This month I logged into my account and saw the payment MORE than doubled! WTF?!?!? I panicked. I thought I missed a payment. I checked. Never. Hmmmm then why?

I called. I was told Chase Bank N.A. raised the minimum payment from 2% of the balance to 5% of the balance to, and I quote, "help me pay my balance off faster". In reality it's going to cause thousands of people to go into default. My balance is somewhat small. I am sure many people use the 3.99% offer to consolidate balances and such. If someone had a $15,000 balance their minimum payment went from $300 a month to $750 a month. If people could afford to "pay off their loan faster" they would have. This is nothing more than a way to get more people into default thus making Chase more money. This really irks me as Chase received millions in bailout money from the Government.

I logged a complaint with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (who governs certain credit cards including Chase) and Clark Howard (a famous consumer rights advocate). In the mean time...gotta move money around. Thankfully for me it's just less money into savings versus I am sure many are stressing much more. A quick Google search found over 430 complaints on a message board. The oldest complaint is a few weeks old!