Sloppy's Journal: A gripe about contracts

It's my fault for agreeing in the first place. I'm not disputing that. Long ago, I learned that Just Say No is a great strategy for a lot more than just drugs. But I still don't use it often enough.

I don't like how credit card agreements (and many other things like that) contain this clause that lets the other party amend the terms unilaterally.

Once or twice a year, I get a letter from a credit card company, saying they're changing something. Then there's a page of very boring legaleze. (Although sometimes if you take the time to read it, you realize it's less boring than it first appears. For example, oh wow .. I can't sue them if we have a disagreement over something; instead, I have agreed to arbitration. I didn't know that.) (No, I'm not in the middle of a dispute; it's just something I noticed.) And it says, if I don't like the new terms, that's cool: I can just terminate my business with them.

They can get away with this crap, because people don't want to have to go shopping for a new credit card, every month. Whenever I decide to get a new credit card, I put some thought into it, although usually that just means picking something without any fee and with a lower rate than whatever I have right now. I can put some effort into that .. oh, every few years. It's not something I have the energy to deal with every month. Who does? (They do, that's who.)

Are they real contract terms? Do they actually apply? Are they enforcible? I think so. I haven't signed any of them, or read most of them. But they did get my signature once -- when I signed the original contract, which contained a clause saying they could change the terms in the future. I automatically retroactively agreed to something I don't even know about. D'oh!

So I sign up, and then a few months later, find out that the card I have now, is subtlely different than the card I had a few months ago. A couple years later, it's even differenter. No big deal -- not like they changed the rate or anything. But they change something. It's always something, and it's usually something obscure that I don't understand.

I can always Just Say No so it's not really unfair. And it hasn't bit me on the ass yet. But I still don't like it. It makes me nervous.

One of these days, I'm going to wake up and find out that three months ago, they mailed me a piece of paper (with terms that I didn't opt-out of) that made me personally liable for the whole national debt or something. Minimum payment: a trillion dollars.

Quit feeding my paranoia.

moo

[robi2106]

a guy i know is very good at the credit card dance. he signs up for a new platinum one as soon as the current card is about to revert back to needing interest payments on the previous balance transfer. He floated about $20K for a few years while a job situation was uncertain. Once the employment was solid, he kept the last card, and started paying it off.

it was a mess to keep track of... but put it this way... he didn't pay interest on $20K in loans for over 1.5 years. that is worth a lot of money.

jas

Actually...

[the_mad_poster]

You can't really sign away your rights that easily. Signing a contract isn't the end of everything. If it comes down to it, you can challenge the legality of the contract in court. Granted, unless you can afford some expensive lawyers, you'll probably lose, but you can still do it.

Re:Actually...

[gmhowell]

Or stumble into something that is class action material with you at the head of the class.

My bank (fuckers at Bank of America) just up and decided to start charging me for cancelled checks. Gotta do something about that before they hit me up again.

they're screwin ya

[elmegil]

Basically, most of the terms they change are things like shortening or eliminating your grace period, increasing the late fees, reducing the tolerance to any kind of hiccup in you making your payment well before the due date so you can default and go to the mega-high interest rate, etc.

If you never carry a balance, you're golden. If you are taking advantage of a promotional rate to try and get some debt under control, you can be very very fucked.

Once a Year, and other CC thoughts.

[TPFH]

I think it is a good idea to rotate credit cards about once a year. I only end up actually doing it every 2-3 years. I think it is good to have 2 active credit cards on hand, in case something goes wrong with one of them. But no more than 3, and then only when transitioning.

I like to cancel the card I've been using most recently, and then my backup card becomes my new card, and the new card that I just got becomes the backup card.

It is interesting what the different credit card companies do. From sending

Re:Once a Year, and other CC thoughts.

[Sloppy]

My old credit card, that I've stopped using, deluges me with "courtesy checks."

Fleet, by any chance? They spam the heck outta me.

Well, my previous credit card had a due date of the 10th, and then started creeping up until it was due on the 2nd..

Oooh!! I hate that!! They almost caught me just this month. Due date creep sucks! I ended up express-mailing my payment (still cheaper than a late charge).