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Negotiate Interest Rates With Your Credit Card Company
These days most of us have credit cards, they are useful items to have. Whenever you get stuck for cash you can simply use your credit card. However, if this happens too often you can find yourself with more on your card than you can afford to pay off. That means you have to start paying interest on the balance each month and in most cases it is not cheap.
There is a way to help with this that some people do not even realise exists, negotiating a new rate with your credit card company. If you can get the interest down on your debt it means that you pay less monthly interest and more off the principle amount so the card is paid off faster. The following tips should help with these interest rate negotiations.
Before you call your credit card issuer consider if you have received a good level of service from them in the past. If not you may want to try and transfer your balance to a different company anyway.
You should check your recent payment history before you attempt any negotiation. If you have missed a few payments lately you are not in a great position to ask for a lower rate, it may be worth waiting a few months before you call.
If you have remained up to date with all your payments then remember that you are the customer and they need your business. When you speak to a representative from your credit card company try to sound as if getting a lower interest rate is not that important to you. Perhaps you could mention a deal from a rival company that you may change to, by doing this they will try to please you to prevent you from leaving.
It is worth thinking about what you are going to say before you call, maybe jot a few notes down to help you remember.
If when you do call the person you speak to is unhelpful you could consider asking to speak to their manager as they may have more power to change your interest rate level. Another tip is to just call back and ask a different employee exactly the same question. It is surprising how different the answers to the same questions can be when speaking to different people.
Hopefully these tips will help you to reduce the interest you pay on your credit card debt. However if you do not get anywhere with your current company remember it is a competitive marketplace. Shop around and see if you could save money by switching your balance to another credit card company.
Richard Heaney is the webmaster at Personal Financial Information. Find out useful information on a variety of different areas including credit cards, mortgages and insurance.
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