How Come the Biggest Consumer Blogs fall short of condemning condemnable actions by JP Morgan Chase Credit Card?

I have a friend with a Chase credit card. Approximately 2 years ago Chase Bank offered this person a 5.99% balance transfer offer until their loan was paid off. They were required to make a 2% monthly minimum payment. They have good credit and had reduced the loan from 13,500 to 10,000 by dutifully making their monthly payments on time.

Their monthly minimum payment on the 10,000 dollar debt is presently 200 dollars. Chase Credit Card is now going to raise the monthly minimum payment on this account from 2% to 5%. Chase's latest gambit preys on customers who had a good deal with them will probably help ruing their credit rating while robbing them of food to feed their families with. My friend's monthly minimum payment with Chase Bank is set to go from 200 dollars, to 500 dollars!

A three hundred dollar monthly increase is probably going to lead to default for my friend. The problem is not that Chase wants their money nor that they want their money back sooner rather than later. The problem is that Chase set up the rules, the customer completely abided by the rules, and now Chase wants to change those rules WITHOUT GIVING THE CUSTOMER THE RIGHT TO OPT OUT before the changes are made.

Citibank and many if not all other credit card companies have opt out clauses in their credit card policy that protect the consumer. I fear that if Chase is allowed to destroy the concept of "OPT OUT, other credit card companies will follow suit.

My friend can keep their 2% minimum payment option if they agree to have the interest rate raised from 5.99% to 7.99%. This creates the equivalent of an escalating monthly penalty that starts at around 18 dollars a month. However, when we factor in that each and every month 18 extra dollars goes towards interest and 18 less dollars is applied to the PRINCIPLE, the penalty will continue to escalate and extend the life of the loan.

After one year, we are looking at a loss of 500 dollars, and each year forward it will increase at least 100 dollars per year. So this one move by chase will cost my friend 500 dollars this year, 575 dollars next year, 650 dollars the following year. By the time this card is paid off, I am estimating it will cost my friend over 4,000 dollars in extra payments.

Prior to this latest move, Chase began, then eliminated a 10 dollar a month usage fee to anyone using their credit cards. Now Chase has figured out a way to replace a one fee for all with another fee for those who had solid credit that Chase trusted enough to give them a solid loan offer. Is it Chase's goal to first lure, then destroy every tier of middle class customer that presently exists with their bait and switch credit card tactics?

Chase credit card company already had the option of raising my friends rates for a late payment. If JP Morgan Chase Bank wants to so violently change the rules, then please allow your customers the right to OPT OUT and keep the existing agreed upon rules in place. It is the respectful, rightful, and ethical thing to do.

If somebody from the government does not step in and stop what Chase Bank is doing, even as the US Government is giving these same banks billions upon trillions of dollars, then we can all be sure that nothing has "changed".

Credit Card Companies Increase Global Warming Risk Every Time they Increase Interest Rates on Old Credit Card Debt.

While the media trains us to believe that Wall Street is the God of all Gods, the wall street banks that received huge amounts of bailout money from the government continue to RAISE their credit card interest rates on their customers.

It is one thing to charge higher interest rates on new credit card debt, but it is evil to retroactively raise the credit card interest rate on old debt. The longer it takes a consumer to pay off an old credit card debt because banks are now increasing credit card interest rates, the more that consumer has to work to pay off their old, ever rising debt, and the less money there is available to maintain the present economy.

Old credit card debt requires the consumption of even more of the earth's resources by that consumer/worker as they attempt to earn more money so they can pay down their old debt that the banks have already profited from handsomely.  If this old debt could be paid down to zero, than the person has a choice, either buy new products, but at a slower rate, or just consume less and not run up new debt.

Plus, if the monthly minimum payment were increased to 8 or 10% of the total due, most people would not run up as much debt as they did when the monthly minimum payment was 2% of the total due, and more of their payment would go towards principle as well.  The higher monthly minimum payment would help conserve the world's resources by reducing life long indenturedness.  Life long indenturedness helps cause global warming, assuming you believe global warming is occurring.

Show me jobs that don't require the earth's resources and everyone could be a millionaire. Show me a person working to pay down an old debt that continues to inflate because of 15, 20 and 30% interest rates, and I'll show you why we are doomed as a planet.

Yes, older credit card debt causes increased global warming risks. If you don't believe in global warming risks, the accelerated overuse of limited earth resources occurs when people work to earn money to pay off old credit card debt that the banks have already profited from.

Old credit card debt continues to increase and multiply because of the obscene interest rates associated with them, sort of like the way cancer increases and multiplies. If you think cancer is good, then so is old, high interest, credit card debt.

As we move forward, the argument can be made that raising interest rates on NEW DEBT will result in less overall money being borrowed, and therefore the more profitable the bank's credit card divisions will become. In other words, people will borrow less money overall, but banks will profit more quickly from the higher interest rates. Additionally, a borrower will see more quickly how much they can actually afford to borrow before they can no longer afford the monthly payments.

However, those sneaky low monthly minimum credit card payments still entrap many consumers who use credit cards, and that is the way the banks have always wanted it, and is a significant part of the debt problem nowadays. If banks had just charged higher monthly minimums all along, there would be a lot less debt right now.

Do you see what is happening? LESS IS MORE! Banks give out less money, but charge higher interest rates, thereby making the God of Cable Media, Wall Street, happy. The problem is the EXISTING CONSUMER CREDIT CARD DEBT that was borrowed when everybody had more wealth and opportunities to pay it off, has gotten railroaded into the new, less money borrowed, higher interest rate charged paradigm. The result is increasing consumer indenturedness from their old time credit card debt, which in turn suffocates the worldwide economy from maintaining as we move forward.

Banks were forgiven on their old time debt, can consumers at least have the luxury of paying down their OLD CREDIT CARD DEBTS INTEREST FREE? The ratio of unsecured debt versus home equity has never been worse, and to allow the banks to continue to charge outrageous interest rates on old time credit card debt that they have already made huge profits from is an abomination that will offset any consumer benefit that lower mortgage rates may bring.

What makes Wall Street happy, does not necessarily translate into better times for the consumer, and that is something the media refuses to acknowledge, let alone report.