Consumer Witnesses Intended for Cancelled Panel of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Hearing

Susan Womes

Susan is from Colorado and has three credit cards from Chase, each with a different interest rate.  On one of her cards, she states that she has paid on time each month and never went over her limit, but Chase wanted to raise her rate from about 14 to 25%.  The reason she was given was that she was getting to close to her credit limit, which qualified her as a greater risk.  However, she has another credit card with Chase at 7.9% that they never changed the interest rate on and she was able to get a third with an introductory offer of 0%

Christy Mylar Smith

Christy is from Niagara Falls, NY and she and her husband are customers of Citi Bank.  The Citi Bank credit card is in her husband's name, but she does most of the household bookkeeping.  As a Citi Bank Customer, she and her husband paid on time for years and never went over their limit, but when they paid late twice in one year, had their interest rate increased on them from 12.9 to 32.5%.

Stephan Strachan

Stephan is from York, PA and a customer of Chase Bank and USBank.  He has FICO score in the high 700s, but has had credit card issuers change the interest rates on his cards despite the fact that he has always paid on time and never gone over his limit.  For example, US Bank increased his APR from 5 to 20/21% even though he had no default on that account, and Chase increased his rate from 10.99 to 24.99% even though - again - he had no default on that account.  The same week Chase offered him credit at 3.99%, but when he attempted to transfer the balance they withdrew the offer. 

Steven Autry

Steven and his wife live in Virginia and both had credit cards issued by Capital One.  They were diligent in paying their balance each month and were cautious to never go over their limit.  One month an unexpected medical emergency postponed Mrs. Autry's payment by 6 hours (but she still paid on the due date), which triggered a late payment fee of $39.  The $39 fee pushed her over her limit by $16, which triggered a $39 over the limit fee.  In addition to $78 in fees, Capital One also increased her interest rate from about 20 to over 27%.

Mr. Autry had a fixed rate of 9.9%, paid his bill on time every month for 8 years.  One month interest charges on the account put him over his limit.  Years later his credit card interest rate was raised from 9.9 to 16.9%.  In a letter from Capital One, he was told that they reserve the right to raise fixed interest rates even for good customers. 

Marvin Weatherspoon

Marvin is the head of the linen department at the Chicago Convention Center, where he has worked for 28 years.  In an effort to consolidate some home repair bills he took advantage of a low introductory rate from Bank of America.  He admits to paying his bill a few days late one month, but the consequences have been severe.  In addition to paying a late fee, his interest rate was increased from 4.25% to almost 25%.  In the 8 years he has been paying on his approximately $12,000 balance he has only been able to pay down about $800 in principal.