Did Chase pull a credit card bait and switch?
Until recently, Brian Woods of Akron, Ohio was a happy Chase Bank customer. Several years ago he accepted a promotional offer to use the bank’s “Lower than Prime” balance transfer checks to move high interest debt to his Chase credit card. The Chase solicitation promised: “No tricks. No gimmicks. Just savings.” The offer was straightforward. Woods would pay a 3 percent transfer fee and get an amazingly low interest rate of 3.99 percent APR “until the balance is paid off.” Woods says he paid “on time, every time” in order to keep that interest rate. Woods became an angry Chase customer when he received his January statement and saw a $10 “monthly service charge” had been added. The bank also bumped up his monthly minimum from 2 percent to 5 percent sending his payment from $140 to $300.
