The Truth About Reducing Your Credit Card Interest Rate

It is no secret that the APR on a credit card is the way the bank issuing the credit card makes their money from loaning through that card. The higher the APR on a charge card account, the more cash the bank will make when Americans borrow money using their plastic! However, this means that the higher the APR is, the more it costs for Americans to borrow cash using their credit cards. With that said, many consumers want to reduce their charge card account APRs. Feeling as though they are being taken advantage of, many consumers don't agree with the amount of cash they have to pay to borrow!

The sad part about this is that consumers think of banks as corporations that could care less about their customers when in all actuality this is not the case. As a matter of fact, the credit card industry is an extremely competitive one that requires high customer satisfaction ratings to survive. Therefore, if banks really didn't care about their customers well, they wouldn't last too long. With that said, it is 100% possible to negotiate APRs with credit card companies. The key is being a good customer to have!

This will be much easier for Americans who consistently pay their charge card bills on time. However, this will also prove to be almost impossible for the consumers who have not been to current with their charge card payments. With that said, if you are not currently sending in more than the minimum payment at least 2 weeks early each month, that is where you should start! Americans who get their account in a good standing have a much better chance of successful negotiation!

Now that the credit cards are in good standings, it is time to make the call. The key is starting by calling the credit card company that issues the customers highest APR. Therefore, consumers should call their highest interest rate charge card account issuer! When the call is first made, consumers will be required to navigate through the automated system to get to a live account representative in most cases. Once the people get to speak with a live account representative, they should start by saying:

“Hi, I'm calling because I was looking over my credit card statements and noticed that this was by far my highest annual percentage rate. To be honest, I love the bank and the rewards you guys offer me but I can't see myself paying this much to borrow cash anymore. Is there anything that you can do to help me reduce this interest rate?”

At this point, the customer service representative will place the consumers on hold and see if the account is in good standings. In most cases, if the charge card is in good standings, the account representative will let the Americans know that they do qualify for a low annual percentage rate and either they will be able to put that into affect for them or they will need to transfer the consumers to another department.

Unfortunately, there are some banks that hold stiff to their interest rates. These however are the banks that tend to have lower customer satisfaction rates anyway. For the Americans that are dealing with non negotiable high APRs, I would suggest looking at a few balance transfer charge cards. Below, I will give links to a few websites that can help!