Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: It is Take Control Tuesday. That means I have mansa Moussa from MoneySmartLife.org on the phone. And Mansa, a lot of us have credit cards that carry a balance, and that's a problem because if you have a high interest rate, it takes forever to try to pay that off. So today you have a couple of ways that we can help get our interest rate lowered.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. Now, of course, we've said it before and we'll say it again. A well managed credit card is one in which you pay the statement balance in full every month. But things happen in life and you may be carrying a balance. Now the thing about credit card interest rates is, first of all, they're very high. Yeah, you know, double digits, 20 plus percent in some cases.
So if you're paying interest on a balance every month, the lower the interest, the less you'll have to pay.
So here's how you get a lower interest rate.
Number one, this is for customers that are paying their bill on time.
Might be the minimum payment or whatever, but you're not. You don't have a history of late payments.
If that's the case, simply call the number on the back of your credit card and request a lower interest rate because of your good payment history.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Because you have a good payment history, many times credit cards will lower the actual interest rate.
Now make the request of customer service. If they don't lower your interest rate, ask to be transferred to the retention department.
The job of the retention department is to stop the credit card company from losing customers.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Understand the purpose of a credit card. It is to give you, quote, unquote, instant credit. You can just put, put the card down and purchase something and not show the money.
But the way the bank makes the money is by loaning you the money and then charging you interest when you don't pay it in full.
So that's where they make their money.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: And if they're charging you, let's say 20% now and you threaten to leave and they can keep you by lowering your interest rate, it is in their interest to do so.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: So you want to do this from their point of view. Once again, you got to be a customer that has a good payment history. And if customer service won't lower your interest rate, request to go to retention department. And if they won't lower your interest rate, threaten to take your business elsewhere. Now you want to do this very nicely.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: You don't want to be combative about it, but you want to understand the reality the credit card company makes money off of you when you carry a balance and they'd rather continue to make money off of you at a reduced interest rate rather than a high interest rate. And if you have that good payment history, you've earned it. Go get it.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: Go get it indeed. My mom would call those suggestions being nice nasty, correct? Well, we'll put that up on the website so folks know what to do. Go to Take Control Tuesday. Com. Make sure you share that information.
Help somebody else out today. Mansa. Thank you.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Thank you.
