I recently noticed that my credit card payment due date slowly went from the 23rd of each month to the 17th of each month. Sneaky. I don't doubt that this is an attempt to mess me up and cause me to be late, thus bringing my interest from my current 4% (yeah, I rock) to whatever evil interest rate they have in mind. Good thing I don't let anything go to automatic payments. I want to save paper and all but will not enroll in a paperless statement for this reason. Anyway, I called and had them change it to the 24th of each month.
Okay, so I have a decent amount of credit card debt thanks to paying out of pocket (COBRA) health insurance for 18 months and being semi employed for the same amount of time. But I've become the master of paying down credit card debt, taking advantage of balance transfers, etc. And what I've learned is that in some cases (maybe because I have such a large balance) we have lots of power as consumers. i.e. you can ask a credit card company to lower your interest rate simply by telling them a competitor offers a better deal. I even saved about $12 a month on my cable/ internet bill by telling them what my parents paid even though technically Optimum Online isn't a competitor of Time Warner. And when all else fails, ask to be transferred to the retentions department. The last thing any of these companies want is to lose your business. In life, everything is negotiable.
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