Advanta Bank Corp Unjustified Interest Rate Increase - Beware of this Company Salt Lake City, Utah
Fellow Consumers, I wanted to warn as many people as possible about Advanta Bank Corp business credit card. I signed up for this card at 7.9% always made my payments on time never missed or been late I have good credit and pay all my financial obligations. Recently I was made aware my 7.9% interest rate was increased to 25% which is an enormous increase.
The company said a letter was sent as if this justifies this ridiculous increase to my interest rate after researching this on line I found out this Advanta Bank Corp has been doing this to many consumers no matter if your credit is good or even if you never missed a payment they are simply ripping off the consumers because they can it will most likely ruin some good consumers credits.
Please get the word out about this company stay far far away from Advanta Bank Corp if this also happened to you do all you can to report it and file as many complaints as possible this company is in Utah so file a complaint with the Utah BBB and the FDIC and any others. It's a darn shame this complaint can rip off the consumers this way and good consumers at that does not make sense.
Ripoff by Advanta
Albuquerque consumer
Albuquerque, New Mexico
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Chrisp802
Butler,New Jersey,
U.S.A.
How to file a complaint against Advanta with the FDIC
#2Consumer Suggestion
Tue, September 16, 2008
I am a small business owner, who has suffered the same treatment by Advanta Bank Corp. Since 2005, our business card had an interest rate of 7.99%, and we have never been late, nor missed a payment. Since we have maintained a monthly balance of approximately $1,000. Last month, in August or 2008, our statement said our interest rate was still 7.99%, so we transferd the balance from another card to Advanta's card to take advantage of this lower interest rate. Upon receiging this month's statement (September, 2008) we noticed that Advanta changed the interest rate to 25.08%, without notice, and only after the balance transfer was completed. As many other reports online have mentioned, Advanta's customer service representative was unable to offer any specific reason as to why the rate increase had taken place, nor justify the rate increase. All they could say was that they periodically review cardholder's credit scores and make adjustments accordingly.
My credit score is over 780 and my business's credit history is flawless, since it's inception more than 10 years ago - hardly reason to justify the unannounced increase.
As a small business owner, the only recourse I have against Advanta is to file a complaint with the FDIC. I have done so, but found it difficult to find exactly where / how to do so and thought it's quite important to give a few tips to other small business owners as to where exactly on the FDIC website they need to go to file a similar complaint against Advanta.
On the www.fdic.gov website's main page, on the lower right is a section titled "Top Search Results". Click on Bankfind/Insitiution Directory, and on the Bankfind page, enter "Advanta Bank Corp." in the Name field, then click the find button. Now, here's the tricky part... 3 lines below the company address, is the line "For consumer assistance regarding an issue with this institution, please contact the FDIC directly". Click on the word FDIC on that line and you will be taken to their complaint form. You can also get to the form directly at https://www4.fdic.gov/STARSMAIL/index.asp
If you're a victim of Advanta's recent practices, please do not hesitate to file a complaint against them with the FDIC. The FDIC is supposed to protect our rights, so let's make our voices heard and hope they do something about this issue!