Welcome to the new ‘Beat The Debt Monster’ Blog.

I have switched to using Word Press for this website for ease of management and to be able to spend more time writing quality content based on years of experience, research and common sense, and spend less time on maintenance and configuring the pages.

The original pages are available here and will stay put for a while. I will rewrite them into a more user friendly format.

Now for the first tip:
Got a high-interest credit card? You can get the interest rate reduced by following a few simple steps:
First, get a ‘you are pre-approved’ credit card offer, the kind sent by snail-mail. If you aren’t on any lists, ask your friends or co-workers. Tell them to remove their name from it. You are only going to read from it, not actually apply for the card.
Second, have a copy of your current statement.
Third, call the toll-free number on your statement, and ask to speak with someone about your interest rate.

When you get them on the phone, ask them how long you have been a customer of theirs. (Hopefully at least a year, or more. The longer the better.)

Next, ask them to confirm your interest rate.

Then tell them you have an offer from xyz company for a card with x% interest rate for x months on all balance transfers, (fill in the blanks from the offer you have - they may actually have a record of their competitors’ offers on computer and will know if you are giving a false interest rate,) and ask them if they can match it. (Note - you are not lying about it, you just aren’t saying the offer wasn’t made to you. Fair is fair, but charging you 29% interest rate is as about unfair as you can get!)

If they can, you just got a reduction in your interest rate. If you can’t, tell them ‘thank you anyway, but it looks like I will be transfering my balance to the new card.’ Note two things here: Telling them you are going to transfer your balance to a new card won’t cause them to suddenly cancel your card. They want you to keep it. The second thing is that they may mail you an offer to reduce your rate to something less than what you are paying.

Do this to your other cards, but wait a week or two between cards as they will most likely run an on-the-spot credit check, and too many checks too fast can hurt your credit.

Don’t be afraid to make the call. The worst they can do is say ‘No.’ They aren’t going to jump out of the phone and rip up your cards. If you need to, rehearse with someone first.

Good luck, and check back later for more tips.