Complain about a product or service

MBNA Credit Line

MBNA America • Interest rate increases • Payoff agreements • Sales Practices • Credit protection plan • Credit line • Luring students • Pay-by-phone --- News • Bank of America Completes MBNA Buyout • Small Wonder MBNA Found Itself the Prey • Bank of America Buys MBNA • MBNA Profits Plunge • MBNA Turns Up the Heat • Supreme Court OKs MBNA's Charging Interest on Fees

Chad of Johnson City TN (3/17/04):
I bought a house in July 2003 and needed some money for the closing costs. Well sitting in my file cabinet were some courtesy checks that MBNA had sent me. 4.9% interest until August 2005 it said. I used the check and got $3000.00. Well I moved into my house and in September I received my statement from MBNA stating that my interest rate was 12.99%.

Rather upset I called the customer service number to be met by a very rude lady who said that she couldn't help me with my problem. She informed me that the rate on the checks were only good until August 2004. Thinking that I had read it wrong I gave in and apologized for bothering her, but asked her if there was anyway my interest rate could be lowered. She transfered me to some idiot that I could harldy understand. He mumbled, "Sorry, can't do anything for you. Have a nice night" and he hung up.

Well, I just let it go thinking that I will just live with my supposed error. In February of 2004 I recieved my monthly statement. As I always did I looked at the balance and my interest charged. As I began to swear loudly and lose all sense of where I was at I noticed that my interest rate had jumped from 12.99% to 24.98%. I called the credit card company and was met by another very rude lady. I asked her why my interest had jumped to such a high amount. She told me that it was because I only paid the minimum balance.

I asked her if she could close my account. She told me that I didn't want to do that. I told her that I indeed wanted to close my account and that they would receive all of their money the next month. I asked her how much my total payoff amount would be. It was in the area of $2,994.00. And then to my surprise I was told that I had another MBNA credit card with 7.9 percent interest that I could transfer this balance to if I wanted to. I didn't even know I had another MBNA credit card and I about went through the roof. I asked her to close both accounts. At that point she hung up on me.

I called back and spoke to another lady who surprisingly was very cordial. She informed me that both my accounts had been closed. I requested to talk to her superviser and she let me talk to another suprisingly cordial person about why his previous employee hung up on me. He told me he would take care of the situaion, which I doubt he did. In the meantime I sent MBNA the "Payoff Balance" on the card and wished them good riddance. Then in March I got another statement from MBNA saying that I owed them yet another $37.35 in interest charges on a balance of $1,975.00. I said....HUH.

I called again and was met again by another very rude lady. She explained to me that since I just paid the minimum balance in January and paid the whole balance off in February I owed interest from January ... which totally blew my mind. I told her that I was told the amount I paid was the pay-off balance and if I had sent almost $3000.00 to them what would another $37.35 hurt me. I would have definitely paid it but that isn't what I was told to pay. Well we argued for about 20 minutes before she very hatefully told me that she was tired of argueing with me and she would just waive the interest charge. I told that was good because I wasn't going to pay it anyway.

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.