I have never been late or actually had a balance to charge interest on at month end.

My rate was 11% and was raised to 29.99% – granted 11% of zero is zero and 29.99% of zero is still zero.
So the interest rate change will cost me nothing in reality – now on the other hand the 10 K in purchases that were going thru that account did make money for CITI.
Don’t forget that every time you buy something with a credit card, you are also paying the 2% to 4% fee’s the seller is being charged by the card companies. Yes – you are paying the fee – merchants pass this cost on to the consumer. It is a direct cost of selling to consumers via credit cards.

If your card is stolen or someone gets your card number and makes a purchase – lets say the credit card clearing house authorizes the transaction – who pays?
The Bank – not normally
The Merchant – normally
Who else? You in the form of a increased cost of doing business passed on to the consumer – higher prices.
Don’t blame the merchants, they didn’t setup the game the Banks did.

In a several months…………………
Credit Card Interest rates will slowly come down from the current predatory rates
Credit will return to something resembling reality
Banks will start making Mortgage loans again
CITI, BOA and the others will start competing for our business again

I will never do Business with firms like these again – no loss to me.

How do you think they are able to so quickly repay the TARP funds … by tapping the source – the consumer and it doesn’t hurt to be able to borrow money at close to zero percent interest from the very people who are the CONSUMERS that are being gouged.

I seem to remember from collage something about a risk return ratio in finance – In my case its reduce my risk of being screwed by not returning to CITI.