(@&%&@)*!!

Ok, we all know that credit card companies are snivelling spineless bloodsucking dungeating vultures, right?

I'm down to one credit card now. I paid off the one my ex ran up and let go to collections. I closed it out today, and they owe me $10. They act so surprised when you want to close it.

I paid off the last delinquent bill that my ex claimed he had paid, and hadn't.

I am down to one credit card, ONE--that one is Bank of America, in its current gargantuan-merger personae. It has a fairly high balance on it, a hair under $7000. I keep paying it down, but since all my expendible income has been going toward it, I occassionally have to use it, too. The interest rate on that sucker is 23%. Twenty-three percent. All of which is largely because of my ex letting the other bills get behind. Y'all know that if one card is late, the others will jack up their APR's, too, right? I suppose it's within their right to do so, although I am definitely being punished for the sins of another.

Here's the bitter irony. They keep sending me offers for unsecured loans to "consolidate" my debt at a reduced rate. In other words, they will loan me MORE money to pay off debts I owe to other people, but they will not give me a lowered rate on the debt I already owe to them. This too makes sense, if I remind myself that they are in business to soak me for every dime they can get.

I've applied to my local credit union for a new Visa. I can't be totally uncreditable; my car loan was at a very good rate. But even if they give me a small amount of credit at a better rate, I will keep transferring funds to the new card and paying it down as fast as possible. I expect I'll have the Bank of America card paid off by next spring, after which I am cancelling that account, too. And I hope to God that new legislation gets passed to put caps on credit card interest.