I have had this credit card for many years. My apr has always been 9.99%. Today I received my bill, my interest rate had gone up from 9.99% to 14.99. I have never been late with payments, always paid on time. I use to pay $300.00 a month now because of my higher apr it's gone up to $340.00 a month. Instead of banks charging those who make late payments, the banks have decided due to bad economic times that those who have excellent payments history have to become victims of higher Apr's without prior notification. They claim they notified me, they never sent me anything of the sort inside my mailer along with my statement. I haven't charged in months either. This tactic is unfair, unjust and if this keeps up the bankruptcy rate in this country of ours will escalate for sure.

Citicards, Texas. I have had the extreme misfortune of getting involved with Citicards.

I applied for and received a Citicard MasterCard around October of last year, lured by the lie of 0% interest for a year and a moderately decent credit limit. I paid monthly and on-time, but was one day late back in March. At which time, I was hit with 32% interest! For being one day late.

If that wasn't enough, I started getting the phone calls. At home, at work--which I quickly put a stop to, informing them that they were not allowed to call me at my place of employment under my protection in the Fair Credit Act--EARLY mornings on the weekends, the works!

I scratched up the money to pay Citicards off, and informed them by phone, the last time they decided to call and harass me that I desired the account closed immediately. I thought I paid them off in June.

But I was wrong.

I got an email today about a statement, and decided to call to find out what in the world was happening. If my account's closed, and I've paid off this card, then I shouldn't still get statements, right? Yeah, right.

Long story short, after being hung up on a couple of times by the computer and one of the representatives, the balance that was listed on my statement, the one I paid from, was incorrect. I owe Citi $150 more, including finance charges.

After all the hell I've gone through with them, I am going to pay the balance off, but because of the harassment and the insanity I've been through with them, I have decided to have a "plascetomy"--get rid of all my credit cards and go straight cash.

I can live without the anger that comes dealing with the so-called customer service representatives that man the phones of these credit card call centers. I also plan on writing the Attorney Generals of both South Dakota and New York as well as the one here in Texas about Citicard's bait and switch techniques as well as the harassment I've experienced with them. Letters of complaint will also go to the Better Business Bureaus of each city/state as well.

Dealing with the people of Citicards in these past months has driven home something I've heard for many months now. "The borrower is slave to the lender."

I won't be a slave to them--or any of these shyster credit card and lending companies--again.