More Stupid Credit

I have to wonder sometimes how some credit companies stay in business. It has to be stupid people. Case in point.

I got a call from Wells Fargo, with whom we have our mortgage and a couple of credit cards. One we got when we got the mortgage (which pays us back 1% automatically to the principal of our mortgage every time we use it), and another we got when we bought some furniture from Raymore and Flanagan when we bought the house and took advantage of one of those 0% interest for 3 years pay-off plans. The furniture will be payed off next month, so I guess WF is looking to keep our business (even though we didn't pay any interest).

WF contacts us to ask if we have some high interest credit cards we'd like to consolidate and pay on a "fixed rate" plan, using either equity in the house or on our cars. We say sure, we'll check it out. They already have the mortgage info, so I send them info on our 2005 Ford minivan (which we are paying on at 7%) and three credit cards with balances and interest rates of about 15%. I have a few other cards with balances, but all those are 3-5% interest, and I didn't think I'd see better than that. I wasn't expecting miracles, but if I could pay down the 15% balance at 9% I figure I could save a few bucks and every little bit counts these days.

Naturally, WF can't do this over the phone with us, we have to visit them at our office, which requires taking time off work. We go and turns out the only thing they can offer (because the real estate market is still too 'dicey') is to buy out our current car loan, plus give us a whopping $1,300 extra (and we wouldn't have to pay the Nov. car payment), but the loan would now be at 16%.

Excuse me, 16%? Do you think I'm stupid? They want me to exchange my 7% car loan with about 3 1/2 years to pay for a 16% loan just to get $1,300? Why possible good could that do me, since even the credit card I could pay off with that amount is at 15%? I was so pissed it took all my willpower not to totally go off this loan agent.

Talk about a complete waste of time. I mean they knew the interest rate of the credit card I wanted to pay off, I faxed it to them. If there was no way they could even beat that rate, why on earth would they think I'd even be remotely interested? Just to get a "fix payment plan"? Yeah, no thanks, I can put myself on a "fixed payment plan" and pay off both the car and the credit card quicker and at less cost.

I suppose for some people, this might work for them, if they had credit cards with 19% interest or higher. But still, for only $1,300 I wasn't about to exchange a 7% loan for a 16% loan. Maybe some people fall for this when they've taken the time to come into the office, but I'm not that easy. So I was nice and told them no thanks, it really didn't make good economic sense, and we left. Of course, they said maybe we can do business again, but I'm not so sure I want to do so with a company that must think I'm stupid.

Which reminds me, I need to go close a credit card account that I rarely use because now they want to charge me a yearly $50 fee for the privilege of loaning me money for 20 days (because with their new interest rate of 29% I'd never carry a balance on that card). Yeah, I may take a temporary hit to my credit score, but the available credit was low and not worth much anyway. I doubt it will hurt us too much and we're not looking to get more credit right now anyway.