To those of you who gave me advice about Chase, yesterday,

[yy4me]

This is what I did this morning.

First, even though he is gone, my husband and I did spend the dollars on the bill I have been paying since his death and I will pay the balance.

I went to my local bank this AM and spoke to one of the managers. They have my business anyway since I transferred my meager checking and savings from a larger bank after my husband died.

That aside, I let him read the letter from Chase, which he thought was heartless. I asked if I could transfer the balance to a new charge card that I could open with them.

He had a better idea for me. I will pay the monies and if I get into any trouble financially because of it, they will give me a small loan to help me ride this thing through. The rate will be lower than Chase. He also told me that a lot of bank customers have come in lately to open new accounts because their rates were jumped without notice. He looked at my CC bill and noted to me that I could be one of them in the future because of some wording buried on the back of the bill.

I live frugally and will try not to use the bank offer of a loan but I have the paperwork just in case.

I called Chase this AM for the exact balance on the account as of April 15th. A few extra days so they cannot say that I missed the date or something. I also told them to never, under any circumstances, contact me again for anything. Just send me the bill marked paid and enough.

I am grateful to my local bank and wish I had done this sooner. The following is yesterdays chat with you and I thank all of you. DU keeps me sane in an otherwise insane world.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5401985&mesg_id=5401985

[Ilsa]

1. I'd do business with you any day of the week. You're an honest

woman, and I'm sure your local/personal banker could see that. You've given Chase more consideration than they deserve.

I am so sorry for your loss, and that some people in this world are such insensitive a-holes.

[librechik]

2. If they do happen to contact you in the future Don't ignore the letters!

I closed an account at Cap One. A month or two later, a charge came in on that card (my son charged an iTune song without realizing that card was dead)

The friendly Cap One people, fearing that the charge would be rejected, re-opened my account for me.
The charge was for 2.50.

A month passed and they sent me a bill. Becasue I was disgusted with them, had closed the account with great difficulty, and I thought it was just a "please come back to us! You can have a $6500 loan for a car" come-on, so I just threw it away.

I threw the second one away, too. By this time, apparently, the charge had grown to $30 with a late pay fee. And the third one. And the fourth one. Each time growing with a late fee charge.

Finally I opened one and discovered I now owed them like $150.

And it was very difficult to get them to back off. I would up having to pay at least $50 for the original 2.50 charge.

So be careful!