I also received the letter from Chase Bank about the changes to our account with payments increasing from 2% to 5%. This will take our payment from $450.00 to approx. $1100. In this letter I do not see where it says what happens if we do not agree to these terms. I thought that was supposed to be stipulated in the changes to any account. What are our options. We like many others have gotten ourselves into this credit crunch and are trying our best to pay down our debt, but at this rate (we are in our 60's) the debt will be passed on to our children. Guess we will have to put it in our wills leaving this debt to our oldest child, followed by debt to the other 3 children. Please give me some answers.

Your debt is not your children's debt. Don't put anything in the will assigning debt. That's a terrible idea. Anyway, right now all the credit card companies have to do is notify you of changes to your minimum payment a certain number of days (I think it's 30) before making the increase effective. The letter they sent you was formal notice.

Hi, daphne1350!

I would like to add that, have you tried calling them? I have found that they aren't all that difficult, as some other companies might be, with which to negotiate things, if it's possible.

Thanks!

Where did you get the idea that your debt passes to your children?

As for the increase in payments, how are you calculating that. If you think your minimum payment would be $1100 that would indicate a $22,000 balance. That's rather high for one card.

If you opt out of the changes, you may have the account cancelled which means you can't use the card any longer. And that might not be a bad thing.

I was joking about leaving the debt to our children, but with this credit card we will not be leaving them much anyway. Yes, you are right, all they have to do is give notice. I did not try calling them as other people on this subject have said that they were on hold for a long, long time. I watch a 3 yr. old and 2 mo. Old, not much time to spend on hold.
Yes, our balance is that high. We were offered a low, low interest rate and consolidated bills we have accumulated over the years. We have not been the most credit savvy couple and had a son that was severely injured in an accident. In looking at others in this situation with Chase, some people have several credit cards with them.
We do not use the "Credit Card", and to opt out will still not help in this situation. We will still have to make the payments at 5%. They have 850,00 people over a barrell and if they cannot make the payments they will increase their interest rate and they will be buried in debt. Our payments will not always be the $1100, it will go down monthly as our balance goes down. It will just be hard to make this payment, but we will do it just to rid ourselves of these sharks!