http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7476762

I closed my Bank of America account this week after being hit with yet another round of fees. You know the kind they dish out…overdraft fee due to an inter-bank scheduled transfer, then another fee for there not being enough to cover the overdraft, and another one for the fee that is added to the other fee…and what the heck…give us $20 for looking at our website…

(I try to keep my blog G-rated – even though in person, I may not be – so please view these links with caution as, depending on your personal sensibilities, one or two of them may be offensive either in text or graphics)

Anyway, I’m not when it comes to my feelings for Bank of America.

In fact, they even have T-shirts for the feeling…

…and Bank of America/MBNA is a pimp.

Before I started this blog and gave myself a good slap across the face to wake up from my debt coma, I fell prey to one of the many pieces of “life vest” junk mail that I receive on a weekly basis. I think it was the familiar BoA logo that swayed me.

I opened up a ‘consolidation line of credit’ for $15,000 in order to lump all my credit card debt into one easy payment. It wasn’t long before a few of those credit cards crept back up to a dangerous level and now my savior loan is the one that puts me in a cold sweat when I review my liabilities.

Over $13,000 at 22.45%. This means that with each monthly payment (slightly over $300) the interest rate basically eats its way back up. It’s a cycle that I was a fool to enter into and one that I now can’t get out of fast enough.

In a previous post I mentioned that I once again went to the DARK SIDE in an effort to reduce my payment – this time with a new mindset.

After two calls to American Express that brought no results in terms of lowering my rate for a large balance transfer, I did something that I have never done before. I asked for a supervisor.

Once the supervisor was on the phone it was fairly easy. I explained what I was trying to do and made sure to use the name MBNA as much as possible – in case I could take advantage of any competitive mindset the supervisor/company might have.

They explained what they could do for me and though it was not exactly what I was looking for – it was a hell of a lot better than 22%

So I’m transferring $11,900 over to AMEX out of the 13,363.40 at 12.74%.

I will then split my $9,503.22 debt that is currently at 16.5% among my two new 0% interest (for 12 months) cards.

As for the snowball, I’m not sure in what order I should payoff the debt yet. The AMEX rate lasts the length of the loan, while the new cards are just for one year. I think I will end up focusing on the AmEx – then I will reevaluate where I am at the end of 2007.