If your credit card company has hiked your rate and you can't pay it off immediately, one option is to call the issuer and ask for a lower rate, particularly if you've been a longtime customer.
"Say, 'I've been a customer for X amount of time, and I'm looking at competitive offers,' " said Bill Hardekopf, chief executive of LowCards.com, a credit card Web site. " 'I'd like you to roll it back to X rate.' "
Credit card companies don't want to lose customers because "the acquisition cost is too high," he said.
In 2006 the Tribune published a script in a story by Gregory Karp aimed at helping consumers negotiate a lower credit card rate. This reporter successfully used it to bring down the rate on a credit card to 9.99 percent from 24.99 percent.
It goes like this:
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