Questions and Answers

I just got mail and email from Chase that they’re making changes to the cardmember agreement on my legacy Freedom card. The eye popping change was this one:

[I]Revised Terms as of 4/10/2021
Penalty APR and When It Applies Up to [B]29.99%[/B]. This APR will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate.
We may apply the Penalty APR to your account if you:
• fail to make a Minimum Payment by the date and time that it is due; or
• make a payment to us that is returned unpaid.
How Long Will the Penalty APR Apply?: If we apply the Penalty APR for either of these reasons, the Penalty APR could potentially remain in effect indefinitely. [/I]

30 percent is no joke, of course it doesn’t say what the premium on the prime rate will be, and that’s on top of the late payment fee.

I pay on time and don’t carry a balance, so the only time I’d be worried about this is like an instance that happened recently where I made a return and the merchant (or their payment service) took forever to post the refund. I forgot about it, the due date came and went and it still hadn’t posted, so of course Chase applied a late payment penalty and interest. Explained what happened and they reversed those charges, and the next day the merchant posted the refund. So it was a hassle, but fine in the end, but makes me wonder if Chase is signaling it will become less customer friendly by adding new penalties to cardmember agreements.