Minimum payments were outrageous!

    As promised here are a few details of my debt with Discover.
    I requested every monthly statement going back to 2005. They sent them to me all at once.
My mailbox was filled with more than 40 individual reminders of the misery. I looked at more than half of them before I got what I wanted - to be able to share with you how devastated and hopeless I felt for at least two years when I looked at these bills each month.

On January 4th, 2006 my total balance was 3,960 dollars. My minimum payment due was 80 dollars. According to the next statement, I had only sent in 20 dollars. The next  minimum payment due for February was 152 dollars. I was now over my 4100 dollar limit with a new balance of 4,130 dollars. Per Discover's policy, it's time to kick me when I'm down, HARD. I was hit with a 39 dollar late fee, and the 30 dollars over the limit in addition to the monthly payment. The next statement shows a new balance of 4,231 dollars. This went on for months and months. Records show that I reached as high as 4,493 dollars for Discover alone. I still had another card with about half as much debt. I was never able to catch up. I tried, I really did. But I belonged to Discover, and it didn't want me to catch up. I should have sent my payments in on time, I could have avoided hundreds of dollars in late fees. I also should have never went over my limit. If I recall correctly, my rationale was "I'll just send in a little extra next month." But because I wasn't familiar with every single fee they imposed, I didn't realize the "extra" I planned to send in probably went towards those fees. I think (I can't bring myself to look at the statements again) my APR towards the end was something like 26 or 29%. I started with a 9% APR. By the way, Discover did have a nice little cash back rewards program. I think I wracked up a total of .36 cents. I'm not sure if that was applied to my balance.

 Because these statements were so damn depressing to look at, I'm sure more than a few just went straight into the trash can, poor choice I know, but when things are ugly, the last thing you want is for someone to show you exactly how ugly. It's disturbing to think of how many people are dealing with that anxiety right now, only with twice as much, or three times as much debt than I had.

  In late 2006 I ended my relationship with Discover by consolidating my credit card debt. But I still owed them lots of money. I got a call from the Discover representative who wanted to know why I was ending such a wonderful relationship. I told her that the penalties, fees, and APR's might not have been illegal, but they were certainly abusive. She replied, "Come on, we're not that bad". The truth was, combined with my own irresponsibility and Discover's greediness we were both that bad. It was beyond bad, it felt evil, un-American, and even counter intuitive. With the help of Discover I had made my bed, and it was time for lights out. Thank God, my debt was never so out of control that it went to a collector, or I'm sure I would have another paragraph to follow.

   It's so easy to turn to a credit card when you need a few extra dollars for needs. But unless you're a millionaire ( in which case you're not much use to a credit card company anyway) I suggest you keep it off that card.