Woman’s Rant on YouTube Gets Her Interest Rate Cut

Like a lot of people around the country recently, Ann Minch found that the interest rate for her Bank of America credit card was being raised. Minch claimed that she had never been late on a payment and was not over her credit limit. Still she was informed that her interest rate was being raised from it’s original level of 12.99% to a whopping 30% APR. Her situation is hardly unique in this time’s as credit card companies have begun “reassessing” risk. The unique part was Minch’s response.

Ever since the government passed legislation aimed at putting restrictions on rate increases, the credit card companies have been devising new maneuvers to make sure their bottom line is not affected. Eventually they had to suspect that people would become fed up.

Minch went on the offensive and created a YouTube video entitled “Debtor’s Revolt Begins Now!”. In the video she goes over the her situation as is quite disparaging of Bank of America and their actions.

“You have reaped ungodly profits in your behemoth casino scams, then lost, only to turn around and usurp the wealth of this great nation by the outright rape and pillage of middle-class Americans whose sweat and toil built it,”

As you can see from these mighty strong words, Minch was not very happy with Bank of America. In the video she asserts that if Bank of America doesn’t return her interest rate back to its original level of 12.99%, she won’t pay “one more red cent on your 30%.” She insists that this is only the beginning of her plan of action. She tells viewers that she is “willing to sacrifice [her credit score] in order to take a stand for what’s right,” and she calls on everyone to join her in an “American debtors’ revolution.”

All of this of course comes totally from Minch’s viewpoint, there is no way of knowing if the information she is conveying is even true. She asserts in her video that she tried to negotiate with the bank. She says that despite being a customer for over 14 years, “they weren’t willing to negotiate anything.” This I find hard to believe as its come out from so many other sources that banks are very much willing to negotiate with customers who are struggling. That right there is the great and bad thing about a viral video campaign, you only get the “facts” from one side.

Now all of this might be mute if Minch’s video had only been seen by a handful of viewers. Her rant is no different than somebody down at a corner bar going off about their day. However, the video has been a huge viral hit. As of this writing, the video has over 400,000 hits and is steadily climbing. As with anything that becomes that popular, the story has now gotten legs and all sorts of media services are running with it. Faced with that much publicity, a response from Bank of America was inevitable.

The response did come and basically Bank of America completley caved into the woman’s demands. Bank of America of course isn’t commenting on the situation other than to say that a mutual agreement was reached. Minch however is saying that Jeff Crawford, Bank of America’s senior vice president of exisiting customer service, personally called her to discuss the situation. At first he tried to convince her to take a 16.99% interest rate. She once again played hardball telling him that since BofA got federal bailout money at a 0% interest rate, she figured that 12.99% was a more than sufficent profit margin for them. She then says Crawford agreed to restore her back to the original rate.

Some might say that Bank of America didn’t really have any choice when faced with so much negative publicity. The problem is that now this is going to set off a whole mess of copycats that are going to try and do the same thing. Bank of America might have just set a very bad precedent. I’m glad that Minch got what she wanted. I do also agree that, from the way she recalls the facts, she was treated unfairly. However, from Bank of America’s standpoint I think they should have played hardball with her. They had to the opportunity to set a precedent that they would not cave into these sort of tactics. They didn’t take that opportunity. So anytime your bank does something that you don’t agree with, try and create a viral video. If you can make it a success, you should get what you want.

Capitalizing on her fame now, Minch has decided to keep her crusade going. This could mean two things, either she’s found a cause she believes in and now wants to help others, or she did this whole thing for fame and money. Which one is it? That’s really something that only she could tell you. She has now started a website at www.DebtorsRevlotNow.com , and claims that her next project is “a tax revolt”. Look out world, we may have created a demon.