For all you outraged Chase credit card customers who have been affected by Chase’s outrageous new changes in terms, New York based law firm Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart have filed a class action lawsuit on your behalf.

Chase Raises Fees and Payments

While changing terms, raising rates and fees, and hiking minimum payments is certainly not new behavior for credit card companies, Chase’s recent actions were still quite appalling, not to mention quite unappealing for consumers trying to reduce debt in a tough economic climate.

In what could only be a misguided effort to shore up earnings, Chase changed the terms for some of its credit card customers.  The targeted customers for the most part had strong credit scores, and previously took advantage of Chase offering a balance transfer at a low, fixed rate (ranging from 2.99 to 4.99 percent APR) for the life of the balance, provided the consumer complied with the terms of the offer.

The terms of the offer basically required that the consumer make all payments on time and not exceed the credit limits on any Chase accounts.

However, in January of 2009, many Chase customers who complied with all of these terms were informed that a new “monthly service charge” of $10 per month would be imposed on their account, and their minimum payment would be increased (an increase in most cases of in excess of 100%) in order for the account holder to maintain the low “fixed for life” APR.

The “monthly service charge” essentially amounts to an exorbitant increase in APR while the sudden hike in minimum payments have caused financial troubles for many of the affected customers.  Clearly, Chase is not living up to its original agreement with these customers.

Class Action Suit filed

Fortunately for these customers, someone has finally taken a stand against the big, bad credit card company.  On January 28th, law firm Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart filed a lawsuit against Chase in a Los Angeles court.  The filed lawsuit can be seen here.

With the class action suit, Chase credit card holders affected by this particular change in terms could potentially be eligible for compensation if Chase is unable to win the case.  If you are a Chase customer affected by this situation, you should sign up for information on the suit at the Giskan Solotaroff Anderson & Stewart website.

Tags: balance transfer, Chase, class action lawsuit, fixed rate, lawsuit, reduce credit debt, reduce debt, reducing credit card debt, reducing your debt