Consumer complaint received 2016-03-30
Company: BARCLAYS BANK DELAWARE
State: CA
Product: Credit card
Issue: APR or interest rate

Complaint:
At Issue : My Barclays USA XXXX Platinum Credit Card : Barclay 's unwillingness to provide a detailed, factual and supportable reason for declining to reduce my APR on my card. I requested an interest APR reduction rate today XXXX/XXXX/2016 on my credit card. Barclay 's declined without providing a detailed, supportable or factual explanation for the decline. Currently the rate is XXXX. Barclay 's competitors, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX all have reduced my rate upon request down to 14-15 % APR variable based on prime rate. I have an eleven year flawless payment history with Barclay on my XXXX Credit Card. I am have always been in good standing with Barclays. I have a significant salary, flawless credit payment history with all creditors, no bankruptcies, no tax liens, no derrogatories, no late payments ever on with any creditor, nothing but pure responsibility with my more than 35 year credit history. I do, however, utilize my available credit at more than XXXX %. My credit utilization has not deterred other competitors of Barclay 's from reducing my rate based upon customer loyalty, tenure, excellent and flawless payment history etc. The questions is why is Barclay 's secretive about the factual reason for not honoring my request for a reduced interest rate. Given all the fraud Barclay 's has engaged and been fined for lately. It is difficult to understand Barclay 's position. Given my credit history performance, I am a much more creditable and credit worthy person than Barclay 's own risky performance. Yet, Barclay 's has NO factual explanation to provide me from its credit analyst 's Supervisor- XXXX XXXX other than " No lower Interest Rate is available ''. No detailed reasons why is available to me or their XXXX XXXX. The Analyst states " he can not offer what is not available '' based upon whatever proprietary digital tool they use to evaluate offers. I escalated as high as I could go to receive a detailed explanation. There is NO one available to speak with me or can answer the question. Why is Barclay 's refusing to reduce the interest rate as requested? Simply no explanation, or information is available to the Barclay 's Analyst, and consequently no information is available to me. Since the only negative is my credit utilization is high, it does n't make sense that no transparent reason is given for declining the interest rate reduction. Especially since other banks do not consider the credit utilization a deterrent from reducing my rate to 14-15 %. I am requesting that a detailed explanation be provided along with the evaluation criteria be transparent to me and consumers. I would like CFPB to obtain the answers, look into the practice, and investigate Barclay 's for discrimination based on race and demographics. As there is no reasonable explanation for Barclay 's decline for the interest rate reduction based upon my credit history. I am inclined to believe that an investigation should be pursued on whether Barclay is making consumers pay for its fraudulent activities and fines by failing to offer certain ethnic consumers interest rate reductions. Further, I believe there in an inherent unfairness to judging people and their credit risk solely based upon credit utilization. This practice unfairly and disproportionately disadvantages minorities, particularly XXXX. I further request this practice of harshly lowering credit scores by XXXX % for credit utilization for all consumers and especially for certain ethnicities ( XXXX ) be investigated as a systemic cause for denial of credit. While, I understand the bank has no obligation to reduce the APR rates upon request. I do however believe a detailed, transparent and factual explanation should be provided instead of a generic answer such as " No Interest rate reduction is available. '' to all consumers and in particular me on this issue.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation