CREDIT CARD HOLDERS FURIOUS OVER ‘RATE JACKING’

It arrived in Rich Stevens’ mailbox a few weeks ago: the notice that Citibank had “rate-jacked” the Visa cards belonging to him and his wife.

“In my case, from 9.5 percent to 16.99,” the 54-year-old nurse from the Long Island hamlet of Merrick, New York, stated. And his wife’s rate zoomed from 7.95 percent to 16.99 percent, he said.

Stevens said he did not know why the rates had soared; his credit rating is great.

But, like thousands of other credit card customers around the nation, he has been notified his rate is skyrocketing.

“It almost borders on loan-sharking, from my perspective,” he said.

In the blogosphere, writers are livid at the instant rate hikes — called “rate-jacking.”