That is a direct quote from a TD representative when I asked if anything could be done about the interest rate on my Unsecured Line of Credit.
For the longest of times, this Unsecured Line of Credit was “Prime + 1.5%”, but about 2 years ago, it was raised to “Prime + 2.0%”, which while annoying, was something I could live with, however, about six months ago I got a terse piece of Snail Mail announcing, “Yeh, it will be Prime + 3.0%. I was quite irked by this (as a customer of TD), and decided the next time I was in the Bank (say to cash in an RESP) I would ask about this.
In the interim, my daughter got her Student Line of Credit from CIBC, which I co-signed, and she got that at Prime, so I figured I’d bring the documentation with me (to TD) to see if I could motivate my friendly TD rep to do something about my unsecured line of credit rate. This is where the title of this post came in to play.
First I was easily able to cash out my daughter’s RESP (as I had move all E-series Index Funds into the Money Market fund, won’t get fooled twice on that one), in a relatively quick few minutes. I then had to have my “investing profile” updated to allow me to do what I wanted in another account, again done quite quickly as the rep simply cloned the last time I did this update.
At this point I brought up my Unsecured Line of Credit and the high interest rate (in my opinion) and the fact that I have good enough credit to co-sign a loan for prime only, and the answer was short and to the point:
“No, that is an unsecured line of credit and I cannot lower that rate.”
I asked if there was any chance to discuss it, and was dismissed with, “Your Daughter has a professional line of credit loan, not the same thing, we can’t do anything for you”. I believe I also asked if anybody else could help, but was told No. Now I have said previously, The Answer is Always No, unless you ask, but evidently it can be No even if you do ask.
Conclusions
If I remember the happy young lady at the CIBC, when she gave us the details about my daughter’s student line of credit, told me that an unsecured line of credit rate for me would have an interest rate depending on my credit rating and how much debt I carry, but she’d gladly check it out for me if I wanted her to do that. I guess I’ll be going to visit CIBC in the near future.
As a financial services rep at one of the big six (not TD) I can understand the frustrations. The sad fact is that the banks do not give proper explanations for branch employees to explain these rationales to clients. Also remember, no body you find in a branch, including the branch manager has any power to really do anything, especially with pricing on unsecured lending. Remember also, employees are also clients of the bank and often deal with the same frustrations and pay many of the same fees… Oh sorry I only had to pay $50 plus hst for my trading account administration fee.
Points well taken, and I hope I was polite with the rep, as he did do a good job on my other tasks. This is why it is always important to be polite with whomever you deal with at whatever service outlet you might be at. Good point ðŸ‘
I also work at a big bank…(also not TD)
Just thought I’d share that we do have the power to reduce rates in branch on unsecured loans/credit lines. Branch managers have that power…
Interesting, and good to know.
My wife and I suddenly got hit with TD Canada Trust fees on our accounts. Checking in at the bank, my wife was told that the minimum balance to avoid fees had doubled to $2000 in our accounts, and we had been told this by putting messages in our account that we could have seen if we had used the web interface to our accounts and gone looking for them. We were not told by phone, postal mail, or email.
We went back to the branch together and talked to the manager. We have been customers for many decades, starting with Canada Trust. We observed that after the merger, the bank was becoming more and more like TD (poor service, poor hours) and less and less like Canada Trust (good service, long hours). Even the words “Canada Trust” and the orange colours were missing in the branch we were in.
The manager said he could do nothing, but he would have someone higher up call us to chat. Weeks have passed; nobody called.
Time to move on.
Yes, as a previously long time CT customer (from my days in Waterloo where on every street corner there seemed to be a Canada Trust) I enjoyed their service, but yes, unfortunately, this is no longer CT/TD it is TD.
@Ian this is what got me to move on too, stealthily introducing the new minimum and hitting me with a few months of fees before I figured out what was going on.
I wonder how many customers they will lose over this and whether or not it’s worth it?
Usually unsecured costs more, secured is less, since, well, it is secured. I can appreciate the annoyance with the run around. Good luck with CIBC.
Agreed, the unsecured will never be at “prime” however, prime + 3% seems a little high to me (given I have been lower)….
It is funny how they can not do anything until you are ready to leave.
My daugther, a student at the time, was offered a better interest rate on her student loan than I was getting. And this was partially because I was what CIBC considered an “Imperial” customer. Or in other words I had significant money with CIBC. She also mentioned I could get such and such an interest rate for my HELOC which was less than what I was paying. I confronted my local rep and got it lower. She had no explanation as to why I have to get this information from other sources, my daughter, rather from my own rep.
I told her that if I had to keep getting my info from other sources it might be in my interest to switch my business. That got her attention and now if there is a change I hear about it right away and get the adjusted rate immediately. Been going lower so far but no doubt will go the other way some time soon.
All this to say, if you are not satisfied or feel shunted off to the side be prepared to walk. Back it up with a little research if you can.
RICARDO
I wrote recently about financial inertia, specifically about leaving TD Canada Trust.
Good for you for taking your business elsewhere! They seem to only want the customers who will sit there and take it as they charge whatever they want.
I haven’t quite done the “Robert Irsay” yet, but I am very tempted to do it.
I had to google Robert Irsay – clearly I’m not a sports guys! =)
Mention that name to anyone in Baltimore and be prepared to fight or run!