Things You Might Not Know About Credit Cards & Debt Relief

A Legal Thief ?

When you get your monthly credit card statement, do you ever look to see what the interest rate is that they are charging you? I received a statement one time and noticed that the interest rate had changed, they raised it to 24.9%. I had no reason why they had raised it to such a high percentage. I wasn't late on my payments and I didn't go over the limit. I called them up and told them to put my interest rate back. On the next month's statement it showed my interest rate back to where it was. I was still charged for the 24.9% interest that month.

Here you have a credit card company that can get away with jacking your interest rate up at will, takes money out of your pocket and there's nothing you can do about it. Imagine how many times a year they do this to people and get away with it. Think about how many people that don't catch it on their statement. It's easy to overlook because in your mind you assume that the interest given to you when you received the card stays the same as long as you make the payments on time. Generally you just look at the purchases and the amounts to make sure everything in order.

Credit card companies that do this to unsuspecting consumers make tons of money. Imagine your balance is $1000.00, and they raise your interest rate up to where you are paying an extra 1% that month. They end up making an extra $10.00 off of you. Say they do this to one million people, that adds up to 10 million dollars extra in one month. I know for sure there are more than one million credit cards in use in the United States alone. All I'm saying here is be careful and read your statements carefully. I am not saying all or any specific credit card companies practice this, but I do know it happened to me.

Credit Card Usage

Be careful on how you use your credit card, it doesn't take long to mount up debt, especially if you have more than one credit card. Too many credit cards can get one into serious financial trouble. The biggest thing that gets us into trouble is our way of thinking. We usually tell ourselves that we will be able to pay the bill in full when it gets here in one month. Now, how many times have you told yourself that, and when the bill comes you can't pay off the whole bill or you delay it another month? This is where we wind up getting into trouble. Always remember this about making minimum payments, chances are you are also going to be paying interest on the interest you were charged from the previous month(s).

Here's a Tip: If you need to have at least one credit card, then call the credit card company up and tell them you want your credit limit to be say, $1000.00. At least then you can't get into to much trouble only owing a $1000.00.

Before ATM cards, you had to have a credit card to book airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, etc., etc. Now that we have ATM cards available, we don't need credit cards anymore to be able to do those things. Also, the nice thing about using the ATM card is that you pay for what you are booking (in some cases) right up front and you don't have to worry about that credit card bill coming in at the end of the month. I know an ATM card can be a security problem in some cases, but here's a tip: you can always open another checking or savings account an use that one only for internet or phone purchases. What you do is only keep so much money in there to avoid any service fees from the bank and when you are going to make one of these purchases, go online to your account and transfer the funds into your secondary account. The funds transferred will usually be immediate.