Protect Your Card From Its Issuer
–By Priya Jestin, Staff Writer
I know the title sounds a bit contradictory. Why would the issuer of a credit card what to harm it? Well, they are not out to harm the card, they are only trying to get as much money from YOU as they can. Did you know that your credit card issuer might be trying to wring you of more money than is due to them? They employ a variety of tricks including levying late-payment fees even if you’re only a day late.
I thought I’d focus on late fees because these are so blatantly high, they are unbelievable. And what’s worse, these companies don’t even give you enough time to pay the bill as before. In effect, quite a few card companies are shortening the payback time. It almost seems as if they want you to default on your card.
Donna
December 30th, 2006 at 2:18 pm
I just wrote a post about the over-limit fees which often are $39.00 even for a fairly small amount over-limit. This seems to be the news lately: in fact, I think the WSJ ran an article today about the new “tricks” being pulled by the companies: late fees set at a particular hour after which it is too late, shortened grace periods, higher interest rates, increases on one card for mistakes on another, over-limit fees, offering lots of small balance cards rather than one higher limit card, and, finally, refusing to cap the fee to transfer a balance (which was the common practice). Plus, as consumers have started using cards for everyday expenses, a practice cultivated by the industry which offered rewards for such purchases, the industry is starting to take back the value of some of those rewards. Thus, we can’t win when we use credit cards unless we make a strong effort to stay truly on top of them at all times. Plus, make the calls: we just got a $39.00 over-limit fee removed by threatening (honestly) to cancel the card.