Credit Card Junkies – Don’t Touch That Business Credit Card!
November 19, 2008 by Jean Murray
Miranda Marquit over at Yielding Wealth got me to thinking, with her article about pulling her money out of Citibank. Have you looked at your business credit card lately? I did, and received a rude surprise. When did my interest rate get up to 28.9% ?
Just in time for Thanksgiving, I’m going “cold turkey.” I’m cutting off my business credit cards. No more credit for me. I have a couple of online expenses I pay by credit card, and I’m making sure to pay the full balance off each month. And I’m going to pay off my current balances, so I don’t have to pay those ridiculous rates.
But, wait a minute…. I didn’t have the cash to pay off the balances, so I thought I would find a new business credit card with a 0% balance. I figured I could pay off the new card before the high interest rate kicked in.
But, wait a minute…This is what got me in trouble in the first place. The first credit card balance got too high, so I took out the second one at 0% APR and transferred the balance to it. Then the rate jumped up! I found out they can cancel the 0% “introductory” rate if you miss even one payment by 3 days. Ouch! So then I had two cards with high balances and high interest. Adding another credit card to the pile is easy.
Only a few minutes searching and I easily found a 0% APR card. I could fill out the application online and get approved and be on my way to balance transfer nirvana within just a few days.
Gee, you suppose that’s how we got into this mess in the first place? According to a report called “The Secret History of the Credit Card,” the credit card industry has been manipulating us for about 25 years, since deregulation and the lifting of the cap on interest rates. It is a “fine print” campaign by the credit card companies to entice people to get these low interest or 0% APR cards, then put ‘gotchas’ into the fine print.
Well, no more. We’re waking up to the shell game. And we are “Mad as Hell and not going to take it anymore.” Right! Right?
Thanks for the mention
I agree that part of our problem in this country is that we’ve been manipulated into an economy that runs on debt-fueled consumer spending. Unless we’re all in debt — and staying there — the economy tanks. That’s why they keep trying to get us to spend, spend, spend. Because that’s what the economy runs on these days.
I’m a chronic balance transferer. I get those 3.9% cheques in the mail to transfer balances and I take advantage of it. What I didn’t know though, is that if you transfer a balance, then make purchases after, when you make a payment, the payment goes toward the purchase first, not the transfer, even though the purchase was made after. I thought that was sketchy.
Good point, Darcie. You really have to read the fine print to catch that little point. I have been caught by it too, paying a ridiculous amount of interest on a transfer.