It shouldn’t come as any surprise that your creditors and lenders don’t really care about you, just the money you have on you.  I’m sure it came as quite a shock when you opened that initial credit card bill, and discovered that a good chunk of your bill was going to pay down interest rate hikes and other arbitrary fees.

The federal government isn’t really a fan of those practices either, and so stepped in on behalf of the rest of us and passed laws designed to protect from defaults, interest hikes and the like, creditors are devising new ways to take your happy buck back from you.  If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a list of unwanted charges and find yourself in need of credit repair services fast.  Here are just a few of the methods to watch out for, so you won’t be too surprised the next time your bill comes in…

• The grace period. These vary by creditor and consumer, so while some people may have a little bit of extra time to pay off a purchase, others may be slapped with the finance charge almost as soon as they make the purchase in the first place.  Luckily, card companies are forced to send your bill early enough so that you can avoid the finance charge entirely – assuming you have the money in your account to pay the bill in the first place.

• Weekend/holiday fees. If you’ve ever paid your credit card bill over the weekend, or you received a bill with a due date over a holiday like Christmas, and paid it the following week (say the bill was due Saturday, but you pay it the following Monday), you may have been hit with an extra processing fee.  This can cause real headaches, especially around the holidays, when money flows like eggnog.  Luckily, this is also one of the easiest extra charges to avoid as well.  The Credit CARD Act of 2009 states that card companies are no longer allowed to charge you a late fee for paying the day after a weekend or holiday, but anything after that is fair game.  Avoid the charge by paying a day or two before the weekend.

• Using your card overseas (or not). Raise your hand if you’ve ever paid for anything overseas and been more than a little surprised at just how much higher the price was for a Coke and a sandwich.  Some card companies won’t even wait for you to go overseas; if you purchase anything online from another country, like some sweet rims for your ’95 Honda Civic from Japan, and your payment is processed in yen, you’ll be hit just as hard as I was.  The solution?  Don’t buy anything online from a foreign country if you don’t want to pay any more for it than you already are.

• Inactivity fees. Here’s a fee we’re all hit with at some point in time, assuming you’ve got cards that you stop using for an extended period of time.  Your creditors don’t like being neglected, and so start looking for ways to recapture your attention – which generally translates to charging you an inactivity fee as a wake-up call.  Thankfully, such charges are now illegal, but card companies already have a follow-up charge waiting in the wings if you fail to make a minimum amount of purchases by year’s end.  So either keep making those charges, or if you don’t plan on using the card ever again, close it to avoid the hassle.

My Credit Group #1 Complaint – Credit Cards Overcharging

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that your creditors and lenders don’t really care about you, just the money you have on you. And it’s the biggest complaint heard over at My Credit Group – credit repair company. I’m sure it came as quite a shock when you opened that initial credit card bill, and discovered that a good chunk of your bill was going to pay down interest rate hikes and other arbitrary fees.

The federal government isn’t really a fan of those practices either as they’re the ones that hear the consumer complaints the most, and so stepped in on behalf of the rest of us and passed laws designed to protect from defaults, interest hikes and the like, creditors are devising new ways to take your happy buck back from you.  If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a list of unwanted charges and find yourself in need of credit repair services fast.  Here are just a few of the methods to watch out for, so you won’t be too surprised the next time your bill comes in…

• The grace period. These vary by creditor and consumer, so while some people may have a little bit of extra time to pay off a purchase, others may be slapped with the finance charge almost as soon as they make the purchase in the first place.  Luckily, card companies are forced to send your bill early enough so that you can avoid the finance charge entirely – assuming you have the money in your account to pay the bill in the first place.

• Weekend/holiday fees. Another My Credit Group Complaint is that If you’ve ever paid your credit card bill over the weekend, or you received a bill with a due date over a holiday like Christmas, and paid it the following week (say the bill was due Saturday, but you pay it the following Monday), you may have been hit with an extra processing fee.  This can cause real headaches, especially around the holidays, when money flows like eggnog.  Luckily, this is also one of the easiest extra charges to avoid as well.  The Credit CARD Act of 2009 states that card companies are no longer allowed to charge you a late fee for paying the day after a weekend or holiday, but anything after that is fair game.  Avoid the charge by paying a day or two before the weekend.

• Using your card overseas (or not). Raise your hand if you’ve ever paid for anything overseas and been more than a little surprised at just how much higher the price was for a Coke and a sandwich.  Some card companies won’t even wait for you to go overseas; if you purchase anything online from another country, like some sweet rims for your ’95 Honda Civic from Japan, and your payment is processed in yen, you’ll be hit just as hard as I was.  The solution?  Don’t buy anything online from a foreign country if you don’t want to pay any more for it than you already are.

• Inactivity fees. Here’s a fee we’re all hit with at some point in time, assuming you’ve got cards that you stop using for an extended period of time.  Your creditors don’t like being neglected, and so start looking for ways to recapture your attention – which generally translates to charging you an inactivity fee as a wake-up call.  Thankfully, such charges are now illegal, but card companies already have a follow-up charge waiting in the wings if you fail to make a minimum amount of purchases by year’s end.  So either keep making those charges, or if you don’t plan on using the card ever again, close it to avoid the hassle.

Bad habits.  We’ve all got them, but not all of them are created equally.  Whether it’s something pretty benign like forgetting to use your turn signal on the road or something completely unforgivable, like double dipping your chips in the dip, we all have at least one bad habit that can be tough to break. (more…)

test

You’ve heard of retail and bank cards, but now you can get ready for your doctor to start recommending a new credit card to go with your prescription, in the form of health care credit cards.

Prepping your credit for surgery

This article stems from my Google Reader feed, which had a story about a number of medical practices in New York that are urging their patients to apply for health care credit cards.  This wouldn’t be that big of a deal, except that apparently so many are doing this that the New York Attorney General has started an investigation into the practice.   (more…)