a couple of ways to get the best from your credit cards this christmas
tis the Season to be jolly, with a Hey No y no and much sla ing of the thighs etc and all that humbug I know this makes me sound like a cro between Dicke Scrooge and a grumpy ancient man nonetheless I have just finished wading in term of a whole raft of sales promotion material from a series of Credit Card Companies and it really does beggar belief at times.
OK so they are having hard time of it at the moment no everything is relative, being unemployed and homele is having a hard time, a downturn in the profitability of the Credit Card Companies is long overdue.
All of the false bonhomie and good cheer of the leaflets got me to contemplateing that they are really being disingenuous at the best and two faced at worst. Basically the i ue boils down to the fact that they are really now paranoid about the whole i ue of Identity Theft and the knock on effect it will have on our welfare.
Not too sure about this. Yes Identity theft is not good and we could all do without being infected by this the latest in growth industries nonetheless what the Credit Card Companies are really worried about is being caught hancienting the baby so to eak and having the cough up the money when we realise how we have been ri ed off and it wa t us that employd the card in the primarily place, it was a representative from the local underworld trying to purchase a present online for Mum for Christmas!
This got me to contemplateing about real ways to look after your Plastic this Christmas and ways to e ure how they really work for you and not someone else.
First of all check on the fine print of your statements to e ure that small charges or worse, miraculous charges arent able to be sli ed in without you noticing in lieu of increased membership fees etc.
Secondly, unle you find yourself totally cash stra ed and without any other mea of funding the next few hours till the local Bank ope or you get home then do not ever employ your Credit Card to withdraw cash.
These ha y cha will rob you blind as soon as look at you if you withdraw cash using your Credit Cards. Sky High interest rates here we come nonetheless you can also forfeit interest free periods and also suffer punitive withdrawal fees as also.
Thirdly, shop around for the best rates po ible as these boys are going to be bringing in even more ridiculous rates soon mark my word. With Base rates rising, the Card su liers are going to try and push their minimum APR to the region around 16% as soon as they contemplate they can get away with it.
Their excemploy? Well Central Bank rates are rising and here in the UK the base rate has just risen to 5% so they feel they have to re ond. Well nice work if you can get it. Base Rate 5%, Credit Card Rates 16%, you go figure who is having hard time of it?
