student loan and credit card
Carefully read the description of the billing method the card company is using. Look for references that say you are being charged interest on a purchase made during a previous billing cycle. That interest has been accruing since the item was posted to your account.
Additional benefits
Travel and emergency assistance
$5,000 minimum credit line
Automatic travel accident insurance up to $500,0003
Automatic auto rental insurance3
Extended warranty protection3
Worldwide acceptance and cash access at more than 24 million locations
Convenience checks at no extra charge to access your account where credit cards are not accepted
Additional cards at no extra charge
Annual Percentage Rate.
Be cautious about calling ‘900’ or ‘976’ telephone numbers. Calls to numbers with ‘900’ or ‘976’ prefixes cost money. Don’t confuse these exchanges with toll-free ‘800’ or ‘888’ numbers. If you dial a pay-per-call number mistakenly, contact your local phone company immediately. They may be able to remove the charge from your bill.
Read that tiny type in your credit card agreement
Folks who casually toss away those apparently extraneous papers that come with their credit card bill are probably throwing away money, too.
Free Period. Also called a grace period, a free period lets you avoid finance charges by paying your balance in full before the due date. Knowing whether a card gives you a free period is especially important if you plan to pay your account in full each month. Without a free period, the card issuer may impose a finance charge from the date you use your card or from the date each transaction is posted to your account. If your card includes a free period, the issuer must mail your bill at least 14 days before the due date so you’ll have enough time to pay.
You can also take your balance at a card company charging you a high interest rate and transfer it to another company with a lower rate.
Before signing up for the first low-rate offer that comes your way, shop around. Maybe that great rate only lasts six months or the annual fee eats up any savings you could enjoy from the low introductory rate.
Average Daily Balance Method. This is one of the most common computation methods that credit card issuers use to calculate account balance. To figure the balance due, the issuer totals the beginning balance for each day in the billing period and subtracts any credits made to your account that day. While new purchases may or may not be added to the balance, depending on your plan, cash advances typically are included. The resulting daily balances are added for the billing cycle. The total is then divided by the number of days in the billing period to get the average daily balance.
Agreement. Your card issuer will send you a cardholder agreement that describes the terms that apply to your card, including the interest rate charged, method of calculating interest and any transaction fees.
These are particularly common with credit cards designed for consumers with poor credit. They are charged in addition to the annual fee. In many cases, consumers end up paying well over a hundred dollars in initial and membership fees simply to obtain these cards. It is much more sensible simply to opt for a secured credit card if you have poor credit. The initial amount deposited will have to be at least $200.00, but it is refundable and you earn interest on it.
In Kids, Cash, Plastic and You, prepared for parents by MasterCard and the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs, all it says about credit-card bills is that repayment can be made in installments, over many months or even years. Nowhere does it hint that you can (and should) pay every bill in full. A MasterCard spokesperson insists that, taken as a whole, the booklet gives people a full understanding of how interest works.
Many credit card companies are now charging late payment fees of up to $25.00. The amount of grace period time you have from the payment due date until this fee is assessed varies from issuer to issuer. Since the date refers to the day of receipt of your check and not the date of postage, consumers who cut things close to deadline dates leave themselves open to such charges. What can be insidious about such fees is that some banks and credit card companies tag add these fee amounts to your outstanding balance and then charge you interest fees on the full amount.
Credit Cards are Better than Debit Cards), the fundamental advantage of credit cards over debit cards has been noted. We provide here, some more notes on the nature of these cards and how to use them more prudently and at lower risk.
Some debit cards are now also known as check cards and are distinct from Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) cards. They are similar in that they both take money from your bank account to pay for your purchase. However, an ATM card can only be used to withdraw money or pay for purchases at a limited number of locations. These include your bank, ATM machines and a number of establishments -primarily supermarkets and larger stores- which are now set up to accept these. There is almost always a charge for using an ATM card outside your bank. Some banks now even restrict the number of ATM transactions you can make each month without incurring service charges. A welcome new addition to the proliferation of ATM machines is the ETrade ATM. You can withdraw money from an ETrade machine without incurring a transaction fee.
Popular options commonly include:
cash rebates on certain purchases (or in some cases all purchases)
purchase protection -- a sort of insurance for what you buy with the card
discounts on a lot of good and services
insurance on such things as travel or auto rentals
additional warranties or guarantees on certain products
frequent flier miles
Is there an introductory rate, what is it and how long does it last?
After that, what will my rate be?
Credit card customers with big balances are far less lucky. Late payers with balances greater than $1,000 get socked with $35 fees -- the highest late fee on the market to date. Customers with balances between $100 and $1,000 face $25 late fees for tardy payments.
To help avoid finance charges, follow the issuer’s mailing instructions. Payments sent to the wrong address could delay crediting your account for up to five days. If you misplace your payment envelope, look for the payment address on your billing statement or call the issuer.
Previous Balance. This is the amount you owed at the end of the previous billing period.
In recent years, more people than ever before have found themselves deeply in debt with no remedy in sight. For many of those people, filing bankruptsy seems the only answer. In the majority of cases, however, this is not the case. With some careful planning, skilled help and patience, people can repair their credit.
Discover® and American Express®:
The two most popular alternatives to VISA and MasterCard are the Discover Card and the American Express Card. The former is a product of the Greenwood Trust which is owned by Dean Witter & Co. It does not have the international acceptance of VISA or MasterCard, but it continues to grow in popularity in the United States. Unlike the two most popular card companies, the company does directly issue the Discover Card rather than going through a network of banks. The American Express Card is accepted worldwide but is not as pervasive as VISA or MasterCard for two reasons: firstly, the company is quite exclusive in its acceptance of members and secondly because the fees it charges merchants for the priviledge of accepting its cards leads many establishments not to accept it altogether. But American Express has evolved into a wide ranging and versatile financial services company and offers a growing variety of credit card types, benefits and financial services such as loans and banking.
