Watch Out With Your Zero-Percent Credit Card
There are so many credit card companies around looking for prospects. It is a very competitive market that the companies try very hard to attract customers with the best offer for their card. Several major issuers are pushing for credit card with zero interest rates..
If you are able to use card responsibly, the zero-percent credit card is a super deal for your convenient without extra cost that need to be paid on interest. But, you have to be careful - very careful when using the card. One misstep can cause the interest-free period to be terminated. If you have slipped up from interest-free period, you will be paying a much high interest rate that may lead you to a serious debt problem.
If you have good credit, the chances are high for you to be offered with zero-percent credit card. Here are a few things you have to watch out for:
Watch Out With Your Zero-Percent Credit Card
1. Is the interest-free period is offered for life or limit to a promotion period?
Watch out for the interest-free period of the cards offered to you. Some issuers offer interest-free card for lifetime, as long as you follow the rule, the interest-free period will continue. Whereas, some zero-percent interest rate credit cards have expired date, they are only valid for a promotion period like 6 months to 2 years, after the period, interest rate will get to normal, some even higher than the average rate found in the market. Therefore, you have to watch out for the terms on the interest-free period in the agreement before you accept the offer.
2. Balance transfer the high interest-rate balances into interest-free credit card
You can take advantage of transfer the balances from high interest-rate balances into the zero-percent card to save interest and pay them down faster because the entire monthly payment goes to the principal instead of the interest. But, you have to watch out that most balance transfers do have an introductory period for zero interest. If you can't pay in full after the introductory period, the balance transferred from other cards may be charged with interest even though it is an interest-free credit card. Read the terms and conditions carefully, you may notice that the interest-free only apply to cashless purchases, not the balance transfer.
Watch Out With Your Zero-Percent Credit Card
3. The potential hidden fees
Although you can take advantages of zero-percent credit card to transfer the balances from other card, you have to watch out for other potential fees that are hidden in the agreement. These fees may cost you to pay more than before the balance transfer.
4. You are offered with standard credit card
Zero-percent credit cards are offered to people with good credit, your application may not get approved. The issuers may counter offer you with their standard cards that come with certain interest rate. Although the terms and conditions are written in the agreement, you may not aware and thought it is interest free. Therefore, watch out the type of card you are offered with before accepting the offer.
Summary
With zero-percent credit card offers, what appears to be a good deal could become not so good or even a bad deal if you are not careful. Watch out the potential risks above if you have been offered and accepted to use these cards.
i am being sued in colorado civil court but live in another state. mechanic says he is owed money but he is c?
my car broke down and my regualr mechanic was unable to tow my vehicle. Had to get a mechanic from the phone book thismechanic had my car and took weeks to fix it. I was verbally quoted a price of repair. repair took much longer because mechanic could not correctly fix car. He kept telling me he was not charging for parts that did not work, he would not allow other mechanic to pick up car from his shop that had experience with that vehicle . finally car was competed and mechanic said if he was me he would sell car, he would never work on this make of car . mechanic pushed credit card at zero interest
we had security freeze on credit and did not think charge would go thru but it did so we picked up car and agreed to paid amount quoted.
we noticed damage to car immediately and the next day car acted as it had prior to breakdown , we sold car the following day as a trade in …decided mechanic was a crook and need a car could not afford to deal with at that time we were in process of moving across the country. Bill arrives and it is 4 x the agreed upon price and has a different account number than receipt. Go thru the fraud process with credit card company to find out what happened. mechanic signed name to credit card application and submitted a fraudulent account to the credit card the shop used. credit card fraud department charged back the mechanic and then the mechanic sued us in small claims court and then sent a threatening email to scare us. suit was dismissed by court. then he sued again in civil court .
then after suit was filed he got an attorney
due to cost to travel and family medical situation what is penalty if i can not afford to travel out of state and attend court?
His actions are criminal violations ( signing your name and submitting fraudulent bills) but the credit card company is not going to deal with the criminal aspect. Once they charged back the amounts involved, they were done.
You now have a two fold issue here. You MUST attend the court appearance that is out of state to you. Failure to appear will automatically grant the motion to the defendant ( the mechanic wins and the court will order you to pay). The second part of this is stopping in with whatever documentation you have concerning the fraudulent actions with the credit application to the District Attorney’s office in that same city. Give everything you have to them and they will run their own investigation and file felony charges ( put the mechanic in prison for a few years). The lawsuit you are dealing with at the moment is civil, where the fraud case is criminal. Although you would think that they are related, they are completely different in the eyes of the law and you need to bring your information to the right department to start the ball rolling.
Best of luck and I hope this is useful to you
How do I eliminate my debt w/o destroying my good credit score/history? … continued…?
Anyway, I also have about a $5K credit limit on one Circuit City Rewards VISA thru CHASE BANK with NO debt at all. The remaining difference is actually citibank checking plus debt of about $9K (BANK CHECKING CREDIT LIMIT $10k) and a 4% interest car loan of about $3K (final 5yr payment of $427 Jan-2009). What do I do? My FICO score last time I checked was around 720 back when I was about $20K less in debt. I still use one credit card for gasoline which is my Citibank VISA card which is about to reach its credit limit. I have had zero credit inquiries in the past 12 months. I was also wondering if you should happen to agree with my decision on submitting applications online for SEVERAL credit cards is that if I should do all at once within minutes?… or does applying for the same number of cards that I want spread out in several days even matter? I guess what I’m trying to ask if the credit inquiries made close together would affect my credit score less/more negatively? What do I do???
What I did…
I transferred my highest interest card to a zero percent card off I had got (good luck with those offers now) I stopped altogether on using my cards. I paid the highest interest card off the most. Worked a lot of extra hours at work to do so. If you start applying like crazy for numerous cards it can and will hurt your score. Too many inquiries is not a good thing. Wait to review one of the offers you receive in the mail. Don’t apply for too many. CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!! STOP USING. I took me 2 years to eliminate a $10,000.00 credit card debt and my fico has been climbing ever since. GOOD LUCK!
Husband and I disagree if we should pay off credit card debt with savings?
We sold our home one year ago and have $85,000 from the equity earned in a savings account earning little interest. We also have $28,000 in Credit Card Debt between 3 cards. I would like to pay off the credit cards completely (or mostly) with the money and replenish the savings account monthly with what we used to make in credit card payments. He doesn’t want to touch this money because he thinks we will never be able to buy a house in the future if we don’t have the full $85,000 to put down.
We’ve never missed a credit card payment or been late with one and have good credit. Don’t we look better on a future loan application if we have a lower percentage of down payment and zero credit card debt? Should we leave some credit card balance to keep our credit score good – or pay all $28,000 off at one time?
Would love to hear any thoughts from financial experts what is the best way to handle this debt.
Thank you all so much for validating my idea to pay off this debt. I’ve put my foot down and told my husband that I’m no longer going his way on this and he’s relented.
Tomorrow morning I will be making a phone call and transferring the money. By 10:00 a.m., I will finally be free of $28,000 in credit card debt.
Thank you all for your opinions and giving me the confidence to do this!
This is an easy question. Pay off the credit cards. Then, pay as much to your savings as you can, and build that back quickly, with out just giving away your hard earned money in interest to a credit card company. The “never be able to buy…” is just a senseless threat, it is almost childish. Keep the cards if you must, but don’t spend foolishly on credit. Live on a budget, save a large down for the home, and you will be far better off. If he doesn’t get it, well, let him sleep on the couch, and think about it for a week.