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Credit Card Landmines

The Castle Law Office is a St. Louis, Missouri based firm that is dedicated to helping citizens on both sides of the Mississippi river get through financial hardships. We are not a credit counseling agency. We are not debt collectors. What we do is help people get through the bankruptcy process in a way that will help them resolve their debts while still maintaining as much of their property as possible. If you or a loved one is considering filing bankruptcy, contact the Castle Law Group in St. Louis for a free legal consultation today.

Credit card debt is so ubiquitous in society today that people think nothing of piling up long term debt in order to have the immediate gratification of plasma televisions, vacations and Xbox 360’s. But if folks had an idea as to how the credit system is so utterly and completely rigged to soak card users, they would think twice before pulling the Capital One out of their wallet.

With the recent call by the Treasury Department for all consumers to voice their concerns, you can hopefully expect some legislation in Washington to outlaw some of the more ridiculous abuses. Here are just a few of them:

Retroactive Rate Hikes: Remember that time you bought a sofa back in 2007? Back when your interest rates were relatively low? Since you missed that payment last month, not only have they jacked the interest up on things that you will buy in the future, they jacked the rates on that sofa you are still paying off. This is the equivalent of you securing a loan for a car, and then after ten months of paying it off the bank comes and tells you that they are jacking up the rates on the whole loan. A credit card rate hike isn’t an “after this date” sort of proposition. It’s usually all or nothing.

Late on Any Other Payment? Great News for Visa!: Many people are magnanimous about getting their credit card rates raised if they are late on a credit card payment. That seems like a halfway reasonable excuse for higher rates. But the credit card companies aren’t just looking at your payment schedule to them. They are looking at your payment schedule to EVERYONE. Were you late paying your electricity bill? Water bill? Gas bill? That’s an excuse to hike your rates. Did you take out an auto loan? That’s an excuse to hike your rates. Anything that even remotely dings your credit report is looked at as an excuse to hike up your rates.

Double Billing Practices: In two-cycle billing, you get charged interest on the average daily balance of two months of charges instead of just one. If you haven’t paid all of your balance, the next month you will still pay interest on the sum that you already paid.

Graceless Periods: Without a doubt, the biggest fine print landmine in the credit card game is the “Grace Period.” This is the amount of extra time that you get if you don’t get your payment in on time. Sometimes it is five days, and some big-hearted companies even tell you that it’s a whopping 30 days. But what many of them don’t explain is that the grace period only applies if you pay your balance in full. When was the last time you did that?

Paying for Convenience: Have you gotten in the habit of paying your credit card bill online or over the phone? You should reconsider and go back to doing it the old fashioned way. Many credit card companies charge you anywhere from $5 to $25 for the use of their phones or online services.

At the Castle Law Group, we have helped over 20,000 people in the St. Louis area get past crippling debts and move on with their lives. And no debt is more stacked against the consumer than credit card debt. If you have credit card debt, do everything you can to get out of it. If you find yourself in deep debt and don’t see a way out, contact the Castle Law Group for a free legal consultation today.

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