Looking for good deals in credit cards despite the credit crunch? So are my friends.

They’ve been asking me if there are any good deals on credit cards, and for some info on how the economic crisis is affecting the credit card business. So I’ll give you the inside scoop I’ve been sharing with them.

[Read more →]

I’ve been writing on a theme for the last few blogs: the mistakes that credit card companies make. I’ve categorized them into three types: 1) non-fulfillment errors, 2) wrong info given, and 3) wrong action taken. Of course there are always those errors made by individual agents, based upon their own misperceptions, but that is a another can of worms related to the turnover in the call center industry due to low pay.

In regard to the second category “wrong info given” this, typically, occurs via a letter generated by computer program to you, the credit card account holder. The misinformation about your account is likely to ‘only’ cause frustration or nuisance and, because it’s only you who received information that’s wrong, it’s likely to be more of an annoyance than a danger to your finances.

Far more dangerous is when a credit card company reports misinformation to a third party like a credit bureau. Credit card companies will seldom inform you about such reporting because they are communicating with the credit bureaus all the time.

Yet this mistake can pose a real danger to a your financial well-being if your credit card company makes this kind of blunder in the closing of an inactive account. So you need to know how and when to check for it. [Read more →]

Here’s a balance transfer warning: what to look out for when you are transacting balance transfers on your credit card account.

If you read my post on “balance transfer nightmares” then you may remember that there are three kinds of balance transfers. In that post , I described the nightmare that can occur with type three, in which you order a “direct” check made out to yourself.

Today’s tip relates to the second type of balance transfer check, one that you make out to a third party payee.

While this is not – necessarily – the nightmare that the previous problem I described can be, it still is a hassle that has the potential to steal lots of your time and destroy your peace of mind before you get it sorted out.

Yet, it can be avoided with a little planning on your part. Let me explain with a useful example. [Read more →]

A credit card late fee can be one of the costlier assessments  among the range of credit card penalties that exist today.

Typically a late fee costs a customer thirty or forty dollars a hit. 

So if your normal bill-paying strategy for your credit card has let you down and you have been assessed with a late charge, you should always ask to have that late fee waived. This is doubly important – and can be doubly beneficial – if you have a rewards account.

If a customer has a rewards  or “air miles” account and he has been late with his payment, he loses the
reward miles that normally would be credited for that cycle.

But, if the late payment fee is waived, then any reward miles that have been forfeited will later be [Read more →]

The type of credit card promotions that are offered by a credit card company is another criteria by which you can judge the over all quality of credit card service you are receiving from your credit card company. 

Credit card lenders are constantly making promotional offers to potential customers in an ongoing battle aimed at attracting customers away from the competition. Yet if something sounds too good to be true, it may well be. To apply this criteria as a means of judging the quality of customer service you are getting from your credit card company, consider how well your credit card lender delivered on the promotional promises that were made to you.

To help you assess how good a job your credit card company is doing in this area, I offer these questions for your consideration: [Read more →]

There are two important timeframes that you must be aware of before you make a credit card payment online or call in to your credit card company to make a credit card payment over the phone. Both timeframes revolve around when your credit card company posts your credit card payment to your account.

Unfortunately, these two timeframes do not seem to be clearly understood and, as a result, they cause credit card holders a lot of headaches. Customers have endless problems in these two areas:

• posting payments in time to prevent past due charges
• posting payments to have more available credit

Due to these misunderstandings, many customers accrue late charges and find themselves without available credit when they need it, despite having made their payments.

To understand how this happens and how to eliminate these headaches, you must first understand [Read more →]

If you have a credit card that you have not used in a while, look out. Your credit card may be about to disappear. You may be getting a letter from your lender any day that says your credit has been revoked and your credit card account is going to being closed – just like that.

The customers that I have been dealing with are often quite surprised when they get this news. Many of them are used to leaving credit cards with lots of available credit just sitting in a drawer, maybe waiting for a better deal and lower rates. But those days may be drawing to a close.

Lenders are closing credit card accounts for inactivity in ever increasing numbers. As an excuse, [Read more →]

There is generally not much that represents a consistent criterion for granting customers credit limit increases. Yet the public is led to believe that patterns of good credit card behavior, combined with satisfactory credit scores, will get them more credit.

In fact, this frequently doesn’t happen and customers are denied increases for really no good reason. Yet the only way you can really determine if you are perceived as eligible for more credit is to threaten to close your credit card account!

So if you want a credit limit increase, you’ve asked for a credit limit increase, but that request has been denied, try this: [Read more →]