After discussing several points of what credit cards are good and bad in we have to finally decide do we need those plastic debt accumulators any more or not.

You will say that definitely we need but if only credit card companies were more customer-oriented and did not think of their profits only. It safe to say it is not going to happen. All businesses are about the money, especially financial institutions. They have been working on these schemes of earning profit on people for many centuries so far. They are not some kind of altruists who will refuse money for the good of others. Hardly there is a person who would, especially at these recession times.

Before you get anther card with a credit line, make sure you paid off the other three or two you already have. And think, why would you overpay such huge amounts of money is not it better to spend them n something else? Short for cash? Ask someone to borrow, if not then consider a credit card but be careful when choosing one. If you know you can afford one – go ahead and get it!

The rich are different from you and me because they have more credit!

Frankly speaking that is no easy to define this notion because there is such a variety of cards different in their value. In the United States, interest rates range from 6% up to 40%. The majority f the department store cards have a little less than 20% APR. Other countries may pay much higher interest rate amounts. For example, in Mexico company may charge between 30-50% per card especially for store issued cards. Thus defining “good” may be partly based upon a person’s location in the world.

The lowest interest rate is granted to those customers who can afford secure credit – around 6%. Unsecured credits will provide you with 10% interest rate, but only if you have good credit history. Otherwise the interest grows up to 20%.
However, it is not wise to choose a card only based on interest rate, there are as well other benefits a card can offer which may prevail over which card charges, such as accumulation of frequent flier miles, or cash back on purchases, etc.

Besides, when card issuers do not include all the fees in an interest only. There are also so called ‘hidden fees’, which may not be revealed when you get the card but learn about them later on after you have been charged. Consumers need to check for hidden fees, and there can be many of them. Such fees can include fees if the card isn’t used enough, fees for overuse of the card, additional charges for withdrawing cash, and exorbitant late payment amounts. Exceeding the credit limit may also kick fees into high gear.

When people always pay their cards off at the end of the month, a few points in interest rate, provided there is a grace period, really don’t matter. Interest rate becomes considerably more important when a person maintains a balance on a card. Higher balances do translate to greater cost to borrow money. Those with poor credit will typically pay higher rates, and may have more trouble paying off balances. It may still be possible, if credit is imperfect, to get a slightly lower interest rate by scanning through credit offers and looking online.

What may be possible reasons for the customers to come up with such a conclusion? What should credit companies do or maybe not to do in order to dissatisfy and frustrate card holders so much?

Still a few years earlier there was hardly a person who could do without a credit card, everyone loved that plastic money and had a couple of them from different companies. Today cards have turned to be evil… The thing is that those cards are no more considered to be “credit” but they are “debt” cards. And that is a huge difference. People started to notice how fast money is spent and hard it is to give it back, to pay the debt.

Credit card issuers have considerably increased interest rates. Even the most honest card holders who used to pay their balance every month, they also suffer. People say that interest rates have increased almost twice as much. The situation even worse if a person has more than one card, because then it is not one debt but several and they are not a few hundreds each, but a few thousands… How can one pay those debts out when the interest rate has been doubled?

Specialists claim that financial companies increase interest rates on credit cards in order to make sure they get their profit. That would mean the following: when the rate is up, a person still pays off his credit while he can afford it. Once a card holder is on the edge and terminates money flow to the card the company is not at a loss since it got all of its money back due to higher interest rate which the customer overpaid.

This approach is no way customer-friendly. Why? Because higher interests will be paid only by those card holders who have money, who used to pay off their credit timely every month and were supposed to enjoy benefits from the card issuers. And those who failed to pay off the debt even in good times will definitely fail to pay in the times of recession. So who is at loss? Those card holders who were supposed to have benefits.

One online magazine compared credit cards to a match or a lighter: credit cards carries money as well as a match carries fire. While neither of them is used they are considered to be safe and convenient but once you decide to make use of it – be careful not to get burnt with fire and not to get overwhelmed with debt.



Before the recession, Washington Mutual was considered to be the sixth largest bank in the US. When the recession came it broght WaMu acquisition by JPMorgan Chase in autumn 2008. The company as well operated Washington Mutual Credit Card subsidiary. The subsiduarry specialized in credit and debit card services. After the acquisition, Wamu Credit Cards became a part of JPMorgan Chase.

Before autumn 2008 WaMu provided its clients with a huge range of credit card options.

WaMu Platinum Cards. The advantage of this card is that it is instant. This means that a customer instantly gets the answer: whether his/her application is approved or not. Another advantage (probably the most outstanding) it has zero dollars fraud liability on unauthorized purchase. This is a protective measure against the unauthorized activities whose incidence is on the rise. The Online Washington Mutual is also very helpful. Whenever the card holder visits the site, he is provided with an offer card. Due to this the customer base has widened and the search cost involved in finding and applying for credit cards is reduced.

Provident Credit Card. WaMu took the 9 position among the credit cards issuers in the US. But it happened only after the company acquired the Provident Credit Card – a real giant.

Providian Real Rewards. A card is very interesting in terms of its operation. Everytime an owner uses a card he gets rewarded. It offers a huge range of benefits.

Providian Cash Back. The only thing that stets aside this particular card is that a card holder is rewarded with cash back every time a purchase transaction is completed. This is tempting, while as a result you pay less for the items you buy.

Providian Rewards. Very flexible reward system is offered by this card: one point per each dollar spent.
Despite the benefits offered by Providian, it has undergone many lawsuits where customers have complained that the were charged a lot more than they deserved. The customers were also victims of poor customer service.

The business card that are offered by the Washington Mutual Credit Card have the following benefits:

• One can keep the business expenses separate.
• Employee cards have spending limits set by themselves.
• The individual expenditure of the employees can be tracked down from the itemized statements.
• There is 24/7 online service.

Hard times make people refuse using credit cards though. The reason is that financial institutions also want to keep the balance of income and expenditures… In the situation of sever unemployment, salary cats and other economic-related issues, the number of debtors increased in the past years. Banks and other credit companies have become choosier when it comes to granting a loan or a credit card line.

Recent studies showed that credit cardholders tend to be more and more unsatisfied with their interest rates rising, minimum payments pricking and credit limits shrinking. People are completely pissed off with their new credit card bills coming each time a few dollars higher. Some tend to believe that purchase rates, cash advance rates and sometimes even default rate increases are the result of President Obama signing the Credit CARD Act. The country is getting close to new credit card reform to enter into force this February, thus many card issuers do not provide their clients with complete information on terms and conditions of the upcoming cards issuing procedure.

Recent survey of the best credit card 2010 showed that the ‘Oscar goes to’ Discover card. The reason we choose the Discover® More® Card as the best credit card of 2010 is because with this card you can get up to 5% cash back on your every day purchases. With almost all other cards you can only earn up to 3% – and with the credit crunch even 3% seems high these days. If you are looking for a well rounded credit card that gives you cash back for just about everything, you are definitely going to want to check out this card.
In addition to offering up to 5% cash back the Discover® More® Card has no annual fee (even if this card did have an annual fee it would still probably be the card of the year because of the awesome rewards program). With this card there is also a 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers. I also want to point out that if you shop through the online ShopDiscover store you can also earn a 5% – 20% cash back bonus, in addition to the 5% cash back you already would receive.

Loans in form of cash or credit cards are numerous and this issue requires a good deal of research before embarking on the “affair”.

As for the credit cards, so one bank may offer such a great variety that an average American who tends to have a few cards may easily get lost and confused.

I will suggest you the description of one possible type of cards – Juniper Credit Cards – so that if you are new in the “business” you could get at least the slightest idea of what it is all about.

Juniper cards. The company was acquired in 2004 by Barclays Bank in Delaware. Juniper provides a variety of cards offered by other companies. Juniper focuses on rewards cards by partnering to large organizations such as AirTran Airways, ATA Airlines, Best Western and Travelocity to mention just a few.

One of the most recent partnerships was with iTunes. Juniper Credit Card offers iTunes customers no annual fees, accumulation points for every newly purchased items as well as a range of other benefits.

The company enables every card holder to keep his finances under control. This is ensured by online banking, which gives access to the customer’s account and all the account statements can be downloaded in one file. The data in the fail includes all the transitions which took place on your card within a certain period of time: when, when, who and how got your money.

Another feature that makes the card worth acquiring is “account alerts”. Clients receive email messages reminding them to load the card account or warning them of the risk of credit limit or overdraft.

The majority of Juniper cards (http://juniper-bank-credit-card.pissedconsumer.com/) issued in partnership is valid for 6 months, they do not charge any introductory APR and have no introductory period.  In average APR ranges from 13.47% to 17.74%, depending on the card holder’s credit history, co-issuer and the benefits provided.

Transaction charges are applicable for monthly charges (for card maintenance), balance transfers, cash advances, convenience checks, late payments, overdrafts, and returns. Some cards do not charge foreign exchange fees.

For example, Frontier Airlines MasterCard® by Juniper Bank is an unsecured credit card which is available to customers with good and excellent credit ratings. The card is issued for 6 months and dos not charge any introductory APR, while ongoing APR amounts to 17.47%. this is compensated on the other hand by a fee ticket with 15,000 miles only, and 1 mile granted for each $2 spent for the purchase. Balance transfers may bring the card holder additional 5,000 miles for free.

To get more insight in these and other credit card issues, follow the blog! Keep good!

Before you entrust your money to anyone’s ideas and advises, bare in mind that no one except for you cares about your fortune, financial success and savings.

Brokers and financial advisers are only looking for personal benefits from their clients. They may bring you certain profit, but believe it or not, they gain more than you can imagine. You as well must know that there is no serious regulation basis and no obligatory licensing to practice this type of activity; that is why many scammers rush into the field.

That’s why it is better to look for unbiased third party which provides is neither a consumer nor a company/broker who makes money on the information provided.

The World Web is saturated with articles on different financial topics, tips on financial management, and the like. One may as well consumers’ complaints (http://www.pissedconsumer.com/) and testimonials to learn more from real experience, to choose a good company or to luckily avoid a bad one.

There are also companies which support and help customers make the right choice, they gather customers in one community and let them share, help and give advices. Besides they may even conduct their own independent surveys and researched to give us a vivid picture of this or that industry sector. Let’s agree that is helpful and quite consuming piece of work. Such companies are launched by consumers like we are. It is not always that the state can protect consumer’s rights and then you go to such companies to voice your dissatisfaction and anger.
If you are one of common visitors of such online based companies and are looking for financial (and other) help or advice then you will definitely find Consumer Reports Money Adviser of great value. Consumer Reports Money Adviser is independent, expert and nonprofit. It does not accept any outside financial support or advertising.

Unlike other newsletters, Consumer Reports does not have financial services to promote. It was launched to simply give the customers practical, unbiased financial advice they’ve always wanted to get, but never before had the opportunity to get in every carefully researched article.

It is not the only helpful resource of the Consumer Reports Company. However, it may be considered one of the most commonly looked up because of these hard economic times our country and our family budgets are facing.