Beware: Credit Card Ripoff Techniques...

[Jim Sims]

You expected, with an interest-free loan for eight months, that there wouldn't be sharks circling below - just barely inside the legal boundary? Reminds me of the old "90 days same as cash" fine print shenanigans.

[s_morrison57]

Thanks for the info Wayne, I never check my bills but I'm going to start now

[RWebb]

Jim is restating the no free lunch rule.

I have a corollary too:
Just b/c you cannot immediately figure out how a big bank is screwing you does not mean they are not screwing you....

[john70t]

Thanks for the warning Wayne.

"The easiest way to rob a bank is to own one"
-somebody

"All I want is a dollar from every American" (populous 300million)
-somebody

I learned my lesson at 13 when I overdrafted a check for $0.11. Bank fees were $55 over the next week. The actual recoverabledamages accrued by the bank were 1/10ths of a penny.
Needless to say, I don't nibble at bait too much anymore. Fraud seems to be socially/legally acceptable these days.

[techweenie]

Keep your eye on every statement. I have had deposits underreported by two banks in the past 6 months. In one case, a deposit was underreported by $100 and in another, by $90. One was a teller transaction, the other an ATM transaction.

The banks are not your friends.

[red-beard]

If you are in a card game, and can't figure out who is the mark, it is you.

[RWebb]

another quote:

"Some will rob you with a six-gun
Others with a fountain pen."

- Woody Guthrie

[red-beard]

Arlo used to be a neighbor, when I lived in Western Mass. One of our friends refused to left him in and use the phone, when he locked himself out.

Really nice guy, but seriously still a hippy.

[campbellcj]

They're all snakes. Boy am I thrilled to not owe on any credit cards anymore. Never again.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by red-beard

Arlo ... One of our friends refused to left him in and use the phone, when he locked himself out.
...

pretty funny!

[LeRoux Strydom]

Wayne

With all due respect, I'm with Jim Sims on this one. There is no free lunch.

Your lasik, invisalign and Honda examples are not true comparisons to the cc deal. All three involved you purchasing something and agreeing to settle the outstanding balance some time in the future. The cost of zero-rated financing is figured into the purchase price you paid. I am fairly sure that you would have been able to negotiate a substantial discount if you offered to pay cash for those items instead of financing at zero%.

The cc deal is different. All they did was offer to transfer the balance of another cc on which no discount can be applicable. They will therefore try every trick in the book (legal or semi-legal) to make up for the financing cost. Believe it or not, the cc company has a cost of capital exceeding zero%, and to offer true zero rates to the consumer means they are either being altruistic (unlikely) or brain-dead. Either way, they won't stay in business for a long time if that were the case. So what they did was perfectly legal, albeit hidden away from sight to make the unsuspecting consumer think he is getting something for free in order to entice him into the deal.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Jim Sims

You expected, with an interest-free loan for eight months, that there wouldn't be sharks circling below - just barely inside the legal boundary? Reminds me of the old "90 days same as cash" fine print shenanigans.

Ditto. They will get theirs, one way or another. Also rest assured that a small army of lawyers has reviewed each policy, and that each is legal. Barely.

[Moneyguy1]

In Grad school I had a professor who put it better than I ever could:

"Your friendly neighborhood Banker is neither".

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Chase is one of the worst offenders. They are absolutely terrible in all my dealings with them.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Ditto. They will get theirs, one way or another. Also rest assured that a small army of lawyers has reviewed each policy, and that each is legal. Barely.

it may not be legal - they may well have decided it is not legal, or is in a gray area, and that economically, no one can reasonably fight them

[Por_sha911]

In response to the "no free lunch" folks: the mall doesn't charge you to walk around all day. They take the up front risk in the hopes that you will see something you have to have. Car dealers do the same thing. Its called the cost (& risk) of doing business. Most good restaurants lose money on the entree. They are banking on making money on appetizers, drinks, dessert, more drinks...

In response to Wayne: Card companies are masters at working the loopholes in the system. Your warning is good but it boils down to "let the buyer beware" Do your homework up front. Read the fine print and ask questions. Write down who you talked to (name, ID #, location, date & time).
There are some great deals out there if you know how to work the system (Wayne has given several examples) but it takes some time and effort.

[john70t]

A friend once complained about BoA processing- seemed they kept forwarding his (last minute) payments to a different location and they would be recorded late.

[Rick Lee]

I do scour all my cc bills, looking for BS charges. I've never had one refuse a credit back when I called to complain about something or even asked forgiveness for missing a due date. When I was last in China, I had to get online a few times to pay bills. On a few of them I was able to log in, but not complete the payment. So when I got home and called, they gladly credited back the late and finance charges. Since a post office sorting machine shredded a mortgage payment of mine a few years ago when I was out of the country, I really try to pay everything online now.

[alf]

Good reason why i do not have a credit card.

Bank accounts are just as bad, started accounts for both my sons and put in about $1000 each earning <2% a year on their Free for kids program. To get them into the habbit of saving...

Check their account a year later and they have $120 less. Bank of America decided to charge them $10 a month per account because it was under some minimum. I *****ed, they paid it back, i closed the accounts. Trying to steal from kids, no shame.

[island_dude]

I am pretty careful about avoiding tripping up on these CC fees. I don't have a card as bad as the one you have Wayne, but I did get a nasty surprise with my card once. Although this is really common now, I found out my card uses two months worth of charges to compute balances. Essentially, you are paying interest on amounts that you have paid off the previous month. I have a ton of points on this car so I am resisting the urge to just close it. I discovered this when I made the mistake of paying $100 less than the full balance one month. The fine print is evil. I went back to read it and I still am not sure how it all works.