A few things as a heads up...
No credit card is really "good", but they are often needed in life. Usually to pay for what we want in this instant gratification society. Building credit is something that nearly everyone will need to do at some point, and a credit card is usually the best way to do that. It's ongoing, and can, if used properly, raise your credit rating.
- When searching for a credit card, IF you have options, search for one with no yearly fee, or a minimal one at the least.
- Be careful of "introductory" rates which start very low for 3-9 months, but end up very high immediately at the end of the introductory term.
- Don't borrow cash against a credit card. In many cases payments will be applied to whichever balance has the lower interest rate leaving the other to cause your debt to climb due to the higher interest rate. They won't automatically pay off the one that makes the most sense, or split a payment without specific direction to do so.
- Don't go over your limit, or go past due dates. There are fees with doing these things, and those fees get dumped right into your total owed so you pay interest on their fees as well. Not to mention these two things can have an adverse affect on your credit rating.
- Take a look at your credit card statements if you have more than one. Notice that they tend to be based out of 2 of 50 possible states? That's because those two states allow higher interest rates to be applied than the other 48.
- Some credit card companies will cancel your account if you pay off your bill in full every month. Especially those without an anual fee. Why? If you pay off every month, they don't get to charge interest, if there's no anual fee, they don't make money off you that way either. If they can't make money off you, why would they allow you to use them for your convience when it costs them money?
- Ever notice that banks and insurance companies always have HUGE buildings? Hmm, wonder how they can afford them. Believe me, it isn't because they are conducting business in YOUR best interest.
I know this is all common sense, and real life gets in the way of the ideal situation of payment, just try your best to always pay in full and on time, and ideally have no more than 1 credit card.
Beware Capital One -- A Consumer's Story
Yeah I know this has nothing to do with EQ or DAoC, and I'm not normally one to use this as a pulpit for things like this, but after a couple of hours on the phone on this, I figured I would give people a heads up about this company's practice.
I have (soon will have had) a Capital One Credit Card. You know the one with those cute "what's in your wallet" commercials. It's actually under my wife's name, which has some bearing on this. Well today I get a call from "Rod" from "The Account Solutions Group", a collection agency, stating that our credit card payment is overdue. Amazed, I tell him that this is impossible, since I pay the card off each month and in fact just sent in a payment last week. He of course insists, in very strong and insistant terms, that we owe Capital One money. Basically, he was rude as hell. Well after much hassle back and forth from him, I finally get out of him that he is looking for a "Tony Moyer", male, born in 1979, instead of "Toni Moyer", female, born in 1965.
Great. So I figure it's just a stupid, if unpleasant, mistake. Nevertheless, to be safe, I call Capital One to make sure they do not have us listed as delinquent and that our credit rating has not been affected. After the usual wait on hold and a transfer, I finally get to "Kevin" of customer service. He tells me that there should be no problem with our credit report since the account would be under a different social security number. But I insist he look further since someone got our number to call us and harass us, so I figure someone thought that was our account. Then he says the most amazing thing: that if they can't track down the actual debtor, the collection ageny will typically pull every phone number in Capitol One's database with the same name as the person who owes them money and call them all to try to collect their debt. I'm like "are you saying that just because some Tony Moyer in Podunk owes you money, you called us and accused us of being delinquent?" Basically yes. There were 15 variations of Toni Moyer in their database and apparantly they called them all over this single debt. They didn't call us by mistake as much as mistakenly called us. He claimed that was the price we are supposed to pay for getting that low interest rate. So of course I told him to cancel my account.
Then, after I had hung up, it occured to me that a company this unscrupulous and unethical could not be trusted to not somehow mess with our credit rating, so I decided I had better get a letter from them confirming that our credit with them was fine just to have on file somewhere. Plus, I had to make sure what he told me was truly correct, because it seemed so incredulous to me. So I called back and eventually got to 'Nancy" in customer service. Yes indeed she confirmed, we will call everyone necessary to collect a debt. "Even if the age, sex, and social security number all don't match?" You bet. That is apparantly a company policy. I believe the exact quote was "Capital One will do whatever is necessary to collect a debt". Apparantly even if it means hassling people who have absolutely no connection to the debtor beyond a similar name.
So if you are considering getting a Capital One credit card, keep in mind that if anyone with your name owes them money, you can expect to get a similar phone call from a collection agency accusing you of not paying your debts. In addition, I ask you to consider this. If they will use the information you provide them in this unsavory manner, how else will they use it? I of course only know about this incident, but do you want to take the chance that this is the only way they will twist your data? Is this the type of company you want to deal with? You may want to consider a different company, and if you currently have a Capital One Card, you may want to consider another option before you too get a call like this.