I mentioned in my previous post about credit cards that the card companies can use certain tactics to take more of your money off you than you realise. Here are a couple of tricks they use that it’s worth looking out for:
- Paying the debt with the lowest interest rate first – if you make a purchase of £1,000 one month, and a couple of months later make another £1,000 purchase, not only are you overdoing your credit card spending, you’ll also fnd that when you’re making repayments, you’ll be paying off the 2nd purchase first – the initial purchase will be racking up the interest. Apparently, the only company that doesn’t do this is Natonwide.
- Some cards start charging you interest as soon as you make a purchase -rather than when the transaction clears on your card a few days later. With some cards you get a 0% interest rate on purchases for a certain period of time, so if you pay off your debts before the end of this period you won’t pay any interest on it.
When considering a new credit card, it’s worth looking out for these 2 little tricks.