Protect Yourself from Higher Interest Rates

Here is something your credit card company will never tell you: they are using any excuse that they can find to raise your interest rate. Did you realize that if you are late paying any of your bills that are unrelated to your credit card, your credit card issuer can then use that as an [...]

5 Things You Should Not Do When Your Credit Cards Are Maxed Out

Times are tough for all of us right now. Both the housing market and the stock market seem to be in a free-fall with no end in sight. Many people have lost their jobs or have seen their income reduced significantly.
Having credit cards is a nice safety net in tough economic times. But when those [...]

Prepaid And Secured Credit Cards See Growth

Many financial experts predict that prepaid and secured credit cards will become increasingly popular with consumers as the recession drags on. With traditional credit cards being harder and harder to get, many Americans may now find themselves turning to these instruments to make their financial transactions.
There are some distinctions in the way that prepaid and [...]

Capital One Financial Corp Reports A Record 4th Quarter Loss

Capital One Financial Corp. is the parent company of credit card behemoth Capital One. It also has recently gotten into the branch banking business by buying Louisiana based Hibernia and New York based North Fork Bancorp. They have also reached an agreement to buy Chevy Chase Bank which serves the Washington D.C. area.
Capital One, a [...]

How Credit Card Grace Periods Effect You

Before you apply for your next credit card be sure to check the length of the grace period. Grace periods are an often overlooked part of the credit card equation and they really shouldn’t be. A grace period is defined in Wikipedia as the amount of time one is given to pay back money that [...]