Comments on: How Credit Card Companies Apply Your Payments

By: Personal Finance eBook - Spend Less Than You Earn

Personal Finance eBook - Spend Less Than You Earn — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 12:04:46 +0000

[...] understand more about the financial systems we interact with on a daily basis. The first is about how credit card companies apply your payments. If you don’t know how payments are applied when you have introductory interest rates, [...]

By: Green Panda Treehouse | | The Stigma of Debt Is Gone, But Not The Sting

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:33:38 +0000

[...] How Credit Card Companies Apply Your Payments from Mrs Micah [...]

By: Weekly Round Up: End of July | Green Panda Treehouse

Weekly Round Up: End of July | Green Panda Treehouse — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:35:49 +0000

[...] How Credit Card Companies Apply Your Payments Mrs. Micah goes through the process and I learn a bit. [...]

By: Weekly Roundup - Lazy Weekend Edition

Weekly Roundup - Lazy Weekend Edition — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:17:04 +0000

[...] Mrs. Micah writes about How Credit Card Companies Apply Your Payments. [...]

By: The Logistics of Snowflaking Extra Payments

The Logistics of Snowflaking Extra Payments — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:14:14 +0000

[...] because credit cards always work in their own best interests (they think, anyway), I would recommend playing it on the safe side and not sending in your [...]

By: The Friday gathering: Ban bump keys edition

The Friday gathering: Ban bump keys edition — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:02:53 +0000

[...] How Credit Card Companies Apply Your Payments – Very interesting read on how those scum bag credit card companies apply your payments. [...]

By: Banks, Interest, & Ethics

Banks, Interest, & Ethics — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:00:40 +0000

[...] sometimes the bank may not be defrauding you, but you didn’t fully understand the terms. Like using a balance transfer card to buy things that will accrue interest until you’ve paid off the transfer. Which is why [...]

By: Mrs. Nathan

Mrs. Nathan — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:24:34 +0000

This is good to know – Nathan and I just signed up for a credit card through my parents’ credit union, so we’ll soon have to think about this.

Looking forward to seeing you next week!

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:11:07 +0000

Wow! Nice piece of writing!

The way credit card issuers charge interest is so arcane as to be almost incomprehensible. I ran into this the single time I accidentally ran a balance on a Visa card (don’t recall why…I probably wrote the wrong amount on a check, or it got there late). It was almost impossible to get rid of the lingering interest rip-off. They were charging interest so that it continued to rack up between the time they sent the bill and the time they got my payment, so there was no way for me to pay it off. Then new charges would accrue interest at the same rate. Finally I had to stop charging, send them the entire amount of the balance plus a hundred bucks to more than cover whatever cockamamie charge they were levying, close the account, and demand they return the overage.

Even if you’re in the habit of paying your credit card every month, there always is the risk you’ll make a mistake, to the unreasonable profit of the issuer. I still use credit cards for their convenience…but you surely do have to be very careful.

By: Dad

Dad — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:00:21 +0000

This is so true. From what I’ve seen most card users don’t know about this. If they don’t follow the billing statements carefully, they may not even notice what is happening.

As another blog said about this, if you use a card with a special balance transfer rate, DO NOT USE the card for ANYTHING else. He said, he would cut up the card to avoid mistakes. One purchase made by mistake can earn a lot of interest for the bank until you pay off the 0% APR balance.

BTW, this is nothing new. My first mastercharge card in 1968 had this same provision. The borrower needs to watch out for his or her own situation.