Credit Cards - Compare The Best Credit Card Offers

If you have a home address and a bank account, chances are, you are inundated with offers from companies offering credit cards. These offers will play on your desires and try to get you to spend beyond your means. Often credit card companies announce special promotions, and claim low interest rates. They make you think that you can spend big now and pay it all off later, without losing too much money. However, if you’re thinking about getting a credit card, make sure you read the fine print behind those tempting offers. Credit card companies can trap people into expensive, high-interest debts.

One way that credit card companies entrap people is by offering cards that seem to have enticingly low interest rates. Often you will see an ad in the mail, proclaiming an interest rate of 0%. However, these low interest credit cards introductory period only ever last for a certain introductory period. This period varies - sometimes the low interest rates last for three months, sometimes for six. However, the introductory period is never longer than a year. After that, the interest rates skyrocket - too typically, after a customer has accrued a significant balance on the card, habituated to the low introductory interest rate.

In other words, if you are thinking of signing up for a credit card, make sure you look through the documents disclosing the full terms of the contract, which will show what the interest rate on the card will eventually end up being. Credit card companies are required by law to include such documents, so take advantage of them.

Another factor to watch out for when thinking about getting a new credit card is how the card deals with balance transfers. Credit cards often advertise low interest rates on balance transfers, in addition to a low interest rate on the card itself. The card has a 0% interest rate for a year, and a 0% interest rate on balance transfers, you may immediately think of signing up and transferring onto the new card any outstanding balances you have already have on other, high-interest rate cards.

That may, indeed, be a sound plan, but you have to be careful and, once again, read the fine print.

• Are there any additional fees on balance transfers?
  
• Does the low rate on balance transfers only last for a short time?
  
• Does the balance transfer interest rate become very high once the time limit expires?

Calculate exactly how much time it would take you to pay off the balance at the credit card’s advertised low rate. If you can pay it off before the interest rate goes up, maybe the new card is worth getting—just be careful with it.

Finally, look at how the card treats missed payments. Obviously, missing your credit card payment is never a good idea. However, knowing exactly how bad the consequences of missing a payment are is likely to make you take extra precautions if you do decide to sign up for that card. Often, a missed payment will cause your interest rate to go up to more than 30%, annulling any special low rates that the card may have initially offered.

Visit JSNet.org today for a wide offering of some of the best credit cards available, select from student credit cards to gas credit cards and more are all offered.