•1. Thou shall not overextend thy card
•2. Thou shall not be a compulsive charge addict
•3. Know thy credit report
•4. Know thy legal rights
•5. Thou shall not sign a blank charge slip
•6. Know thy account numbers and creditors' names and addresses
•7. Respect thy creditors when you have a problem
•8. Thou shall review all charge statements
•9. Thou shall pay bills promptly
•10. Thou shall destroy all carbons from charge slips
What you should know about your cards:
Creditors Name: ________________________________________________________________________
Address: _________________________________________________________________________
Telephone No: _________________________________________________________________________
Account No: _________________________________________________________________________
Exp. Date: _________________________________________________________________________
Interest Rate: _________________________________________________________________________
Credit Limit: __________________________________________________________________________
Quick Tip:
Do you want a lower interest rate? Call your creditor and ASK FOR A LOWER RATE!
Call institutions at which you have existing credit card accounts. Ask them to convert your account to the lowest available rate. Ask them to consider your payment history and longtime customer relationship.
Slicing interest rates by more than one-third by making a quick phone call is pretty impressive. A handful of consumers did exceptionally well. One cardholder saw his 14.99 percent rate reduced to zero for six months. That's quite a deal. Another cardholder saw the APR on her credit card drop from 31.12 percent to 14.65 percent.
It can't hurt to ask
Why are card issuers so willing to cut interest rates for so many of their customers? For one thing, competition in the credit card industry is fierce. If you're a good customer, a card company is going to want to hang on to you.
;)
;)
