Credit Cards to Avoid
Written by yanxiao   
September 04, 2008 11:16
There are good credit cards and then there are bad credit cards. While credit cards can be very beneficial to many consumers, some credit cards may not be for every type of consumer. Here are some tips on credit cards to avoid.

Usually secured credit cards are not for everyone. Secured credit cards are when you open a bank account and deposit money into it, in which the credit card will give you a specific limit for. Secured credit cards are great tools for people with no or poor credit history, but can be expensive and not practical for consumers with a solid credit history and good credit rating.

For people looking for reward credit card offers, make sure you read the fine print, rewards offers are not for everyone. You can spend lots of money chasing rewards that may be worthless, do some homework and realistically think if you will be using the card enough to qualify for valuable rewards.

Low introductory interest rate credit cards can be a disaster in disguise for some consumers. Many low introductory interest rate offers last for six months or one year, which is great, but once the time period has ended, the interest rates might rise suddenly. You can be stuck with lots of credit card debt and a high interest rate to boot.

Store credit cards can sometimes be cards to avoid as well. Store credit cards are usually only allowed to be used at certain stores, which is fine. However store credit cards can have high interest fees and you can usually purchase the same items with your own standard credit card with a lower fee.

Remember, if you are applying for a credit card, do your homework and think about how you will use it. Not all credit cards fit each person's specific situation and should be avoided.

College credit cards are the credit cards that have been specially designed for college students. College credit cards are more popularly known as student credit cards. College credit cards allow the students to experience the benefits of credit cards much earlier in their life. Through college credit cards, the college students are able to learn more about credit cards and their use. In fact, for most of the students, their college credit card is their first credit card that acts as a gateway to the world of credit cards. Some other students might have previously used supplementary credit cards linked to their father's credit card account; however, for such students too, their college credit card is the first one that is truly theirs.

College credit cards are not very different from other types of credit cards in the basic sense; they function in the same way as any credit card would. However, there are some differences, which basically arise from the fact that college credit cards are used by people who have no prior experience with credit cards and who perhaps don't understand the concept of credit cards completely. Hence, the credit card supplier is at risk with issuing credit cards (college credit cards) to such people whom he is not sure about. Most of the students don't have a credit history either. In such a case, the supplier of college credit card cannot be sure of receiving the credit card bill payments in time (and even receiving them at all). To counter such risks, the supplier of college credit card requires the parent of the student to co-sign the college credit card application form as a guarantee.

Moreover, the credit limit on college credit cards is generally around $500-$1000 per month, which is lower than what it is for other credit cards (this credit limit is generally sufficient to fulfil the typical needs of a student). Another risk mitigation instrument used by the college credit card suppliers is the interest rate or APR. The APR on college credit cards is generally higher than that for other credit cards. Again, this is done to dissuade the students from overspending on their college credit card (and finally not being able to pay their credit card bills).

However, if we were to look at these impositions in a positive sense, we would find that these are actually in favour of the student (who is still getting trained to take on the real world of credit cards). Moreover, college credit cards also help the students in establishing a (good) credit history which is another important benefit that becomes handy when the student needs any type of loan at a later stage in his/her life.

So, college credit cards are really something that every student should consider going for.

 
German : Kreditkarten zu vermeiden
Spanish : Las tarjetas de crédito para evitar
French : Les cartes de crédit pour éviter
Japanese : クレジットカードの有効性を避けるために
Russian : Кредитные карты, чтобы избежать