Ten Great Ways To Screw Your Credit Card Company

Your credit card company always seems to be screwing you over, doesn’t it? They charge you an exorbitant interest rate and then penalize you with fees for being unable to meet your minimum payments. They send you those convenient little cash advance checks and then include the nasty details in print so fine that you can barely even find it. And they supposedly reward you with benefits that you never seem to be able to actually cash in on since there are blackout dates on travel and restrictions on purchases. Aren’t you getting just a little sick of being screwed over by your credit cards?

Take matters into your own hands and screw your credit card company instead of letting them screw you. Here are the top ten ways to get a leg up on the businesses that are in the business of bad lending:

1. Read that fine print. The fact of the matter is that credit card companies are required to provide you with information detailing the terms of their lending. The main reason that borrowers get screwed over is because they neglect to read the information that is provided to them. If you make sure that you’re educated about every aspect and detail of each of your credit cards, you’re going to prevent yourself from being screwed. In the process of protecting yourself in this way, you’re going to screw the credit card company because they aren’t going to be able to collect the fees and fines that normally bring them extra cash.

2. Sue them. Credit card companies don’t actually expect their customers to sue them. That’s because it isn’t easy to sue a big company like this. First of all, there are limitations on lawsuits that are written into the terms of your credit card (such as where the lawsuit may be filed). Second, it’s inconvenient for consumers to pursue lawsuits and can get expensive because of the high cost of attorneys. And finally, most people don’t make themselves aware of the legal violations that their credit card companies are committing. Be a smart consumer and make yourself aware of the lending laws that apply to your credit card. Much of these will be spelled out in the fine print that you’re getting used to reading. If you ever experience something that looks like a legal violation, you shouldn’t hesitate to file that lawsuit. Chances are that you’ll get an out-of-court settlement although you may have to go to trial to take the bad guys down.

3. Stand up for yourself. Even if you don’t take it all the way to court, you shouldn’t let little violations be made against you by your credit card company. If they don’t follow their own rules to the letter, you should call them on it. People frequently fail to pay attention to small fees or missing rewards on their accounts. Be aware of these issues and then be aggressive in contacting the credit card company and demanding that they do what they’re supposed to be doing for you. The best way to screw someone else is to make sure that you’re not the one getting screwed.

4. Be a blabbermouth. Word of mouth is the quickest way to damage someone else’s reputation and that holds true when it comes to credit card companies. If you’ve had a horrible experience using a credit card from BadBankUSA, then you should tell everyone and their brother that BadBankUSA sucks. Bring it up at parties, spread the word at family reunions and make sure that every single one of your friends knows about the problems that you’ve had with this lender. That helps to decrease consumer support for the bad banks and make sure that good banks stay on top of their stuff. Make sure that you have a reason for saying what you say, though, and don’t violate the laws of slander by making false claims.

5. Blog about it. Even more powerful than spoken word of mouth is the power of the written word. If you truly feel like BadBankUSA is doing some terrible things to the people who get credit cards through them, tell the world about it. It is even more important that you be careful to avoid libel (the written version of slander) when you’re proceeding to ruin the name of a company in this manner. You should make sure that everything you say is true and that you support your allegations with real-life examples. Tell the whole story. If the credit card company is being bad, people have a right to know. You might even find that your blog becomes really successful in the process which is just another bonus on the middle-finger-up-at-you scale. If you don’t want to blog about it yourself, submit your story for consideration by a blog that specializes in consumer reporting.

6. Get a loan from somewhere else. One of the best ways that you can screw over a credit card company is just to not use them at all. Save your credit card for emergencies and get other types of loans when you can. Educational loans can be used to support your needs during college. Small business loans can help you set up a home-based business without requiring that you use credit cards. Even loans from your family can be a way to get a low-or-no-interest loan that lets you avoid using that credit card.

7. Put the Better Business Bureau on speed dial. Okay, you don’t have to be that drastic but you should make sure that bad credit card companies are being reported to the authorities and to consumer awareness groups. Businesses that are doing bad things shouldn’t be allowed to keep doing them just because they have a lot of money to back them up. That’s your money after all!

8. Join or start a credit card consumer advocacy group. You don’t have to just expect someone else to take care of this kind of problem. If you’re really interested in cleaning up the acts of credit card companies and making it so that credit cards are a good thing for consumers, you might want to really get active about it. You can raise awareness about good and bad credit card companies and practices through participation in a consumer advocacy group that educates others. If your community doesn’t have one, maybe it’s time that you start one up!

9. Stop making payments to lower your total amount owed. This one is an extreme measure that could harm you in the process of harming the credit card company so you’ll want to proceed carefully. Basically, it takes the approach that debt management companies take which is that you stop paying your credit cards for a long period of time and then go on to later negotiate a lower payment with the credit card company. You don’t need a debt management company to do this; you can do it on your own. However, credit card companies are getting smart about this so you’ll only want to do this if you truly aren’t going to be able to make the payments anyway. This has the potential to ruin your credit score and therefore is only a good way to screw your credit card company out of some money if you’re already really screwed over yourself.

10. Always get your rewards and benefits. This goes back to the point about reading the fine print but it touches more on the fact that you need to really focus on taking advantage of the good things that credit card companies can offer. First, if you have a rewards credit card then you should make sure that you’re always aware of when you can reap those rewards. Many people fail to cash in on their rewards and that’s just money in the pocket of the credit card company that could be in your pocket instead. Additionally, make sure that you know what other benefits you have on your credit card. If you have auto rental insurance or extended warranty protection, use it every time you get a chance. Credit card companies are supposed to be benefiting you in these ways but they often don’t because you’re not demanding that they do. If you’re letting them screw you in this way, it’s as much your fault as theirs.

The main thing to remember when it comes to your credit cards is that it’s your own responsibility to make sure that you don’t get screwed over. You need to be on top of knowing what terms and benefits you get from your card and you need to be aggressive in making sure that you get them. You also need to make sure that you’re taking action to protect yourself from the damage that credit card companies can do to you while maximizing your ability to benefit from them. If you find that you’re dealing with a bad credit card company, you should not only stand up for yourself but also make sure that the whole world knows that this isn’t a business that they should be working with. By making sure that you’re not getting screwed, you can help screw the credit card companies.

Question of the Day: What’s your number one suggestion for credit card consumers that want to get back at a bad credit card company?

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 11:35 am and is filed under Credit Card Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.