3 shady tricks credit card companies use to take the money out of your pocket

Credit cards issuing companies are proper business entities and they can't exist without making profits. Be it pressure from the share holders, competing credit card companies, or reaching their set revenue targets, credit card companies sometimes adopt shady tricks to get the money out from a credit card holder's pocket. Here is a list of few such things that credit card companies use. Make sure you don't fall into these traps.

Not posting your payment the day it was received. This helps the credit card companies make some money by reporting the payment as late and earn the late payment fee. This trick is also used to increase the APR rates, because the payment didn't reach the credit card companies on time, they have all the reasons to hike the APR's. To check this a credit card holder must send the repayment amount well before the due date and that too with a registered post which tracks when it was received by the credit card company.

Penalty for not using your credit card for a stipulated period of time. Now this is ridiculous, if you are not using the credit card, the credit card company with coerce you into using it by slapping such a penalty. To avoid getting such a penalty it will be wise to ask the credit card company beforehand whether any such penalty exists or not. If it exists make sure you use your credit card at least once during the period.

Protection fees for unwanted circumstances. Credit card companies prey on your fears of losing a job, accident, untimely death, credit card theft and credit card misuse etc. to charge a fees for protection against such circumstances. These attract huge fees and increase the cost of credit card ownership. The best remedy for such a situation if you really want to pay these fees is to compare various credit card offers which offer such services and go for the one which pinches the least.

Credit card companies cannot charge anything without informing you. And to inform of these malicious charges they use the veil of fine prints. Not every credit card holder goes through the maze of these fine prints and gets to know about any such thing only when it comes in his monthly credit card statement.