don't get swiped for no reason
Everyone has seen how the Reserve Bank has cut interest rates over the last few years and lending rates have also fallen as a result. That includes mortgage lending rates as well as rates on personal loans, car loans and so on. Rates are now at about 8-13% depending on the type of loan.
What bemuses most people though is that credit card rates have not come down substantially over the same period. Most cards are still in the high 10s and low 20s. What ever happened to that? Or should I say, what didn't happen to that?
Anyway, my point is that you don't really notice how high this rate is until you are charged interest because you had fallen into trap of forgetting fine print in the contract. My card's interest is comparably lower than most at 15.5%. But imagine that rate charged daily until you made the payment. What's worse is that you didn't even know it was being charged until it had you get the shock from looking at the statement.
Firstly, I didn't even know I had to make the payment. I had always thought I had interest free days. Well I do, but my definiton was obviously different to theirs. Mind you, when I called them today, they did say that I had my 45 interest-free days, but that's if you count from a particular day. If I had unfortunately made a transaction on a very unlucky day (end of the period- which was new news to me... I didn't know I had periods), I would only have 14 days. They clearly said to me on the phone "up to" 45 days. How deluded was I...I was totally stumped. I had interest incurring on my balance that I didn't even know was overdue. How stupid. It's like I was asking to be robbed of money. You don't truly appreciate what you have until you lose it. This applies so aptly to money too.
Then the next deluded thing was that I was paying interest on the total amount outstanding after the period even though I had already made partial payment. Apparently, I had 14 days after the period end to make payment (that was new news again). I paid half of it before then, but left the other half, on the delusion that I had 45 days. At the end of the month (which was 2 weeks away) you find out that interest at exhorbitant levels was charged and you think to yourself "what the hell?". Then you call up and find out that interest was charged not on the half remaining, but on the total amount from period end. That's insanity I tell you.
So after all that it made me feel like wringing the necks of those lawyers that put everything into fine print, and those sales staff that didn't put all this into their flashy brochures in big bold print or take time taking you through the "how to pay off your credit card and not incur interest" in a mini-tutorial or the like.
Jipped. That was a rather expensive lesson to have learnt. I could have used that money more wisely, say, on Lotto and won millions, or bought something to stimulate the Australian economy. Paying school fees just like mahjong isn't something I like to do...
benny | Thursday, June 11, 2009 
Comments
from
pang
You sure love the banks Benny. First the ATM charge, and now this!
=)