The "Gotcha!" Credit Card Game

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Credit cards are great and they're awful at the same time. They have enabled me to pay for having an 80 foot oak tree cut down right before it was going to fall on my rental house (it was rotten at the base, all the way through). They have paid for veterinarians in emergencies for my cats. They have enabled me to replace central air conditioning units in my rental, and have paid for many repair bills I normally would not have been able to afford. The downside of all this, is that the interest rates are killers. So, I have been juggling some 0% credit card balances to offset the interest rates. But I just got caught late, paying a credit card payment overdue by 12 hours. That's all it took for the interest rate to kick in. I didn't realize it had. I thought they let me slide, as I read my statements, but the way it is written, all I could see was zeros. The very last entry, buried under all the zeros tells me I got charged for interest. This is at the bottom of the page. I missed it in November, even though I read it. Or thought I did. I called the company tonight and verified that yes, my 0% had "expired" too soon, as I was late with a payment. Gotcha! So, they made $60 off me plus any transfer fees. I just called another credit card company, and got another 0% interest good until next Sept. I will be doing this balance transfer. Not the best deal, and when it expires it goes up to 22.9%. Plus there is a $39 transfer fee. It almost isn't worth it for a small balance of a couple of thousand dollars. But I went with it. The way the credit card statements are written is genius. Visually, it is easy to miss their charges, and no doubt that is what they are hoping. The statements are full of offers and visual distractions, and even the list of account information is misleading. Only one or two lines should be important here. The interest rate charged, and the amount charged, at least for me. The "Gotcha!" game is over when a customer is one minute late with their payment. One minute. Because at one minute after midnight of the date the payment is due, you are on the next day, and your credit card, like Cinderella, ends up kissing frogs. For all of you who have no credit cards, bless you and be well. For the rest of us, always get the 0% and make the minimum, or close to minimum payments so you do not have to keep reaching for your card when you run out of cash. That is what I am doing. I am making almost (not quite) minimum payments to get these paid off. I am able to live without using the cards, and that is the whole point. Another thing that I realized is that I need to tape each card with the expiration date of the 0% so I can keep track better. Statements don't exactly shout the expiration date of the 0%, in fact I don't think any of them even tell you when that is. That is what they are hoping for. So, you will cruise on by, not noticing that you are in a frog pond. Ribbet!