Recommended Credit Cards You Should Apply For 
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Everybody Loves To Get and Give Gift Cards
By Neil Farman on November 28th, 2007
According to the National Retail Federation, Gift card sales are expected to touch $26.3 billion this year, as compared to $24.8 billion in the last year. Just about 57 percent of customers are planning to buy gift cards and 87.7 percent of those consumers plan to buy two or more gift cards. Dawn Kearney, of Lexington, S.C., purchased two gift card of Savannah Mall for her friend and her cousin, she said “They can get what they want or need and it’s better than getting them what they don’t want and then taking it back.” According to a survey from American Express, American people plan to use 25 percent of their holiday budgets on gift cards this year, up from 18 percent in 2006. Paula Drawdy of Waycross said that gift cards are not unfriendly gifts, and are actually personal, especially if you’re not sure what the recipient wants, she said “If you know they like certain stores, it saves them from having to return items.”
Read: savannahnow.com
Identity Theft Occurs All The Time
By Neil Farman on November 2nd, 2007
There may be a point in time where you must be telling yourself “but I do not recall purchasing these items or but I have never even stepped inside that store”. However, there is somebody who did, somebody who made use of your name and personal details to commit fraud. When cheaters acquire your name, the number of your Social Security, the numbers of your credit cards, or any other kind of your personal information for their use, they are committing a crime.
Identity theft happens to be the quickest financial crime on the rise. One of the primary things the FBI came across regarding the September 11 hijackers was that as much as half a dozen of them made use of driving licenses and credit cards with identities picked up from flicked or fake passports.
If you are really concerned regarding the confidentiality of your financial details, your credit records, your portfolio, your card numbers that have been charged, you can defend yourself from culprits eager to make the most of all those details. The act of crime could be as plain as somebody pinching your credit card number and then going on a shopping spree and charging all the purchases to your account.
The circumstances could also be as complicated as a robber making use of all your personal details like your name, date of birth, and Social Security number to take possession of your credit card as well as your bank accounts, or could open up new accounts.
The people who pen down their Social Security numbers and driving license numbers on their checks are tempting identity theft making it quite simple to carry out. One check would be more than enough for an imposter to give access to your bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and driving license numbers along with your telephone or mobile number, your address and maybe even a specimen of your signature.
Kinds of Identity Theft
Identity fraud can vary from allowing bad checks to pass and making use of stolen credit cards all the way to capturing the entire financial existence of another person. The simplicity of getting hold of Social Security numbers from over 3 billion credit requests per year make identity theft a reasonably easy scam. On a daily basis, there are over a 1,000 people who become victims of their identities being stolen by some impostor that submits an application for credit in the name of the victims.
After acquiring a loan or increasing the credit card charges, the crook usually vanishes so that he is not spotted another time and leaves a messed up credit rating that might take a lot of time to make it right. Therefore you must defend yourself from identity thieves.
How To Match Your Credit Card Needs
By Neil Farman on September 19th, 2007
Credit card companies offer many different types of cards. These cards provide the user with different benefits and privileges. Because of the differences in the cards, it is a great idea to select one that suits your individual need. Your needs vary and for this very reason there are different cards. Understanding your needs helps you to select the card that is right for you. The basis that you can make the choice on involves:
- Your spending pattern: This is the first step to help you select a card that matches your need; figure out your spending patterns. Get your bank and credit card statements for the past year. Divide the expenses into fixed, variable and optional expenses. This will help you understand your spending patterns better and this will help you find the card that is right for you. You can also download this information from the Internet.
- Making payments: Now see how you make payments; by cash, check, and credit or debit card. Another thing you can check out is, if these payments have been made in full or partly. This will give you a better understanding of when and what purchases you make with your credit cards. In this way, you can select a card that will benefit you when you buy, using your card.
- Analyze the results: You must be able to analyze the results to figure out when you use your card and your purchasing style. Only once you analyze the information will you be able to better understand your requirement of the credit card.
- Finding a match: This is the last step. This will require you to go through the various offers available and select the one that matches your spending pattern.
Along with this, you must consider your credit rating; you may have a good rating, bad rating or none at all. When you need to build a credit history or recover from a bad rating then the option available to you is secured credit cards. These cards will require you to provide the bank something as security to let you use a credit card.
You also have the option of paying the balances on your credit card in full and if you do this to avoid the interest rates then the card with no annual fee or one that provides a longer grace period is your best pick. If your balances are carried forward every month, then a card that offers a lower rate of interest can be opted for.
Beware When Applying For Credit Cards
By Neil Farman on August 11th, 2007
Have you ever wondered what attracts so many people towards credit cards? What is it about these pieces of plastic that makes people fill out one credit card application after another?
Research suggests that at least part of the attraction is the number of seemingly fabulous rewards programs and all the special features offered by the biggest credit card providers of today. In this brave new world of the over crowded credit market, there is intense competition among credit card issuers for more and more customers. In order to get and keep your custom, lenders are now ready to do what it takes, to meet your needs and to satisfy the whims of potential clients.
However, the ground realities, especially after you have been hooked, are slightly different. Polls show that as much as 60% of current credit card holders are being cheated with regards to their offered credit card rewards. Although they may be spending immense amounts of money on the points reward credit card, they hardly ever get to see the rewards they were promised. It may seem incredible that respectable and apparently trustworthy credit card institutions can cheat you out of a few dollars of cashback.
For example, there are cases of prosperous businessmen, spending large amounts on frequent flyer credit cards in the hope of collecting enough points, eventually, to get a free ticket. However, they either never seem to get there, or have trouble in actually completing the claiming process, for one reason or another. More and more credit card companies are offering cashbacks of 5% or more, short term or for life.
Consumers are being enticed through points, rewards and low APRs, however, after years of responsible credit card use, they seem to be reaping none of the rewards they were promised. In a best case scenario, they have access to only a part of the promised facilities and offers.
With these practices of credit providers, credit consumers find themselves in a bit of a bind. The best credit providers are offering new credit card products that claim to be extremely promising and advantageous. But consumers are wary now about whether these are just more traps to hook their custom.
companies like Capital One offer additional features like a constantly updated ID Theft help service that protects you in the process of paying with their credit cards. It also helps the consumer to recover from the damage, if a fraud does actually happen. Normal credit card features such as balance transfers low Annual Percentage Rates, and cashbacks and rewards are there as well.
However, consumers are worried that the entire deal may turn out to be a fake. The very credibility of these credit providers is coming into question these days.
Will a high quality of service ever be assured? Will customers ever feel secure about using their credit card, knowing that they will definitely get what they were promised? We’ll just have to wait and see whether a truly honest credit card company emerges from this immense credit card market.
Pre-approved Unsecured Credit Card: How it works
By Neil Farman on November 22nd, 2006
When you apply for an unsecured credit card, you need to have a pre-approval, which is based on known credit, or data provided by you during the application. So, when you received an offer for a pre-approved unsecured credit card, your credit report review can play an important role because this is required to make sure that there have not been any changes that may annul the preapproved credit card offer. People who have bad credit or history of bankruptcy may not be eligible to be approved for reward, high credit limit, or rebate unsecured credit cards, because credit issuers always evaluate and try to avoid potential risks.
Important Factors
There are certain factors that credit card issuers look into before delivering pre-approved credit card offers to customers, such as
- If similar credit cards has already been in use
- Income to debt ratio
- Specific requirements for credit card approval
- Known past credit history
- The chances of your reaction to the pre-approved credit card offer
- Balances of existing credit cards
Pre-approved Credit Cards, Credit Report, and Credit Check:
Before issuing pre-approved unsecured credit card offers, the card issuer may request for a list of consumers from any one of the credit bureaus. All the listed consumers should have credit reports that qualify the card issuer’s requirements before they are offered the pre-approved credit card. List of consumers can also be acquired by the issuer/bank for other sources such as marketing database companies, and submitted to the credit bureau, which will send back a similar subgroup for the “pre-approved” offers. So, credit reports bearing inquiries that are assigned as “promotional” means that the owner’s file has been checked for the “pre-approved” list, and may or may not qualify to receive a pre-approved credit card offer. The above-mentioned inquiry cannot harm your FICO credit score because it was not initiated by your request, nor seen by other prospective creditors.
When you submit your application for a pre-approved unsecured credit card, it is sent to a processing center, and a credit check, based on the data you sent, is performed by a computer system. Final approval or rejection depends on this credit check. Any significant changes, such as total available credit and balance-to-limit ratio, since the original sweep on your credit file; and information such as income, are examined, which can result in an approval or rejection.
What you Need to Know when Receiving Pre-approved Credit Card Offer:
- Many pre-approved unsecured credit cards are only preliminary, and not 100% approved. Any additional research by the card issuer can result in a rejection.
- The low interest rate accompanying pre-approved unsecured credit cards may only be an Introductory Rate, which can increase after the introductory period. In addition, it may only apply to purchases, and not to cash advances or balance transfers.
- Watch out for the fees that accompany certain pre-approved unsecured credit cards, such as balance transfer fees, annual fees, and cash advance fees.
