Debt Consolidation Credit Counseling In Phoenix

Did you know that there is more than double the amount of credit cards today than there are people living in the UK? Last year there were over 145 million credit cards floating around and that figure is growing. Credit cards have become a major part of our financial life and there ain't a darn thing that we can do about. No credit crunch of any magnitude to going to change this. One of the major uses of credit cards, apart from purchases of course, has become for balance transfers. You may have transferred your balance in the past or perhaps you are considering the possibility in the future. Maybe you have even become a "card tart" - a serial balance transferor. However you have decided to play things, you need to be warned that changing credit cards over and over can and does have adverse effects.

People often change their existing credit card balance to a new credit card for two reasons. Firstly the interest on your existing card may have got too high and now your repayments are hardly touching the amount you owe. Secondly you have seen an excellent 0% credit card balance transfer offer on another card and want to take advantage of it. 0% balance transfer periods mean what it says on the tin; you do not pay any interest on the amount that you owe. The length of time that the transferred balance remains free varies but the average has now hit around 10 months.

The thing is that transferring balances become addictive in a weird sort of way. It is obvious why - you pay no interest and then the free period draws to a close and you simply don't want to go back to paying interest. It's understandable but the problem is that every time you transfer your balance it is recorded on your credit history, which affects future applications. The fact that so many people started transferring here, there and everywhere was the reason that the credit card balance transfer fee was introduced (currently it is around 3% of the amount you transfer) perhaps this didn't deter people as much as they had hoped. Now credit card companies look at credit histories more carefully for this 'tarting' trend and are reluctant to take on serial offenders, after all they aren't making much money out of the deal.

So how does the card tarter get around this? Well the best thing could be to take the battle still further underground. You may need to make it look less like you are a card tart and more like you are a normal credit card user. You could perhaps do this by making some token purchases on your credit card and paying them off. Or you could keep the card longer than the balance free period. Of course, this goes completely against the credit card tart's inner nature and the Jedi code but it could perhaps be the only way to make the most of 0% balance transfers. The point is that you have to side with the enemy slightly for your own mutual advantage. If you are declined for an interest free card then you could end up losing a lot more money than if you buy the odd purchase here and there.

And the battle rages on. The introduction of credit card balance transfers was fantastic for consumers. The introduction of fees wasn't so great but you can certainly see why the move was made. Now with the return of the no fee cards, but with the clamp down on who is accepted for the cards, the battle has entered a new phase. It is perhaps time for the rebel forces of the card tarts to evolve too so that the credit card companies don't launch the big ships and pull out completely. Stop being phantom menaces and become the new hope for the future.