Are your Credit Card companies ripping you off. Look at what I found.

My significant other apparently obligated our credit card for additional charges two years ago. For the first time in years, I looked at our card statement two weeks ago. This is what I found.

We had half a hundred dollars in charges on each of our monthly bills for the past two years for Credit Card insurance/security/ and other things that I did not understand. That was way over a Thousand Two Hundred Dollars for services that we did not need.

Out of curiosity after I canceled the services I listened to the spiel when they called yesterday to try to get us to sign up again.

The first service they offered was one that would "Pay my monthly payment on my card if I was injured or laid off." This only costs 0.89% of the outstanding bill at time of billing each month.

By "Monthly payment" they meant the minimum monthly payment which is four percent of the amount due. So, (doing a little quick math) if I owed $10,000 on the card, they would pay $400 a month on the outstanding balance at the time the bill is printed. That would leave $9,600.00 unpaid accruing interest at 14% or more depending upon how much interest you have to pay on your outstanding balance. You end up paying a lot more in interest than they pay you to make the minimum payment on the card.

Now, pay attention, they try to pass this off as costing "almost nothing" if you pay off your card every month like I do. It is NOT "Almost Nothing" if you realize they charge you at the time the bill is made up. (I.e. Before you normally pay it off.) The spouse and I frequently run up $2000 a month and then pay if off at the end of the billing cycle. So, if the charge for this wonderful service that will protect me if I am disabled or out of work, is 0.89% of $2000, then the fee per month is almost $20.00.

Shoot if some unfortunate individual has a balance of $10,000, they are paying almost $100 for this feature so that they can get back $400 a month to help pay off their credit card minimum amount due while they are paying three times that in interest payments.

Folks, if you are signed up for this sheet, call and cancel it immediately!

Hell, they had other services that I did not need. I declined all of their offers to re-establish those services.