Credit Card

The Inside Scoop on Store Credit Cards

It seems like every retailer is offering its customers its own credit card nowadays. While the incentives to applying for a new store credit card are often enticing — many stores offer 25% off the first purchase, no interest for one year, or monthly discounts or gifts to cardholders — having so many store credit cards in your wallet can put you into debt in a hurry, if not seriously hurt your credit score.

High debt is often a problem for holders of store credit cards, since they generally charge much higher interest rates than bank-issued cards. Unless you plan to pay off the full amount of the balance each month, expect high finance charges, likely enough to render obsolete any cardholder incentives you may have received.

Having a different card for each store you shop in may earn you some store rewards here and there, but holding so many cards does not look good to creditors and thus, your credit score is likely to take a beating. Consumers should balance their card portfolios carefully and only apply for cards with genuine value, according to the National Retail Federation's senior VP Mallory Duncan.

The reason why stores are able to offer such huge incentives to their cardholders is because they reap huge savings on the transaction fees that Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express charge. Visa and MasterCard charge a fee of 2% for each transaction, which comes directly out of the retailers' bottom lines. When a retailer co-brands with Visa or MasterCard, often times that fee is halved. When they offer their own independent card, the retailers can avoid the transaction fees altogether. While some of these savings are passed on to their customers, consumers should still exercise sound judgment when offered a new store credit card. More is not always better.

Posted on July 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Credit Card Application Security

If you're like many Americans, you probably receive two or three credit card solicitations in the mail each week. Most likely, you want to get rid of them. But be warned: you shouldn't just throw away an unwanted application. Someone could rummage through your trash and fill out the application for you, since your personal information is already preprinted on it. That person would then have an account open in your name and run up the bill, possibly without you realizing it until it was much too late. It's a classic case of identity theft.

Most would tell you that tearing them up into several pieces and tossing them in the trash is sufficient. But recently, John Crudele of the New York Post, a la Cockeyed, decided to test this method of application disposal to see how effective it truly was against fraud. In his column Tearing Through Credit Cards' Security Measures, Crudele describes step by step how he tore up his application into several pieces, taped the pieces back together, filled out the application using a different address, and still received a new credit card with an $18,000 credit line. Somehow, Cockeyed was able to get past Chase while Crudele was able to sneak through the cracks at American Express. It makes you wonder just who exactly is receiving these applications and what kind of training they get. In any case, both Cockeyed and Crudele suggest using a cross cut shredder, since tearing up the application by hand obviously does not work.

Another option is to opt out of credit card solicitations altogether. The three national credit bureaus have set up a toll-free phone number for consumers to call to opt-out of further credit card solicitations with one phone call. Just call 1-888-5-OPT-OUT and follow the instructions. In a week or two, you'll receive a letter in the mail. Just sign and return it and you'll be taken off their lists forever. Use of this toll-free number is endorsed by the Federal Trade Commission. See Sharing Your Personal Information: It's Your Choice for more information.