Monday, August 11, 2008

The Credit Card Companies Want To Do Business With You

I am not the most trusting person when it comes to ads that shout out" Zero Percent Interest" or" Flat Fifty Percent Off" . The question is: Does the catch overpower the benefits?



At those times I find myself plagued by a single thought: "Where is the catch? " There usually is a catch. That is the question that I ask myself just before I apply for a new credit card or enter a sale. I usually have a lot of these cynical moments when I am looking for a new credit card. I usually find that the catch is relatively insignificant when you look at the bigger picture. It seems to me that there are too many great offers going. Why is there so much enthusiasm? It is as though they are too keen to sell me those credit cards.


I mean, why would a company offer something like interest free credit cards? And what about the zero percent balance transfer credit cards? How would it benefit them? What is the deal with them? Quite a few interest free credit cards present a deal where you don' t have to pay interest for a given number of months. Well, I think once you do away with the skepticism, you find that most of these deals are more or less true to what they say. After all, credit card companies are bogged down by great competition.


A similar logic holds with 0% balance transfer credit cards. Each has to attract more customers than its nearest rival. The credit card companies want to do business with you. So they have to take the help of gimmicks like this to win you over to their side. They want to sell you their credit cards. In fact, balance transfer credit cards are a prime example of how credit card companies steal away the customers of other credit card companies.


Suppose you have a credit card with one company but wish you could get a different credit card that charges a different rate of interest, you could think about getting a hold of a balance transfer credit card. How does this work? And there will be lots of cards that make you offers that you will never ever wish to refuse. Everyone is in the rat race to increase their business, and everyone is in the rat race to win. Competition is everything these days. So even though you should not be taking offers like" Zero Percent Interest" at face value, tell yourself that you are a possible customer. In the world today, if you are the customer, you might as well be king!

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