There’s a big sign showing no interest for a year or 10% back on your first purchase!
Consumers get flustered from reading about the endless possibilities of getting goodies now and having no interest for a whole year. The idea of having a credit card with no interest for a whole year sounds tempting to your everyday consumer. The difficult writing on the credit card document makes it hard to read and nonessential luxuries are purchased by the coerced consumer.
Companies bank on a miscalculated purchase and use the uninformed decision to increase their chances of credit card users carrying a balance. A balance being carried over results in accrued deferred interests from the promotional terms being added on the running balance.
A deferred balance is interest that was earned over the life the of promotional term. It is not placed on the card until the promotional term ends.
An excellent example of a hidden deferred fee can be found in the
Best Buy credit card. It is promoted as a no interest card for a year. However, there is deferred interest on the card, wherein if you fail to pay off the balance in a year, the deferred interest is added on to the balance. This is via the Best Buy website, “You must pay off the full promotional financing balance by the end of the promotional period to avoid paying interest on that balance. You may have to pay more than your minimum due on your monthly credit card statement to do so.”1 Retail credit cards usually runs an average interest of around 20% - 30%.
Be proactive with the deferred interest and take control of your balance. Download the Best Buy managing app and keep tabs on the account. Doing so will prevent any altercation with the banks later. This can either be a deal of a lifetime or a death trap.
The best way to prepare for debt is no debt or take on “good debt”. A healthy debt to income ratio is 20%-30%. Take your all your debt payments and divide them by your base pay, that will produce your ratio. Use the snowball payment method at any given time.
This should help shed a little light on the deferred interest on the credit card that’s being pushed through certain big-name stores. Stay savvy.
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