I am very good with my bills. I manage 3 bank accounts, 5 active credit cards (not including any specific store cards), cell phone, regular phone, DSL, dish network, medical, netflix, and student loan payments every month. I'm never late and I'm never overdrawn. Until this month. I don't know what happened, but I was late. I checked online today and saw that I had TWO late fees charged to the two credit cards I was late on (2 days!). At a whopping $39.00 EACH I almost had a heart attack. But after a bit of cursing and stomping around the house for a minute, I decided I would try to get the fees waived. Two phone calls later I had $80 back in my pocket! Whew.

The deal with credit cards is that they have soooo much leeway with their fees, interest rates, and offers. It's like a car dealership. If you ask the right questions, get the right csr, and at the right time, you can get anything. I once got offered a 1.99% LIFE interest rate on a balance transfer (I'm still paying it off). You can get any interest rate lowered just by asking.

What really concerns me though is hearing about these cards now that don't even give grace periods anymore (a certain amount of time before they start charging interest on purchases). I pay off my cards every month. I will be a very unhappy camper if I start seeing finance charges on my bills.

Not all credit cards are created equal and there are plenty of credit companies in the sea...