I have a credit card that I only used for a low-interest balance transfer, which I'm diligently paying down each month.  I never use it for purchases because that interest rate is sky-high.  Last month I wanted to be sure my payment arrived in good time (considering the dire consquences these days if you are late with a payment) so I paid by telephone.  I agreed to a $10 fee for this privilege.  When my next statement arrived they had applied the $10 fee as a purchase and charged their high interest on it!  I called them, got the run-around of course, but eventually they acknowledged that it was a fee not a purchase and took the interest off. 

My understanding is that you have to pay off your lowest interest debt first (in my case the balance transfer of several thousand dollars) before credit card companies will apply any of your payments to higher interest debt.  So if I hadn't questioned this charge I wonder how much that $10 fee would have cost me by the time I was able to pay off the balance transfer.  I'm swimming with sharks and it will be such a relief when I can climb out of the water!

Ugh. I hate credit cards. I agree--it will be nice when they are all paid off. I had a somewhat similar situation with a credit card that I got when I was a freshman in college (free tshirt and chocolate--sure I'll sign up!). I had stopped using the card and it had no balance. The company sent me a statement and a letter saying they had given me a $20 credit that I had 30 days to use or it would lapse. So I put $20 worth of gas in my car (back when that would actually almost fill your tank). When I got my next statement, I expected to see a $20 credit with a $20 debit and thus a zero $0 owed. Nope! They did the double-billing cycle thing and charged me 22% interest on the $20, and then at the very end of the billing cycle, they subtracted the $20 credit but I was left with an interest payment! Now, it wasn't very much but I had to PAY to use a $20 credit on a $20 purchase! Now, it was nice to have paid only cents for gas in the car but I had to send a check in for pennies to pay the interest. The next time the offer came, I let it lapse.

If I wouldn't have checked my statement carefully (thinking I owed $0), I wouldn't have sent in a check for the interest, would have had a $29 late fee (or more), my credit score dropped, 22% (or more) interest charged on the interest, etc.

I was almost bitten. When it is "too good to be true" from a credit card company, be warned!

A crucial thing to remember about any credit card company is that their No. 1 prime purpose is to take your money for their profits, so they have figured out numerous ways to con you into their "deals" so they can get that money. They make it all sound like it is for your benefit - but it absolutely is not. The best is to not ever fall for their "deals".

The worst eye-opener for me was when I was going over my statement for every detail on a Mastercard and noticed that a cash advance that I had done years, literally years, before still was showing on the statement as earning interest and the balance never went down. When I called them about that they said cash advances don't get money applied to the balance until the entire balance of the card is "0". Sometime after we got that card and after putting that advance on it, the credit card company separated out cash advances from purchases, and put that rule into effect, that payments only go to the balance of purchases until all is paid off. That company made several hundred dollars in interest on that one cash advance. Fortunately we paid it off 5 years ago, but kept the card open, until this past March they mailed us a letter that said they were closing the account due to no activity. Good-bye, Good Riddance to that card. Edey

Ann and Edey -

 It's a good thing you caught those!!  Good grief.  That kinda makes me angry. I only have one credit card - citibank - but from reading these posts, I have learned to go over it with a fine-toothed comb.

Jeweledsunshine:

I actually forgot to mention that the $10 telephone fee was cleverly hidden in the statement.  The only reason I spotted there was something wrong was because a tiny amount of interest was listed under "purchases" and I knew for sure I had not made any purchases.   When it occurred to me that the interest might be on the fee for telephoning my payment I thought I had become way too cynical and distrustful.  Surely no reputable company would stoop that low.  Turns out they would and I wasn't cynical and distrustful enough!  That's why I wanted to warn you all to really check those statements.  If I'd been using the card for purchases it would have been obscured so I would never have caught this trick.

Yikes, sounds like the time I tried to pay off a promotional purchase at Best Buy. After paying the balance in full they charged me fee's for months. Because of thier billing practices. Granted it was only like $3 a month but I spent 3 months trying to pay $3 interest on  the previous months $3 interest charge. I finally resorted to making my husband call and make them accept payment in full full over the phone so we could close the acccount. The other thing that irked me was the service charge every month for taking advantage of thier "no interest" promotion. Never again Best Buy.