You can’t always trust financial companies making initial offers to try and get you to switch to your credit card. They may try to offer you 0% APR credit cards as a way to apply for your credit card. These plans are not really profitable for them and they actually cost them money. They do it because they hope to get the money back and get you a lot more in the future.

The way you can beat your system is to never leave a balance. You can use 0% APR credit card offers as a free loan or a free loan. However, the only way to do this is to never leave a balance that could charge you interest.

How they get money from you

Finance companies get money from you in a number of ways. These include:

o Set hidden charges or fines.

This could include things like charges for exceeding credit limits, balance transfer fees, annual card fees, etc.

o Say “0%” instead of “0% APR”.

They use deceptive language.

o Time period limitation

After the trial period ends, your fees increase from 20 to 30%.

o Only get credit cards that include an annual percentage rate (APR) of 0% per year

o Look carefully at the fine print

o See how long the plan lasts and think about paying for it before it ends.

o Use the credit as a short-term loan that will be paid off at the end of the billing period.

So when shopping around for the card, remember that the best advice is to find a card that doesn’t charge an annual fee, has fewer penalties, and offers a 0% APR for an extended period of time.