The money that a person spends through their credit card is effectively money that the credit card company lends to them. Consequently, the credit card company expects timely payment of its ‘loan’ – through regular credit card balance repayments. Failure to make such payments on time automatically leads to some quite harsh penalties, which many people, perhaps out of procrastination or poor financial habits, find themselves suffering every so often. As it turns out, in fact, is that so great is the number of people suffering unfair credit card penalties that some credit card providers have come to view such penalties as one of their greatest revenue sources in the business.

Of course, while the credit card company enjoys the money it receives in the form of late credit card balance repayment penalty, the person on whom the penalty is charged has to live with the fact that the money they so pay is effectively money that they simply throw away, as they get absolutely nothing to show for it.

Whatever the arguments, though, it is appreciated that the spirit behind late credit card balance repayment penalties is basically good, namely to encourage people to service their credit card balance debt in a timely manner. What are not understandable, however, are the situations where people end up being charged late credit card balance repayment penalties, in spite of their having made their credit card balance payments on what they would have considered reasonably good time upon the balance falling due. So how does one protect themselves from such unfair credit card balance repayment penalties?

One easy way to protect oneself from such unfair credit card balance repayment penalties is by opting for automated credit card balance repayments (especially if you run one of the increasingly popular online bank accounts). This is where you instruct your bank to automatically make a payment to your credit card company equal to the ‘minimum’ payment required not to incur a penalty (on a standing order basis), and on the very day that your credit card balance repayments fall due. This way you effectively insure yourself from ever suffering from late credit card balance repayment penalties.

Reading the credit card provider’s payment guidelines – and observing them to the letter when making your payments – is another measure you can take toward preventing unfair credit card penalties. Many people who complain that they have been unfairly penalized often turn out to be people who made simple errors (like mailing the repayment check to the wrong address), naturally leading to delays in processing the payment and incurring the penalty. In a situation like that, one really has no reason to claim that they are being unfairly penalized.

And if it is something you can do, and something that your credit card provider can agree to, opting to make your credit card payments by phone is yet another way you can go in protecting yourself from late credit card repayment penalties, seeing that in this mode of payment, the transaction is conducted in real time – leaving little, if any, room for misunderstandings that could cause such late credit card balance repayment penalties.

The author likes writing about credit cards for bad credit. His site is at http://www.creditcardslog.com.

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