50 million Americans have credit card debt averaging $17,000.  While credit cards provide a great deal of convenience and flexibility, credit card companies have developed clever schemes to exploit consumers and maximize fees.  Issuers make billions of dollars from interest payments and other fees, while consumers find it increasingly difficult to get out of debt.  That $17,000 of debt results in $34,000 in payments over 10 years at an interest rate of 19%.  There is nothing illegal about this.  The fees, interest, and required payment policies are spelled out in your cardholder agreement.  To turn the tables on the credit card companies, you must understand their game, and develop an attitude that this is a competition, you against them.  Issuers have studied consumer behavior for decades and have arranged for a favorable regulatory environment as well.  Now, you can fight back with on-line tools at DueMinder.

DueMinder helps you manage loan payments to minimize interest fees.  In doing so, you get yourself out of debt, save money, and beat the credit card companies at their own game.  There are really just a few tricks you need to know to win this game.  These tricks are really not a big secret, so I'll tell you right now what they are.

1. Pay more than the minimum.  Credit card companies only ask you to pay about 2%.  This keeps you paying for a very long time.
2. Reduce interest rates.  Find cards with low interest rates, and take advantage of any low-interest balance transfer offer on an existing card.  Or, just ask the company to reduce your rate if they want to keep your business.  Most will do this with a phone call.
3. Optimize the payments for cards on which you pay balances.  This generally mean that any extra payment you can afford goes to the highest interest card.
4. Never, ever be late on a credit card payment.  These companies charge outrageous late fees, and some card agreements result resetting of your interest rate to over 30%.