A co-worker and friend of mine told me an almost unbelievable story about his home equity line of credit with GMAC Mortgage.  He and his wife recently had their 4th child, and wanted to build an addition to their house.  They received a $50,000 line of credit with a small book of check to use to pay contractors.  At some point, they ran out of checks and requested more from GMAC.  Within a week or so, they received checks and the wife wrote a $5,000 check to a contractor, one of the final payments for the project.  Unbeknown to her at the time, the new set of checks was a sheet of MasterCard checks, not a HELOC check.  This unfortunate mistake caused a new MasterCard line of credit to be opened, with a 3% check-writing fee applied to the new balance.  My friend, who normally has a very calm and friendly demeanor, was understandably irate with this seemingly intentional bait and switch maneuver by GMAC.