Credit Stories

I hope this film makes it to Australia:

Maxed Out shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of "preferred customer" and tells us why the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer. By turns hilarious and profoundly disturbing, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us.

From the clips on the site, it looks to be a well constructed documentary.

Another credit story I ran across in the blogosphere today was at fivecentnickel.com where he posted about The Danger of No-Interest, Same-as-Cash Purchases.

The point here is that these are really dangerous transactions if you don’t know what you’re doing. In our case, it didn’t really matter. We had the money, just not in the right place, and we were planning on paying it off immediately upon receiving our first bill. But when the bill came I noticed something interesting… (Maybe I’m just thick, but this was news to me.) Even though you’re not paying interest for the first 12 months, interest is in fact accruing. So not only do you have to start paying interest after 12 months if you haven’t paid off the balance, but you also have to pay back interest for the first 12 months.

It is essential that you read the fine print if you want to avoid credit mistakes! Interest-free isn't free!