Related Services - The following directories of companies and services offer a wide variety of financial programs to assist you with handling your debts. Consolidate your bills with a debt consolidation loan or use a debt management or credit counseling service for help with your credit card bills and other payments.

• Personal Loan Rates - Need a smaller loan? Personal loan financing is most often unsecured. Meaning... your home or personal property is not used as collateral and the loan decision will typically be based upon your credit history and your ability to make the necessary payments. Also, this is often referred to as a signature loan.
• Debt Consolidation Settlement - High credit card balances making your monthly payments impossible to meet? The negotiation of your outstanding bills with your creditors may be a good debt solution for you. Educate yourself on your options and compare available programs.
• Debt Consolidation Program - Learn more on how consolidating your credit card debts can work for you and potential pitfalls that you need to avoid. Also, review a list services that offer to help people lower their bills into fewer payments or even one payment.

Taking Charge of Your Credit Cards

23. Be especially aware of your card issuer's billing practices, which can significantly affect your costs. How your card company treats the balances on which you are charged interest can be critical. Here are examples of potentially high-cost practices that many people don't know about even though card issuers must disclose them:

Two-cycle billing: This billing practice is rare but is used by some card issuers. Practices may vary but, in general, if you pay your credit card bill in full one month but then only pay a portion of the bill the next month, your interest charges ultimately will be based on two months of card charges and not one. This may result in you paying more in interest charges than you would under the more common one-cycle billing method. To find out if your card is subject to two-cycle billing, review the cardholder agreement and disclosures from your lender or call their customer service number.

Payment allocation: This involves cards with multi-tiered interest rates. For example, there may be a low rate on a balance transferred from another card, a higher rate on new purchases, and an even higher rate on a cash advance. If you pay only part of your monthly bill, card companies typically will apply your payment to the balance with the lowest interest rate first, while the highest-rate balance continues to run up interest costs until you pay the entire balance.

Universal default: This happens when a card issuer increases a customer's interest rate because he or she made late payments to other lenders or had an overall decline in a credit score — even if that customer paid the card bill in full and on time. While this once-common practice is rare, be aware that it could be used.

FDIC Consumer News is published by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

FDIC Consumer News is produced quarterly by the FDIC Office of Public Affairs in cooperation with other Divisions and Offices. It is intended to present information in a nontechnical way and is not intended to be a legal interpretation of FDIC or other government regulations and policies. Mention of a product, service or company does not constitute an endorsement.

Find current and past issues of FDIC Consumer News at http://www.fdic.gov/consumernews. Refer to this same index to locate the issues that are specially formatted for being reprinted in any quantity.

To receive an e-mail notice about each new issue of FDIC Consumer News posted on the FDIC Web site, with links to stories, follow instructions posted at www.fdic.gov/about/subscriptions/index.html.

Last updated on 8/10/2007

Make the correct decisions when shopping for banking, debt consolidation and related financial services. Educate yourself!

The Debt Consolidation Loan Directory has a growing library of free informative / educational financial resources for consumers shopping for many types of services related to the management of your money, such as consolidating credit card debts, fraud alerts and car insurance. There is no better way to make decisions regarding the management of your personal finances than to read and understand how they work. Please feel free to visit our consumer resource library for more information.

• Cell Phone Banking - New cell phones are constantly evolving and becoming more sophisticated. This includes adding the capability of handling online banking through your phone. This FDIC article discusses some of the possibilities and precautions you should take when using your phone for banking purposes.
• How to Protect Yourself with FDIC Insurance - Read up on what qualifications are necessary and how to determine if your deposits are covered by FDIC insurance.
• Direct Deposit Safer than Checks? - The US Treasury Department reports that a majority of surveyed consumers mistakenly believe that paper checks are safer than direct deposit.
• Consider the Fees! - Learn what to look for and examine the details of each banking account offer for possible fees, such as: inactivity, minimum balance and ATM withdrawal fees.

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