Free Credit Cards – Are They Real?
While we all like to get something for nothing, I must take the time to clear up a misconception. There are no such thing as free credit cards. While it certainly is understandable that people would be looking for ways to save money on rising interest rates and added fees, I’m afraid it’s not possible to find a credit card without these charges.
Credit cards themselves are based upon a creditor, in the case of a credit card, a bank, credit union or financial institution, lending someone money with the agreement that they will be paid back. Not only is it agreed upon that they will be paid back the principle that has been lent, but also with interest.
It is the interest that is the motivation for the creditor to grant the credit in the first place. It is profitable for them. Unless it is a family member or a good friend, why else would somebody take the risk to lend someone else money? So as you can see, the notion of free credit cards is a false one.
There are some credit card offers available with 0% APR for new purchases. But these are introductory rates at last for 6 months and sometimes up to 12 months. After this time the regular rates kick in whatever they happen to be set at. I certainly don’t consider these to be free credit cards, although they do help the account holder to save a bit of money, in the beginning at least.
There are, however, ways in which consumers can save money. By utilizing a credit card comparison website, it is rather easy to compare interest rates in order to find the cards that have the lowest APR. It should be stated that only those applicants that have the best credit ratings will get the lowest annual percentage rates.
Another important factor to consider are the fees. It seems as if credit card issuers are becoming more and more adept at creating new fees. They are, as you can probably imagine, very profitable for the banks. They come in many forms including annual fees, penalty fees, balance transfer fees and cash advance fees to name a few.
There are cards that do not charge interest rates. They are prepaid and debit cards. But these cards do charge fees depending upon who the issuer is. The most common form is overdraft fees. There can and may be others as well depending upon the issuer.
But here is an important distinction; prepaid and debit cards are not credit cards at all. They do not offer credit in any form but rather allow the cardholder to access the money that they have deposited into a linked account. Usually a checking account.
So as you can see, free credit cards don’t actually exist. But like just about everything else in our economy, it is possible to save money by comparison-shopping. While you may not find free credit cards, it is possible to get some pretty good deals when you know where to look and what to look for.
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