In the past, many credit card companies deliberately made it difficult for customers to pay their bills on time. Thanks to a new bill that recently became law, credit card companies have some new responsibilities.

These include:

Credit card companies used to be able to change their payment due date every month, making it much more difficult to pay on time. Now credit card companies are required to have the payment due date on the same day every month.

Credit card companies used to send their monthly statements less than 21 days before the payment was due.

Now they are required to mail their monthly statements at least 21 days before the payment is due.

Credit card companies used to charge a stiff fee every single time people went over their credit limit.

Now, credit card holders will need to opt-in to give permission to the credit card company to process transactions that go over the credit card limit.

Note: It is not a good idea to do this. If you are charging over the amount of your credit card limit, you’re spending too much.

In the past, credit card companies told people how much their minimum payment was, but not how long it would take to ever pay off their balance if they only pay the minimum payment every month. Why? Because it benefits the credit card companies to have people only pay off the minimum payment every month.

You can view the tips and watch a video of John by clicking below.

How To Avoid Going Into Holiday Debt — and Protect Your Credit Scores along the Way

Credit Card Company Tricks

When you look at tempting credit card offers, keep in mind that credit card companies create all of their programs to benefit THEM, not you.

Here are some ways that they lure you in and then end up socking you with big fees:

1.) The “$35 a month” computer, TV set, jet ski…You see the bright shiny new toy. You want it. You see that you only have to pay $35 a month. Your eyes light up. You can afford that! What you don’t realize is that if you are even a day late with payments you will be hit with huge fees and your credit rating will plummet. Also, you’ll end up paying far more than the purchase price of that item if you only pay the minimum.

2.) No payments or interest for six months! And then at the end of that six months you have a used item which has probably half of it’s original value, and you will be paying it off at a high interest rate for years.

3.) Low interest for six months on all balance transfers! So you transfer thousands of dollars worth of credit card balance to this new credit card. What is going to happen in six months? The interest rate on this new credit card will shoot up. Worse, you will probably have run up the old credit cards that you had, again, and now will have a balance on the old cards and new cards.

4.) Open this new department store credit card today and save 10 percent! Opening any new credit line will ding your credit rating and could potentially cause the interest rates on ALL of your credit cards to rise.