[saden1]

The whole merchant credit cards scheme is a big time money maker. They know most sane people will pay them off as soon as possible but there are those 10% to 20% of customers who don't pay on time or don't know the rules to the game. Also if you miss one payment the interest rate jumps up immediately so they are betting on that happening to some people. If people pay on time, they get their money and they have moved items...if they forgot to pay or can't pay they charge higher interest and get most of their money back...if they don't get their money back the send people to collections and if that doesn't work they they write it off and pay less taxes. It's an all around win no matter what!

I use to have a 7.9% rate about a year and half ago...my credit card company jacked up my rate to 13.9% and I called them up to explain...they said prime rate went up and I said nice doing business with you. Needless to say I stopped using the credit card and paid off most of it.