I love my Chase credit card. I always handle it online.

Here is a link that might be useful: Chase

I like my Visa Dividend card. I got a nice credit in December. I belive it is 2%

Discover card

My credit card info is precious - not to be handed out indiscriminately.

My bank has a note at the teller's window suggesting that for online use of credit cards, have a separate card issued with low credit limit for use in that situation.

I don't give credit card numbers and other personal confidential info online - certainly not for my basic card, with substantial credit limit.

They say that they won't charge you for items improperly purchased - after you call them to report your card stolen.

Frequently I don't deal with my card for a period, and wouldn't realize that it had disappeared for a time. Or, even if I realized it ten minutes later, while I'm away from home, do I carry the contact number with me? Not often. It's on the card, isn't it? Which I ain't got no more.

Have you ever had to deal with identity theft?

Hugely time consuming - and costly, I've heard. Haven't had to cope with it, myself, forunately.

When I want to give an order online, I write the agency asking them to issue me an order No., after which I'll send in an order online, then call them to give credit card info by phone, along with the order No. that they gave me.

And I don't patronize unknown offerors online - only major, well-known entities.

I don't want to write a cheque to send to them, either - only Money Orders for unkown business or service offerors.

Forestalling such trouble is one heck of a lot easier, less time consuming, *much* less costly and causes much less emotional wear-and-tear than repairing trouble after it has happened.

HTH.

Have a happy, healthy weekend - prosperous enough for you to live comfortably and share it with good friends.

ole joyful

I think azmom wants to be able to PAY the credit card bill on online from her bank account.
I think this may have been misunderstood for USING the credit card from online purchases.

Is this correct?

I always thought that all credit card companies would accept on line payment, I mean, do they really care where their money comes from?!
So far the only thing we can't pay on line is our stupid mortgage, because they charge us extra. grrr!

joyfulguy: not to scare you but most credit card information is stolen and the credit card is not. This means that you can have the credit card in your possession and not realize someone is charging stuff on it.
Last year all our area visa cards were canceled due to a "leak" at a company. Anyone that had used their card at this company could have had their credit card compromised as the company stored all the information in it's computers when you bought something there. Visa immediatly canceled and reissued new cards for all these people, including me.
I only use cash at that store now. I can't trust them!
-renee

That happened to DH. The card was in his possession in this state while the charging was going on 3 states away. He has never used it on the net. Nor was he out of state.

Thank you all for the valuable inputs.

Scryn, you are correct; I am looking for the ones that accept online payments.

Joyfulguy, actually I have been practicing everything you said. I believe other people on this forum will also appreciate your sound advice and precautions.

I had a bad experience with Discover card. About 6-7 years ago I made a $10,000.00 payment to the discover card I had then. For some reasons Discover Card credited it as $1,000.00 and charged me $250.00 interest fee. I had to go to the bank, retrieved the cancelled check to prove to them that I made the payment. During the entire process, the people from Discover Card customer service were rude, and never apologized for once even it was completely their mistake. I cancelled the card since.

I noticed many credit card offers I received come with fancy clauses and confusing fine prints, such as only certain charges will receive cash rebate...etc. I sent all of these offers to trash can.

Coming back to the subject, I am looking for a card offeres cash rebate, no fee, hopefully it is widely accepted even outside of the U.S.

Please continuously send in your inputs,espeically if you know about a straightforward card.

I don't really have a suggestion for a cash rebate card, but I think my experience with Chase is important here.

4 years ago I lost my job. I had quite a balance on my Chase card. It had just been transferred using one of those promotional offers for 0% interest. I don't even think I had gotten the first statement when I lost my job. The day after I got canned I called all of my creditors and asked if they could help, lower the minimum payment, lower the interest rate, grant a diferral, something, anything! The person I talked to at Chase told me that as long as I was making the minimum monthly payment they would have to assume that I COULD make the monthly payment, and there wasn't anything they could do for me. However, if I missed a payment, I could call them when I got my next statement and at that point they could work out a payment plan that would be easier for me.

So, I did exactly what he told me to do. Except that I made half of the payment, instead of not paying anything, when my statement came. I figured that would look better when I asked for help, I could say "Look, I can make half the payment, just not the whole thing." When my next statment came, showing that I hadn't payed my entire minimum payment, I called and told them what I had been told and asked for help. This is where it got really fun. They couldn't come up with a better payment plan for me because to do that they would have to base my payment on my income...and since I was unemployed I didn't have any income to base a payment plan on. They wouldn't use my unemployment check as a basis for a payment plan. So there was still nothing they could do for me.

The kicker: Missing a minimum payment meant my 0% interest rate was gone. Now I was being charged something over 18%.

Then there was more fun, about a year later. I had gotten a new job, moved back to the state I was from, and transferred my husband's car loan to a credit card because the interest rate was lower. Adding that to the amount that had been on the cards when I lost my job and the amount I had to charge while I was unemployed (including tuition for my husband to go to truck driving school) and my credit card debt was pretty damn substantial. Suddenly I noticed on my Chase bill that the interest being charged was only 36 cents less than my minimum payment, and I knew it hadn't been like that before. So I looked at the interest rate.....they were charging me 24%!!!! I called them, all kinds of pissed off, to find out why. Well, apparently they pull your credit report every once in a while. When they pulled mine they saw how much debt I had, and decided to change my status to a higher risk catergory. Because I was now a higher risk borrower, they raised my interest rate. Makes sense, right? Raise my interest rate so that this high risk borrower has an even harder time paying you back!!! As soon as I had an introductory rate offer from another credit card I transferred every penny off of that Chase card and I haven't used it since.

We don't deal with Chase anymore. The only reason I currently have a Chase card is because Chase bought BankOne, and I had a really good interest rate with BankOne. So I'm keeping it until the introductory rate runs out and then I'm getting rid of it.

As for rewards for cards, I've got a card that gives me points. It's from MyPoints. You sign up with them, they send you e-mails that you get 5 point for just clicking on the link. Some of them offer you hundreds of points for buying something at the link. For instance, they have a deal with (a webstore that the filter won't let me mention because they've been spammed about them before) where you get 10 points per dollar you spend there. Other's are like 50 points for filling out a survey, 20 points for signing up for a newsletter, 500 points for signing up for Columbia house, etc. I rarely take the offers, just click and get my 5 points. I can rack up like 30 points a day this way.

And they have an associated Visa card through Providian where I get 1 point for every dollar I spend. Once you accumulate enough points you can trade them in for gift cards, either to stores or they have one called Webcertificates where you get basically a mastercard account number that you can use anywhere online. Or you can pay a small fee to Webcertificates and get a real card that you can use in stores.

For instance, I just redeemed 3250 points for a $25 gift card to Linens N Things. That sounds like a lot of points, but if you are using the card and paying it off all the time you'll rack up points quick. Plus the e-mails take me all of 2 minutes a day to click and delete, giving me up to like 900 points a month.

I don't use the card itself often, but if you were going to use it a lot it would definitely pay off. It doesn't come out to as good a rebate as like Discover (which I think is 2%) but if you also do the e-mails and use some of their deals (like the deal at that unmentionable web store, as well as other great deals just like it) you'll rack up points quick!

I recently went to a site called cheatatshopping.com.

They listed several cr cd offers...initial period transfer rates, rebates, etc.

I picked one, (0% interest on transfer for 12 months and no transfer fee)clicked on it, and saw there was a phone number to apply for it.

I called and applied and rec card with $500 credit limit...what's up with that...my credit being perfect...
I called to inquire and complain, and was told that the more I use the card, the more my available credit would be increased. They said they 'saw' I had a higher credit limit with another citicard and that my credit limit could be transferred to my new card, but they couldn't do it...I'd have to call the prev citicard cust service and have it done.
Well, I got that accomplished, requested a check be sent to me(big bucks to pay for having driveway paved), with no transfer fee, and that carries a 0% for 12 months.

I immediately signed up too for (big but affordable)automatic payments to come from my checking...so no chance of ever being late, and the whole thing will hopefully be totally paid off in 12 months.

I sure like 'using' their money.

Sue...who is too frugal to ever pay any interest

creditcards.com is a good website to compare various credit cards.
I have the Citibank Dividend Platinum Select card....it gives me 5% cash back on gas, groceries, and drug store purchases, and 1% back on everything else. There is no annual fee, and free online bill pay. This card is great if you pay your balance in full every month...so far I've gotten a couple hundred dollars back from them. If you don't pay in full, however, there are cards out there with lower APR.
I'm with Sue...I get a perverse satisfaction from using making money off of a credit card company.

judi e,

Did you contact Chase to tell them the whole story - that you had done precisely what their employee had suggested, and detailing all of the trouble that pushing over that one domino caused?

And how you were now pissed off?

And how you'd told a number of friends about it.

Not only mouth-to-mouth ...

... but to dozens? hundreds? on the internet chat room(s), as well?

I think that'd be a good route to go. If you haven't already.

ole joyful

As with every legal contract, READ EVERYTHING CLOSELY. If you don't understand something, ASK and find out what it means before signing. As far as the bad experiences posted here, it's been awhile since I've read over my credit card terms, but I do remember that all of the come-ons disappear if payments aren't on time.

The other thing to look out for are limits on rewards. My current Visa card through my bank "only" pays 1%, but there's no limit on the rewards. Many of the cards with rewards > 1% have cut-offs on how much money they'll give you back in a year. I know the Visa 5%/1% deal usually has a limit of $300/year cash back, which I'd easily exceed with just the 1% on everything else, let alone gas, groceries, etc. Another reason I went through my bank was to have some recourse if I encountered any problem with the credit card. Without getting into specifics, my bank REALLY likes me and will do anything to keep me (and my deposits) with them. YMMV

Do your homework and research (and read) everything. The credit card cos depend on people NOT reading the agreements. Ignorant/uninformed consumers are a credit card co's most desirable customer. Why do you think they spend so much time courting college students?

sean m,

College students don't? can't? read?

Wow!

When I went to Univ. over 50 years ago we had remedial English (but that was mostly for the Engineers).

o j