Pay One Credit Card Late-Get Penalized By Your Other Credit Cards

Credit card companies make their fortunes from late fees, penalties and interest. Even more disturbing, and according to the latest research, is the fact that a very large number of credit card companies have adopted the universal default clause into their credit card agreements. This clause allows your credit card company to raise your interest rate when you make a late payment to any of your credit cards.

Almost half of all credit card issuers include the universal default clause in their agreement and actually apply it to their customers. Unfortunately, must customers do not even know that this clause is present in their agreement. To be certain, call and ask or read the fine print from your credit card agreement. Otherwise, one late payment to any of your credit cards could result in an interest rate of close to 30% on all of them.

If you are curious to know how a credit card company would know about a late payment made to another credit card, the answer is rather simple, they periodically review your credit report (also stated in your agreement) and monitor it for late payments made to anyone. When a late payment is detected, and if your credit card issuer utilizes the universal default clause, your interest rate will go up and your credit score may go down.

Please call all of your credit card issuers and ask if you are subject to this clause. If you are, ask them what your current interest rate is. Also find out if your interest rate has been increased in the past twelve months due to this clause.