Credit cards have been becoming a major part of everyone’s daily lives around the world. However, it is crucial to know the right ways to use credit cards because when credit cards are used in the wrong way, they become a major problem in the future due to a large number of debts that one will have to pay. Owning credit cards and making your payments through them can be helpful to everyone; however, like many other things, credit cards can also have major disadvantages. In this article, we will talk about the advantages you will have when you own a credit card, alongside its disadvantages. Here you can find the 7 best credit repair companies in Pennsylvania.
Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of owning a credit card.
Advantages of Owning a Credit Card
Having an Easy Access to Credit
Owning a credit card allows people to have easy access to credit. In other words, people will be able to make purchases and not hold off paying for specific things due to not having the amount available. Credit cards allow users to pay for their needs and pay off their debts later on.
Building up Your Credit Score
Credit cards are a good way to help people build up their credit scores. These credit scores will, later on, help people get better rates and discounts when making big purchases due to having a good financial reputation in the past.
Having a Record of Your Expenses
When people make purchases using their credit cards, all of the expenses are recorded and kept in a record. This record can help people analyze their expenses and see if they are spending too much from their income or if they need to cut back on some of their expenses to be able to keep up with everything.
Protection
Some credit card issuers allow protection to people who are using their credit cards. For example, if you have a problem with a purchase, and you return it but do not get back your money – even though you have taken back or sent back the item, but still have not received back your money, credit card issuers will interfere and negotiate with the store to return some or all of your money.
Disadvantages of Owning a Credit Card
Easily Used
Credit card issuers have made it easy for users to use and make purchases with their credit cards. So, a lot of people tend to overuse their credit cards because of the simple and easy way.
Paying off Your Debts with High-Interest Rates
Since credit cards are easy and simple to use, many people go out of their budget and make purchases by using debts. However, this method can cause them to overuse and go over their budget without taking into account that they will not be able to pay off their debts when the billing cycle comes. So, if people are unable to pay off their debts and they miss their billing cycle, they will have to pay more because of the high interest rates because they have been penalized for missing the billing cycle.
High Fees
Owning a credit card does not mean that you will not have to pay a lot of fees. In reality, owning a credit card gives you a lot of fees in order to enjoy the number of benefits offered by credit card issuers. On the other hand, you might not be able to pay off your debts by the time the billing cycle comes around, and due to not meeting the right deadline, you will be punished to pay fees with high interest rates.
Possibility of Fraud
Sometimes people are accused of purchasing something with their credit cards, but in reality, they were not the ones to make the purchases. This situation can indicate that their credit card identification has been stolen. In order to overcome this problem, credit card owners should try to go over their purchases and expenses each month by looking through the report provided to them by their issuers to see if everything matches up with their actions.
To sum everything up, owning a credit card can be risky if one does not know the right ways to use it. So, if you are planning to apply for a credit card, you first have to know the right ways to use it to avoid causing major problems for yourself in the long run.