Comments on: The Credit Card Fees Obama Is Not Addressing http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/blog/2009/04/the-credit-card-fees-obama/ The Balance Transfer Credit Card Resource Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:06:44 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Balance Transfers Helper http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/blog/2009/04/the-credit-card-fees-obama/comment-page-1/#comment-4697 Balance Transfers Helper Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:24:04 +0000 http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/blog/?p=247#comment-4697 Greg, I understand your skepticism, but the numbers really work out. I did a month by month breakdown to illustrate how much a person with $5,000 in debt would save with a 0% balance transfer compared with a person who doesn't do a balance transfer in <a href="http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/credit-card-debt-scenarios.php" rel="nofollow">an article about using balance transfers to get out debt, which you view here</a>. Once the 0% rate goes back up, the example I used of a person with 5k in debt with a 14% rate would have saved $588 on interest and reduced their debt 16% more than a person who didn't do a balance transfer. After balance transfer fees, the savings were $438. So for a person with 10k on a card with 15%, the interest savings before fees would be in excess of $1200, and the total savings, once fees are accounted for, would be right around 1k. I hope this clears things up for you and appreciate that you took the time to comment. Greg,

I understand your skepticism, but the numbers really work out. I did a month by month breakdown to illustrate how much a person with $5,000 in debt would save with a 0% balance transfer compared with a person who doesn’t do a balance transfer in an article about using balance transfers to get out debt, which you view here. Once the 0% rate goes back up, the example I used of a person with 5k in debt with a 14% rate would have saved $588 on interest and reduced their debt 16% more than a person who didn’t do a balance transfer. After balance transfer fees, the savings were $438. So for a person with 10k on a card with 15%, the interest savings before fees would be in excess of $1200, and the total savings, once fees are accounted for, would be right around 1k.

I hope this clears things up for you and appreciate that you took the time to comment.

]]> By: greg http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/blog/2009/04/the-credit-card-fees-obama/comment-page-1/#comment-4694 greg Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:06:50 +0000 http://www.smartbalancetransfers.com/blog/?p=247#comment-4694 you noted: "While it is an understatement to call a 400% fee increase dramatic, it is still a pittance compared with the amount of money the consumer would save by transferring money from a credit card with a 15% interest rate to a card with a 0% rate, as the interest savings would be close to $1,000" now, I am not an expert, but I do not think that a 0% for 12 months intro period would save you 1000 bucks, since the % rate post intro period would go back up to something more normal. I think this based on the diff between the full amount at 15% compared to 0%....??? you noted: “While it is an understatement to call a 400% fee increase dramatic, it is still a pittance compared with the amount of money the consumer would save by transferring money from a credit card with a 15% interest rate to a card with a 0% rate, as the interest savings would be close to $1,000″

now, I am not an expert, but I do not think that a 0% for 12 months intro period would save you 1000 bucks, since the % rate post intro period would go back up to something more normal. I think this based on the diff between the full amount at 15% compared to 0%….???

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