Washington Mutual Credit Card Washington Mutual Charging you for finance charges and purchase charges for the new bill, but crediting it to your previous bill, which makes it look like your getting nowhere on your payments Seatte Washington

I agree about WAMU cards on the fact of quick and crappy sign up process. I got one and for one the end date is one year before my capitalone card ends, and when I signed up I called to activate and they said three times they were having trouble with what sounded like the same guy that answered three times. Then I called regular support and they said they had no troubles and said that I Was ALREADY activated. I was worried that I never did sign up for the card However a month later I got the bill and never used it so the balance was $0.00.

Plus on WAMU I got a statement to send back saying that if I didn't sign and return the Privacy statement for not my information to be shared it would be. I never have, even to this day. :)

Anyway so far so good. However I never have used the card yet..

I suggest a less draconian approach, because banks really like to see responsible use of credit cards before they will give you the best rates on car loans and mortgages. Credit cards are a necessary evil if you ever want to finance a house or a car. You just need to be VERY careful, and don't do what the banks expect most people to do.

Know your budget. Don't buy anything with a credit card that you can't afford to pay cash for, unless there's really no less expensive alternative. Strive to always pay the full balance every month. With nearly all cards, you will pay no interest as long as the balance is paid off every time.

If you qualify, select cards that have no fees, a "grace period" for purchases, and a rewards plan. Paying the full balance every month with one of these cards is the same or better than paying cash.

Never go over HALF of the credit limit. You will find by doing this, most banks except the "crap" One from Richmond, will ironically soon give you a higher limit. Eventually you'll have limits so high that if you were to max even one card, you could never repay it. That is exactly what they hope you to do, but you won't.

Don't think in terms of the "available credit." The important number is the "balance." If you are running a balance (which should be only an occasional situation rather than constant), they will apply the interest on the last day of each billing month.

Banks make the rules. Credit card issuers do whatever the hell they want.

You pay $100 on the card, and you get to spend $70. The rest goes to fees.

At some point, (((one)) can see that it ends up costing you a ton of money when you use these stupid cards.

There is no solution. They ALL rip you off. Pink card? Green card? Gold card? They ALL cheat you out of your money.

You know that before you even apply to get these stupid cards.

Do yourself a helluva big favor. Watch the next Frontline show. It's on PBS television.

The show you want is Secret history of the credit card

If it's not on in your area, go to the website and watch it online.

These Frontline documentaries are clearly the best things on television today.

If this show doesn't convince you to dump that stupid card, nothing will.