Are Your Credit Card Statements Trying To Tell You Something?
Why Credit Card Users Should Double Check Their Monthly Credit Card Statements
Having credit cards can make your life convenient in a large number of ways and many of us thrive on convenience. Unfortunately, it’s not always convenient to read through our credit card statements each and every month -- especially all those inserts that tend to come with them. If you’ve been automatically paying your credit card bills and tossing your credit card statements aside, promising to read through them later, there are some things you need to know.
Not All Charges Are Legitimate
If you have several credit cards, a good bit of advice to you is to save every receipt for every purchase you make with your credit cards. Relax -- you don’t have to hold onto receipts forever. Just until your credit card statements come in. When your statement arrives, it’s time to pull out your receipts and get to work.
Take a look at your credit card statements and cross-reference every receipt with your statement, checking them off as you go. It is so easy to say that you’ll remember what you bought, but by the time your statement arrives your memory might not hold up as well as you had expected. Sometimes merchants might even appear differently on your credit card statement than the name you bought the product under, so matching dollar amounts from receipts is definitely helpful.
Don’t forget to make sure any credit card payments you make also show up on your statements. If you pay your department store credit cards in the store, save those receipts. It would be a shame not to get credit for the payment you made due to a technical error or a simple mistake -- and mistakes do happen.
The Inserts Accompanying Your Credit Card Statements
Once you get into the habit of going over each of your monthly credit card statements, make sure you look at the inserts that accompany those statements. Sure, most of it is junk mail, however, changes to the terms and conditions of your credit card may be in there too -- changes you should really know about, such as interest-rate increases or decreases in your grace period.
Remember, while reading your credit card statements and the accompanying inserts may not be convenient, it’s definitely worth the time it takes to do so.