If you are a day late on a single payment with a credit card most of them have reserved the right to charge a late fee and/or change (i.e. increase your APR). What a lot of people don’t realize is that it does not hit your FICO unless you are 31 days late on a payment - then they notify the respective agencies (Experian, TransUnion, etc.). The thing that really boils my blood is the egregious practices they have with these APR increases - particularly the ones our family have experienced in the recently.

We were a day late on a payment (the auto-pay was set to go on a Sunday, so it delayed to that Monday - thus making us late), so our APR bounced up to a whooping 31%! I know this is not an isolated case since there is a history of credit card companies having to answer to the Senate and Congress for such practices. It has me thinking I should cut up all my cards and transfer the amounts to some type of secured loan, like payday loans or the like of. Just think of the money to be saved by tearing up those cards!