I had a a family emergency and had to pull out a cash advance on my credit card. I always make nearly double payments (includes a regular balance as well) but the cash advance amount goes up and up.
The credit card company explained that the payment will first be applied to the regular balance and will tack the (much higher) finance charge on the cash advance payment until the regular balance is paid off. What a scam! Is there a way to make a principal payment on the cash advance balance only/separately, to knock that baby down? Or am I left with no choice but to pay the regular balance of first.
Thank much for any pointers!
Yeah, that's a good one right? I found this out the hard way just like you. I know they told you alllll about how it was in that "agreement" they sent you after you got your card in the mail.
You remember, that 14 page very very small printed booklet they mailed you last year right? lol!
Serious Scam.
And no, there sadly is nothing you can do other than to pay off the card completely. They will leave that cash advance there FOREVER if they get the opportunity to.
Best and ONLY thing you can do is to hop on the first CC offer that comes from another bank offering you really great rates for a BALANCE TRANSFER and without a fee to make that transfer too.
THEN transfer EVERYTHING off of that one card onto the new one but be careful - don't close that old card down, closing that account or canceling it affects your credit score negatively too.
Lot's of banks are more than happy to do this in order to get your business away from another bank.
You need to TRANSFER everything over to a BRAND NEW CARD at better rates and they'll usually do it for free because they want your business - or rather, they want the opportunity to scam you later on too hopefully - like they all do.
Nope, sorry. It's been like that even since I had credit cards (the late 80's)
You should call the credit card company again and see if you could work something out. I've done that before. Sometimes they have promotions you can get into. In the last several years, though, it hasn't been as easy to do that.
If you're stuck with that, figure out what your interest payments will be and maybe you're better off opening another credit card account that has a low interest balance transfer promotion. There will probably be a fee, but it might come out cheaper.
Look around online and check it out. And for sure call the credit card company again. Sometimes you get different results with different CSR's.
Yeah the worse thing is to use the CC for cash, the bank has all sorts of wild policies to charge us more fees, on top of a revolving balance. The balance is all you can pay off, so pay it off as soon as possible and (temporarily) restrict luxuries - then look for a better CC.
Honestly its not in your best interest and it can get you in a lot of debt. But sometimes its the only choice. Hope you get what you need.