So you think you want a credit card?

If you want to get a credit card, you must be

- disciplined
- organized
- careful.

You have to be disciplined in sticking to the original objectives of the card, and not simply use it and end up incurring huge debts. You have to be disciplined in ensuring you settle your obligations on time, and meeting your mothly repayments. The trick that they always leave in the very fine print is that not only is there a minimum monthly repayment charge (and the associated late payment charge, suspension if this is not paid, and fee to reactivate it) but on top of that, you are charged a % of whatever your balance is. You have to spend and use your card in a disciplined manner, and make sure you pay off ur obligations. Once you get in debt, these banks, which are similar to legalized loan sharks, will charge a hefty interest on you and you will end up paying through your nose. A credit card can give you great convenience, but is also the fastest way to financial disaster.

You must be organized and keep your records. Any statement/PIN sent to you, must be filed away. Reason being, it is not uncommon for fraudulent transactions to take place on your card, or for mistakes by the bank. You should keep all your statements to and check them and do reconciliation to ensure the totals tally and that no one is shaving a couple of bucks off you every month. If you ever suspect there is something amiss, and mind you, there are lots of seemingly suspicious signs in this day and age where it is part of life to make credit card transactions via the Internet, and you want to refer back to your statements, it costs money to print out each sheet of paper, so you could be paying up to RM100 for a whole year's worth of backdated statements. If you believe you paid off your balance but yet it is not reflected, you at least have your receipts and statements to back it up.

You must be careful of fraud. Do not simply use unprotected websites and internet facilities and disreputable websites. Also, websites without the Verisign securelock feature are to be avoided. Just carry some common sense, dno't leave your card lying around, don't even let others take ur card away and return it to you for signature as restaurant-goers often do, because the waiters could use your card for fraudulent purposes too. And just y'day I received an SMS by one of my credit card supplying banks telling me to call them back for some purpose related to my cc. When I did call them back, a lady answered the phone and kept giggling, in the most unprofessional manner, and straightaway asked for my IC number. After reading about 3 or 4 digits, I became suspicious of her and asked her how for some verification. She instantly hung up.

When I was in uni, and was studying Telecommunications (which by the way is one of my all time favourite and coooolest subjects), which dealt with cyber crime, hacking, etc, we learnt a lot about how the Mafia and organized European, Russian, etc syndicates have got computer security specialists planting trojans and other spyware and keystroke recording software into other people's computers and steal their passwords. Cybercrime today is a v serious business, taking on a very organized and sophisticated face.

So guys and girls...be careful, be very careful.