Throughout the Great Recession and its aftermath, much has been made about predatory credit card practices. We have all heard about the unscrupulous issuers, devoid of social responsibility, who misled their customers for profit and helped lead the American economy into a valley. The majority of the time, it seems that it’s people with damaged credit or those new to credit who fall prey to such practices. Consumers with excellent credit generally believe themselves to be immune. However, No Preset Spending Limit (NPSL) credit cards represent a contradiction to that belief as well as a credit option that can both mislead consumers and damage their credit standing, all because of lacking industry uniformity and transparency.

There are three notable types of NPSL cards currently on the market: an American Express charge card, a World MasterCard credit card and a Visa Signature credit card. The American Express NPSL card is a charge card that has a maximum spending amount, though it is not relayed to consumers. The MasterCard and Visa options are credit / charge card hybrids that have a revolving credit limit which consumers are encouraged to exceed as long as they bring their balance below it by the end of each month. They cannot, however, surpass it by an unlimited amount, though the excess allowed is also not made known to consumers. Thus, it is obvious that users are somewhat in the dark with NPSL cards simply because they do not know how much they can truly spend using such cards. Ultimately, this issuer-bred ignorance creates the potential for one’s card to be unexpectedly declined.

I recently got a call from a college friend who wanted advice on how to get approved for the best credit card possible . He said he had applied and applied but for some reason had still not been given use of a single card. What should he do differently, he wondered, when applying for cards in the future?

My advice to him: immediately stop applying and open a secured credit card because it provides both guaranteed approval and a safe way to rebuild credit.

Often, the holiday season—with its emphasis on gift giving—serves as an unwelcome reminder of any financial problems people may have. While this notion might seem depressing, it should actually be viewed as an opportunity. Instead of getting bummed about your situation, simply take the reminder as impetus to remedy your financial woes. The lowering of credit card debt, for one, can be approached and ultimately achieved through the consideration of five simple steps.

Step 1 – Evaluate your necessities
Approach your lifestyle with an exceedingly critical eye, and you will most likely discover that you spend money on things that you can certainly live without, though you might initially believe this to be impossible. You shouldn’t waste money on things like cable TV packages, cell phone data plans, dinners out or fancy vacations. Instead, fund only your means of subsistence—things like food, housing and health insurance—and use your savings to pay down your debt. While this step is the most obvious way to lower your debt, it is also by far the hardest to execute because it is often difficult to part with luxuries you have grown accustomed to.

I recently took a trip to New Jersey, and for all the flack the state gets for things like MTV’s Jersey Shore, it does have a few things going for it, such as  produce, beautiful beach towns and, oddly enough, gas.  If you haven’t hit the pump in the Garden State you might not know this, but it’s a state law that gas station attendants must fill up your tank for you, free of charge.  You simply pull up to the pump, request a fuel type, sit back and wait.  It’s a gas luxury which most other states do not provide.  However, there are other ways that people from any state can make their gas purchases work for them, so no one gets completely shut out from the world of gas station luxury.

Last year, I decided to get an ExxonMobil MasterCard, and it was a great decision for both practical and financial reasons.  I typically spend $300 a month on gas, which is fairly average.  I simply go through that much gas each month and there’s nothing I can do about it because my work and the location of my home dictate the need for car travel.  I also cannot conveniently bargain hunt for gas prices because the only stations located on my usual routes of travel are ExxonMobil stations that have little cost disparity amongst them.

No matter what type of credit card you use, you are susceptible to the same pervasive credit card missteps as any other consumer. While it’s a fact of life that people make mistakes, simply being aware of the most common credit card missteps and how to avoid making them—both of which are explained below—will significantly decrease the likelihood of error and will, in turn, save you money.

1.  Misunderstand how balance transfers work
Credit card companies often stress their 0% balance transfers but less readily advertise that they also charge fees of 3-5% of the amount transferred for the service. Therefore, it is important to check your credit card application’s fine print before making a balance transfer in order to see how much it will actually cost. Additionally, make sure that you minimize the overall costs you incur by paying off your debt before any 0% interest offer expires.

Rewards credit cards are a success in marketing. I mean, who wouldn’t want rewards? They sound fun, beneficial and as if you are automatically getting more bang for your buck. Thus, simply revolving a credit card genre around the word “reward” raises segmental demand. However, this surface attractiveness also belies the fact that these cards are not for everyone.

Indeed, depending on your primary objective for credit card use, a rewards card may not be the cheapest or simplest option available to you. When you are shopping for a credit card you should have in mind one of three primary objectives—lowering the cost of debt, building credit and accumulating rewards. It is important to identify which is your particular aim because different types of credit cards, when used responsibly, are best suited for accomplishing each. Similarly, in most cases there is not a single credit card that serves two purposes in combination more effectively than do two distinct cards designed specifically for each requisite function.

You’d think that Best Buy and Target would be some of the last places you should go if you are trying to improve your credit, especially for you shopaholics who cannot be in a store without going on a shopping spree. Oddly enough, however, store-affiliated credit cards can be a very valuable tool for building or rebuilding your credit.

Before going in depth into the reasons why store cards are useful you must first understand the basic concept behind improving credit with a credit card. No matter if you have bad, damaged, limited or no credit, you need to infuse your credit report with a pattern of positive information to either dilute the impact of past credit negatives like bankruptcy and delinquency or to build from scratch. Though the extent of positive information needed depends on your specific credit situation, this concept is the general basis of credit improvement. Likewise, depending on your circumstances secured credit cards and general-purpose unsecured credit cards (VISA/MasterCard) for bad credit are the usual suspects when it comes to credit improvement credit cards. Undoubtedly secured cards are the cheapest and most disciplined way to rebuild your credit, but if you want to begin adding positive information to your credit report immediately and do not have the cash for a secured card’s security deposit, your options lie in the realm of unsecured credit cards. It is in this context that store-affiliated credit cards—like the Best Buy Credit Card—play the role of the proverbial dark horse.

As we all know, the Great Recession has deeply affected consumers credit scores, and therefore, their access to credit. A recent study from FICO, the largest credit scoring company, shows that an increasing number of consumers fall into the bad credit category. The most recent count shows that a whopping 25.5 percent of consumers have FICO credit scores below 599 – that’s nearly 43.4 million people who are considered high-risk customers for lenders.

What makes these numbers worse is that they are likely to grow in coming months, as financial missteps may not be reflected in credit scores for several months. With 26 million people out of work or underemployed according to the Department of Labor, there are a lot of people struggling to make payments without an income.

No one in America today is immune from identity theft – thieves continue to come up with new ways to steal the information they want.

Stealing your purse or wallet is, of course, the simplest method, but since you’ll notice that and cancel your credit cards, it’s also the least lucrative. Therefore, they prefer methods that you won’t catch unless you’re keeping a close eye on both your credit accounts and your credit report.

CardHub.com released a late payment study today that revealed a flaw in the way American Express communicates late payment status. We found that American Express is communicating to its customers that they are 25 days more past due than they really are. While this is undisputable and proved by a screen shot of my own past due account, many calls and e-mails to American Express’s customer service team, and even admission from the Public Relations team that this is a ‘nomenclature’ issue, an American Express spokeswoman characterized our study as ‘erroneous’.

The spokeswoman said, “We are not out of sync with the industry and you are providing an erroneous report to your readers.” However, it is difficult to understand how she could come to this conclusion when American Express has come up with a unique definition for ‘past due’ – a term that is otherwise clearly defined and universally understood to mean the number of days past the due date (this was the case for all other issuers in the study). At American Express, however, the spokeswoman explained that ‘past due’ refers to the aging of the account and is counted from the time the bill is generated, not the due date for the bill. The last thing that we need right now is for American Express, or any other bank, to come up with their own self-serving definitions for well defined and widely used industry terms.

In an uncertain economy, securing your financial future may seem harder and more important than ever. As anyone who has struggled with their finances knows, there is no magic formula to solving your financial woes. I recently spoke to Laura Rowley, Yahoo! Finance personal finance expert, who says that everything to do with money ultimately comes down to trade-offs.

“If you’re trying to get a handle on your finances, keep in mind that you’re paying for the things you buy with your life’s energy,” Rowley said. If you want a $500 Prada handbag, for example, how long and how hard do you have to work in order to get it?

It’s no secret that credit card companies aren’t always up front with their customers. There’s no way to truly know what you’re getting into when applying for a credit card unless you meticulously read the fine print (something few people have the time or patience for).

In case your one of these people who have better things to do than read your credit card agreement all weekend, here is a quick checklist of the absolutely essential information you should look for on your credit card application before you apply:

This guest post was written by Bob Brooks, host of the Prudent Money Radio Show and President of Prudent Money Financial Services. For more information please visit www.prudentmoney.com.

About a year ago, I wrote that things might really start to change in the process of how credit card companies go after consumers who have defaulted on their accounts.

A credit card agreement isn’t anyone’s first choice for reading material. The language is arduous and the terms are intentionally vague. That being said, it’s still important for consumers to understand the message that they are ambiguously trying to convey. The new credit card law (Credit CARD Act) was supposed to bring clarity, but some credit card companies are using old tricks in order to keep consumers in the dark regarding their protection from interest rate increases.

It used to be that credit card companies, such as Chase, Bank of America, Citi, and American Express, could re-price your APR on your entire balance for any reason and at any time. All they had to do was give you notice and there wasn’t a lot that you could do to avoid the increase. The CARD Act has certainly made the rules around rate increases better for consumers – but that hasn’t stopped credit card companies from trying to make you think otherwise. Although the fine print is confusing, you should rest easy knowing that the consumer protection rules in the CARD Act apply to all credit cards, with the exception of business credit cards.

This guest post is written by Ted Higgins, a financial writer for the Total Bankruptcy Blog.

During the World Cup, soccer players will flop, feign, and fall in order to draw penalties against their opponents. Unfortunately, this sort of scamming also occurs away from the field. In fact, major international events like the World Cup create a golden opportunity for criminals operating credit card scams.

Running your own business takes energy, organization – and a whole lot of money. Using a credit card for funding a small business can provide you with the resources you need when you don’t have the cash. However, due to small business credit cards’ exclusion from protection under the Credit CARD Act, you should think twice before carrying a balance on your small business credit card.

Even though it’s called a business credit card, the business owner is still personally responsible for the debt incurred at the end of the day. Since the owner is assuming this risk already, it makes sense to use a personal credit card for purposes such as funding or any other expense that you can’t pay back right away. This way the Credit CARD Act will provide the protection you need when carrying a balance.

The storyline in recent months has been that we are in better financial shape than we were this time last year. While that may be true by some measures, CardHub.com released the Q1 2010 Credit Card Debt Study this week, which revealed that consumers are on track to end up with more debt at the end of 2010 than 2009, despite positive signals in the economy.

The CardHub.com study focused on consumer debt data from the Federal Reserve’s G19 report in conjunction with quarterly charge off data to determine how much of the decline in consumer credit card debt is actually due to consumers paying down their debt versus bad debt being written off. The study also made projections on how much debt consumers will accumulate in subsequent quarters of 2010.

As we all know, the Credit CARD Act that came into effect earlier this year was meant to protect consumers from egregious practices by the credit card companies. By and large, the new rules do a good job in accomplishing this goal. However, there was one revision in the final draft of the bill around payment allocation that does not have the consumer’s best interest at heart.

The new payment allocation rules state that any payment above the minimum must be applied to the balance with the highest APR first. While this is an improvement from the previous payment allocation rules, it still offers no benefit to people who can only afford to pay the minimum payment each month – that’s 29 percent of Americans according to a FINRA National Survey.

Credit cards are a great addition to any trip, especially when traveling overseas. They offer some of the best exchange rates and the convenience and security of carrying around as little cash as possible. Using a credit card also ensures that you won’t be stuck with left over foreign currency at the end of your trip.

Knowing this, imagine that you go on a trip to Europe and spend $3,000. You use your credit card for most of your purchases because, in addition to the advantages above, you earn rewards in the form of extra cash or airline miles for every purchase you make. At each point of sale, the merchant asks if you would like to convert your transaction from the local currency into U.S. dollars. You say yes every time, and are satisfied with seeing your transaction in a currency that you are familiar with.

Recently I received a brochure from Capital One’s credit card division that summarizes the changes made on their monthly statements, as a result of the new credit card regulations. All credit card issuers have made similar changes, therefore I thought that a visual representation of the “new credit card statements” would be helpful in showing everyone what to expect.

There are 5 types of changes:

As you might have heard, the new credit card law (i.e. the Card ACT) went into effect yesterday. The provisions of the new law that will impact most of us are the ones around interest rates, overlimit fees, payment allocation, and monthly statements.

Here is a quick summary of what you should know so that you can take full advantage of these pro-consumer changes:

I pay my bills on time, have a cushion in my savings account, and don’t spend-and-burn. I’ve also worked with Card Hub since the beginning of time. So, I can honestly tell you I know that secured credit cards can be a super way to build or repair your credit history, and that I never imagined having one in my wallet, given that I have excellent credit.

This goes to show that one should never say “never.” Citibank has a cute little offer going, one that rewards account holders with a 4.07% annual rate of return, and rewards itself with a new base of no-risk credit card holders.

Here’s a new credit card scam for you. Cleverly enough, it convinces its victims to call a voicemail system and input the access data for their credit cards.

Victims in Kent County, MI reported receiving cell-phone texts and recorded calls that said that one of their credit cards had been deactivated. They were directed to please call  (616) 855-1134 to set everything right again.

It’s almost to the point that I don’t want to read the Business section anymore. Are you with me? And cognizant as I am that “if it bleeds, it leads,” it’s time for a feel-good financial-services story. So I emailed Liz Pulliam Weston, nationally syndicated personal-finance writer and author of many books, to “get her thoughts on the best and worst financial products and services of 2009.”

Tell you what: the woman’s smart with a capital MART, but I was surprised by her answer.

The credit card default rate in 2009 was the highest it’s been since 1991.  Also, in the last year, 15 percent of American adults, or nearly 34 million people, have been late making a credit card payment.  Due to the tough times we face, many cardholders have no other option but to miss one or more of their credit card payments.  But before they make the hard choice to do so, it’s important for them to realize that they may not only be damaging their credit score, but also sacrificing the benefits of their credit card rewards.

Though consumers are asking more questions about the ins and outs of the terms on their credit card accounts, most of the information that’s circulating around to satisfy these questions addresses finance charges and interest rates.  What about rewards?