Here’s an interesting video online. It deals with various aspects of the credit card industry.
Check it: Frontline: Secret History of the Credit Card Industry
Here’s an interesting thing the video starts out with: Citibank moved to South Dakota because they have very lenient usury laws and there was a Supreme Court decision that allowed banks to export its interest rates to other states. Wherever the credit decision is made, that’s the place where you can apply interest.
Towards the end of chapter 2 there is a bit of foolishness displayed. There’s a group of people who have the money pay off all their debt, but don’t want to because they feel safe with that money in the bank. IMHO they would be a lot better off not paying double interest rates on their balances because in reality they’re gonna have to pay that off sooner or later… it only gets worse later.
If your dumb enough to run up debt and not check your APR, you deserve to pay ridiculous interest.