Best Credit Cards for You

>> Jill Schlesinger: If you have some complaints about your credit card company you're not alone. A new consumer reports poll found that 59% of cardholders are less than happy with their own credit cards. Mandy Walker is a Senior Editor at the Magazine and is here with more details. Hi Mandy.

>> Mandy Walker: Hi there.

>> Jill: So what is torqueing people off about their credit cards right now?

>> Mandy: A whole lot. Of all the services we rate and all the products we rate, credit cards are just about in the basement. They're just about at the bottom of the list. People aren't happy about a whole host of things. They're unhappy that their interest rates are going up for no reason, they've been paying on time, they're unhappy that their limits have been lowered and they're unhappy they've been hit with fees they didn't expect.

>> Jill: But isn't there some good news? What about all this credit card regulation and reform? Isn't the world going to get better for all these credit card...?

>> Mandy: Well a little bit better. The law won't do everything. It will help them in some ways; for example, credit card companies won't be allowed to apply a payment to your lowest interest rate first; they'll have to apply it to your highest interest rate payment first so that will help out a little bit. They won't let you go over your balance anymore, over your credit limit. They used to let your charges go through if you went over your limit and then hit you with a big fee. Well they're not going to be allowed to do that anymore.

>> Jill: And there's just going to be a lot more disclosure right? I mean they're going to have to just sort of tell you all the bad things they do.

>> Mandy: And they will have to do that somewhat now too. They have to give you notice, we're going to do this bad thing to you, so they'll still have to do that.

>> Jill: What if you are looking around for alternatives? You don't want to go to the big guys. What are some of the non-traditional areas that provide consumers with some help?

>> Mandy: Credit unions are a great place to look if you're looking for a new car. Credit unions are available to a lot more people so you actually might have one available to you even if you don't have one at work. For example, for your family, if some family member belongs to a credit union, you might be eligible for their credit union. A lot of them are regional now too. So you might just live in an area and have several that are available to you. And credit unions are very consumer-friendly; they cap interest rates if they're federally insured at 18%, so that's a great place to start. Also different associations you may belong to like the teacher's union. And also reward cards can be great if you pay off your balances each month. You'll want to look for ones that reward you the most for the places you spend money and look for cash back cards.

>> Jill: Well a lot of people carry balances. We don't like to tell them to do this but they are out there. Are there some specific places they can go to try to find a better deal? What's out there that's a good one that they don't know about right now?

>> Mandy: There are a couple that we found charge pretty low interest rates and are relatively consumer-friendly; I mean they're still credit cards. Hibernia Bank assumed spelling recently had an interest rate that was below 8% or around 8%; and Simmons Bank was around the same area, a little bit less in fact. They don't charge any annual fee as well.

>> Jill: What should people be ready to pay when it comes to credit cards right now, whether it's a new credit card or you're going and looking at your new rates that are coming in after this whole credit card inaudible get's done.

>> Mandy: If it gets done.

>> Jill: Exactly. What are we looking at for the rate?

>> Mandy: Average rates recently were about 14%; but if you have a good credit score you shouldn't be paying that much so if your rate does suddenly get jacked up you'll want to call your credit card company and try and negotiate with them, try and get them to lower it. If not, think about going somewhere else.

>> Jill: Well thank you so much Mandy. From Moneywatch.com, I'm Jill Schlesinger.

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