There are many tricks that credit card companies use to make more money out of you. When they increase your credit limit without asking you, send you unsolicited credit card cheques or offer you a so-called ‘prestige’ credit card, their sole aim is to persuade you to spend – ie: borrow – more and pay as much interest as possible.

An equally important source of income for credit card issuers is Credit Card Repayment Protection (CCRP), which they will try and flog to you every time you take out a new card.

Never borrow heavily and regularly, making only the required minimum payments – you will never get around to fully paying off your credit card. Card issuers will also charge you penalties and fees whenever possible: withdrawing cash, paying late, exceeding your credit limit, asking for duplicate receipts or statements and so on.

If you have a credit card, you should know some ways to protect your good credit. The basic is the same: use your credit card wisely and safely.

There are many tips to help you do so. If you find a mistake on your bill, you can dispute it If you can’t get credit then a secured credit card gets you started. If billing dates are getting difficult to manage, you can change the due dates to suit your needs.

• Shop safely on the Web 
• How to dispute a credit card purchase 
• Charging your way to free travel 
• Using a credit card to establish good credit 
• Changing the due date on your credit card

Read more on BankRate.

Credit card companies take a percentage of all sales from gas stations. As oil prices continue to rise, consumers may end up having to pay more of the costs.

Credit card companies charge merchant fees – this is a percentage of the sales made by the retailer, store owner, or seller. These merchant charges eat away the profits from the fixed per-gallon cost that gas pump owners add onto pump prices. That’s why some stations raise prices to keep their profits stable. However, many others do not want to jeopardize their competitive advantage and take the hit in profits themselves without passing it onto the consumers.

Read more on CNN Money.

After oscillating up and down in the first few months of the year, mortgage rates have finally dipped.

According to the Bankrate.com national survey of large lenders:

Benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 3 basis points to 6.13%.
Benchmark 15-year fixed-rate mortgage remained at 5.71%.
Benchmark 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage dropped 9 basis points to 5.87%.

(A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point).

You can read more at BankRate.com.