subject: How To Stay Fee Free This Year [print this page] In an ideal world of personal finance there wouldn't need to be any tricks to staying free of fees on financial products.
Fees would be fair, well thought out and clear to consumers. In that case, this article wouldn't even need to be written.
However, this is not an ideal world when it comes to financial products for consumers.
Go to compare credit cards and you'll immediately be met by a wave of fees of various kinds.
Those are just the ones that are visible at first glance as well: for example, when it comes to transferring a balance to a new credit card there is now pretty much a blanket agreement among providers that the transfer will entail a transfer fee.
This is now widely accepted as the norm but it wasn't always the case.
In the case of balance transfers and other kinds of credit cards there are now a number of such fees which are publicly agreed to be mandatory although no rule or law says that it's the case.
For example, when consumers come to compare current accounts many are now told that the account doesn't charge an interest rate for overdrafts.
However, overdrafts on most of these accounts are still subject to fees.
The fees are often levied over a number of days and can add up to a large amount in total. In many cases this would work out as a higher interest rate if it was worked out in terms of interest rather than in terms of fees.
So how should one stay free of fees on financial products?
Clearly according to this many are unavoidable but there are some which can be avoided first at the stage of choosing a financial product then at the stage of using that product on a day to day basis and finally in the case of evaluating whether the product should be switched when circumstances change.
In the first instance these resolutions require a certain amount of vigilance on the behalf of the consumer.
For example, when it comes to instant decision credit cards fees can fall be the wayside because information is not mailed out to the applicant before making the final application for the card.
In this case, looking for help online and, if possible, finding the full terms and conditions on the bank's site is preferable to not knowing about the fees which are being charged.
