F*R*E*E investment letter www.mutualfundmagic.com Author of best seller "IF IT DOESN'T GO UP,DON'T BUY IT!" Never lose money in the market. Copyright 2004 Albert W. Thomas All rights reserved.Former 17-year exchange member, floor trader and brokerage company owner.

Thirdly, and this is sneakiest part of all, in order to secure 0% rate on your transfers, you are required to purchase a minimum amount on your card for several consecutive months. At first, this doesn’t sound so bad. However, fine print tells you that interest rate applied to these new purchases is NOT same 0% rate, but a different, much higher rate.

What’s more, all your payments will always be allocated to balance that will earn credit card company most money. This means that balances with lowest rates will be targeted first, while balance with much higher rate keeps accruing and compounding interest month after month. So, if you transfer a large sum in order to take advantage of this seemingly generous offer, you will likely be paying on it for a very long time before you ever get around to paying down mandatory purchases, which are racking up some pretty serious charges in meantime..

And we’ve only looked at interest rates here. There are also default penalties, late charges, over-the-limit fees, transaction fees, ATM fees, stop-payment fees, cash advance fees and annual fees, all of which are on increase. Over half states in union have no limit on what credit card issuers can charge for annual fees and yearly interest rates. These companies are gouging their customers with charges that are downright outrageous, and unfortunately for us, legal.

So how do you avoid falling into these sneaky traps that credit card companies set? If you are lucky enough to not be playing losing game of credit card roulette, for heaven’s sake, don’t start! If you are already involved, get out as fast as you can. Here are a few basic steps.

-Don’t carry a credit card. It’s amazing how easy it is to ignore this obvious first step.

-Apply any extra money to your debts first. If you’re saving a little nest egg earning at a rate of 5%, but you have debts gnawing away to tune of 12%, it’s not difficult to see that this is a losing proposition. -Target one debt for elimination at a time. Pick one that can be wiped out most quickly first.

-Take all extra money from first debt and apply it to your second target.

-Continue in like fashion until you have dug yourself out of this miserable pit.

And finally, breathe a major sigh of relief and vow never to pass that way again.