Originally posted by: dullard
Originally posted by: zoiks
They even have a balance transfer fee now?
Balance transfer fees have been around for years. Luckilly, there have always been cards without them. If you ever do transfer a balance, be careful. There can be a fee to transfer IN and another fee to transfer OUT. Typically, the fee is 3% with a cap. But in the last year the caps have often disappeared from new cards. So in a bad scenario, you'll pay 3% to transfer out and 3% to transfer in, for a total of $300 on that $5000 balance.
If you do that bad transfer, you'll need to invest at >6% (6% of $5k in a year is $300) to make any money on this deal. Since that investment is taxable, you really need a 8%+ investment to break even. And now, you can see that the 0% credit card idea can have serious flaws if you happen to get cards with balance transfer fees.
Even if you don't have balance transfer fees, using credit cards at 0% can hurt you. You might not get a job, an apartment, etc. You might pay more for insurance and other items.
ATOT's own example (one of several). And then you could potentially pay more for loans and mortgages.
Play your cards right (bad pun), and you can make a little bit of money with 0% credit cards. Play them wrong, and you'll lose big time. You may lose even if you THINK you are gaining (because you often won't know you are paying more for insurance or that you were rejected from your job application). Plus, with the credit crunch that is happening now, 0% cards MAY be going the way of the dodo bird, so you might get stuck with a massive bill and no where to transfer it.