It’s bad enough if you end up in some financial difficulties yourself and harm your credit rating, but if someone steals your identity and you end up with a bad credit rating without doing anything yourself, that can be very annoying and extremely inconvenient. Not only that, it’s becoming increasingly common, as we leave details of our identities in more and more places. (more…)

You’re on vacation abroad and enjoying lazy days on a tropical beach, shopping for souvenirs and eating some of the local cuisine. It’s very convenient to cover these costs using your credit card - no need to convert cash to the local currency or try to work out foreign bank machines.

You might be in for a shock when you get back home and read your next credit card statement. Your credit card provider is probably charging you a “foreign currency conversion fee” of up to 3%, and sometimes another “transaction fee” on top of that. Additionally, some overseas merchants will charge you up to 6% to convert the cost into US$ before they charge it to your card.
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