How would you feel when you receive this kind of email from your credit card company?

A few years back, though I was a hard working employee with good to excellent performance, when it comes to handling my finances I was totally clueless.

During that time, when I receive this kind of email from a bank I will feel happy and the first thought that comes into my mind is having instant cash (with background sound effects of “caching”).   As they say, “cash is king.”

The beauty of this promo is that I will not have to save money for a very long time to achieve this kind of amount of money, it only takes 2 minutes.  To further entice you, they will throw in some other promo like a gift voucher or whatever gift if you avail of that promo.

But what I didn’t realize is that:

• Interest amount is ridiculously so high. How can I think this when it says “Converted Monthly Factor Rate: As low as 1.99%”?  So apparently, the only thing that registered in my mind is the 1.99% but not the fact that it is a monthly factor rate with monthly being the key word should be underlined, with bold font.  There is a big difference with the term monthly and annually and it comes to a factor of 12 months.
• I am getting an instant cash but I will be tied up to paying it for 5 years. Marketing prefer to use months instead of years maybe because it’s all about perception.  Months seems shorter than years.  But if you really think about it, 60 months is equal to 5 long years.
• That gift voucher or whatever gift they gave you for availing of that promo is actually not a gift. You actually paid for it and more.

If you do the math,

Click for Cash amount:                   189k Php (5.6k SGD)

Monthly Installment due:            6,911 Php (203 SGD)

Total amount paid for 5 years:    414, 660 Php (12.2k SGD)

Total interest paid for 5 years:    225, 660 Php (6.6k SGD)

 

The verdict: DO NOT Click that Click for Cash 🙂