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| | BetterMyRates.com - Credit Cards |
 | | Fees for cash advances, balance transfers, and quasi-cash transactions like the purchase of lottery tickets significantly raise the cost of these transactions. |
 | | For example, if XCard has a transaction fee of 3% and a minimum of $10, a cardholder who receives a $50 cash advance will be charged the minimum, $10, which amounts to an actual transaction fee of 20%. |
 | | The average penalty APR—a higher interest rate triggered by a late or missed payment—is nearly eight percentage points higher than the average regular (non-penalty, non-introductory) APR. In 1998, by contrast, penalty APRs were an average of 4.5 percentage points higher than regular APRs. |
| bettermyrates.com /creditcards.cfm (626 words) |
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