I've got a love/hate relationship with credit card companies. On one hand credit cards make it easy for BV to sell software over the internet. On the other hand chargebacks and fraud with credit cards is a royal pain with limited protection for merchants. I watched a great episode of Frontline on PBS about the Secret History of Credit Cards.

The most surprising revelation was that most credit card contracts include a clause called "Universal Default." Basically, if you make a late payment to any other lender or company the credit card issuer can automatically raise your interest rate. If you're on vacation and forget to pay Comcast on time your Visa interest rate can jump from 18% to 25% without warning. 

Credit card companies are the only lenders that get to decide how risky you are when they issue you credit AND change their minds about how risky you are later too. My bank doesn't get to raise my mortgage payments because they think I'm riskier now than when I signed up for my mortgage so why should credit card companies get that ability? Sounds like a huge loophole that lets credit card companies jack up your rates almost at will.

Anyways, if you found this interesting you can watch the whole episode online.