Wells Fargo
Intro APR: 0% for first 9 months Regular APR: 7.65% to 21.15% (based on credit) Annual Fee: None but rewards program is $19 per year Earn 1 point for every $1 in net credit card purchases Earn 1 point for every $4 in net check card purchases (Excludes purchases made using your PIN) Expense report Online Banking/bill pay Set your own payment date Email alerts Issuer: Wells Fargo Bank

The Wells Fargo Credit card is actually a visa platinum card. They offer a 0% introductory rate for 9 months, and then the APR is a variable from 7.65% to 21.15% depending on your credit. There is technically no annual fee, however if you want a rewards program with this card, you will have to pay a $19 yearly fee. They also offer free online banking, an online expense report, and email alerts for account events like payment reminders and notifications when you are reaching your account limit. They have a feature that lets you set the payment date, which is nice if you are short on cash at certain times of the month, i.e. around the time that your mortgage is due, or if you go paycheck to paycheck.

Their website claims that you don’t need to have a banking account with them, however if you try to apply online, you’ll get a message saying that they aren’t accepting any new customers but that you can go to a branch and apply there. Basically they’re saying that you can go to a branch and open a banking account first, and then you can open up a credit account. There is also the option of using a check card versus a credit card with Wells Fargo. However, if you’re going to pay the fee to have the rewards program added onto your account, you should really go ahead and get the credit card because you can earn 1 point for every dollar spent on your card, which translates to about 1% cash back with their gift card values. Conversely, if you use only a check card, you will only earn 1 point for every $4 spent, so that is not very much at all. There are a bunch of different rewards, the standard stuff really, like gift cards, airplane tickets with no black-out dates, and merchandise from selected venders, etc. Your points expire five years from the date they were earned.

We know that so far this sounds like an ok credit card, which is true, but in the fine print you will read in bold: "You may not qualify for the lowest APRs disclosed above." We take this to mean that it is very difficult to get that 7.65% APR, and speaking from our personal experience of working with mortgages, while other companies offer a flat rate of 5%, Wells Fargo always started at 7%, which makes it very hard to get customers. So keeping this information in mind, it looks like it is merely a "decent" offer too good to be true.

We would really recommend that you apply for a different credit card, preferably one with better reward values that also comes with only one option for APR rather than a range.