Many people do not read their credit card agreements and who can blame them? They can be hard to read and even harder to understand. For example, look at this clause from, "Example of Credit Card Agreement for Bank of America® Platinum Plus® and Classic MasterCard® and Visa® accounts," offered by Bank of America. It uses typical language found in credit card agreements.

"This section provides the interest rates, also referred to as corresponding Annual Percentage Rates (APRs), which are applicable to your account. The APR corresponds to the Daily Periodic Rate (DPRs): the APR is equal to the DPR multiplied by 365 and the DPR is equal to the APR divided by 365. Interest charges are calculated by using the DPR. If a rate is a variable rate, we calculate that APR by adding together an index and a margin. For more information on variable rates, please refer to the How to Calculate Variable Rates section within this Agreement."

You may, with good intentions, open your credit card agreement with every good intention of reading it until you understand everything in it. But, after reading a dozen paragraphs like that one, you may decide to do what many people do: file it (or toss it) and forget it. That’s a mistake; reading your agreement is the only way you will know how your account works and your account is your identity, not only with that company, but to anyone who looks at your credit history.