If I were stupid enough to take this offer, the offer would never have been made in the first place.

So I got this credit card offer in the mail the other day: 0.00% APR for 12 “billing cycles,” which I figure means months, on any purchases we make with the card. Zero percent! My kind of rate!

After the first 12 months, it’s 13.99%. Variable.

And I’m left wondering: do I look that stupid? *

You know what really fascinates me about this: somebody, somewhere, must be saying yes to offers like this. Like those emails from the niece of the crown prince of Agorabezkistan, who needs your help moving $1,000,000,000.00 in American Dollars out of the country. Those emails keep coming, which means that sometimes, somewheres, they must be working.

Back to the credit card: if you’re willing to accept those terms, then are you really the kind of person who should be carrying credit card debt?

On the other hand, if you aren’t the kind of person who can be trusted with credit, should the credit card company be offering it to you in the first place?

Put another way: isn’t anybody who thinks that’s a good deal too dumb/undereducated/irresponsible to manage credit at those rates? But isn’t anybody who’s smart/educated/responsible giving it the same treatment that I did?

* I was going to name off the people who need not answer that question, but the list got longer than the post.