Do you know what your credit card’s APR is? APR, or annual percentage rate, is the interest rate you’re charged at the end of each month if you don’t pay your balance in full.

Your APR can range from 0% to upwards of 30%, depending on your credit score. Credit card companies are charging all-time high interest rates, double or triple the rate of a mortgage or auto loan because 1) they’re in the business of making money and 2) they’re taking a risk by giving you an unsecured loan.

In other words, if you default on your mortgage or auto loan, the bank can take your home or repossess your car. But if you default on your credit card payments, the only thing banks can do is take you to court and fight for a judgment against you, which costs money.

“They’re pricing for risk on the front-end because it’s the first debt that gets discharged in a bankruptcy and delinquencies tend to be higher with credit cards” says Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate. While consumers with top-notch credit are getting low, single-digit APRs, consumers with a higher potential of default are paying those double-digit penalty rates.

Aside from your credit score, the baseline of your card’s rate is directly tied to the prime rate, or the benchmark interest rate set by the Federal Reserve. So when the Fed decides to increase the prime rate, your card’s rate moves in lock-step with it.

While the Fed can decide to increase the prime loan rate, credit card issuers are not allowed to raise rates on their own without notice, thanks to the passing of 2009’s Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosures Act that protects cardholders from shady tactics.

Prior to the passing of this bill, the credit card market proved to be a deceptive minefield for consumers. “Credit card companies were outrageously unfair to consumers and the Credit Card Act really made a huge difference in getting consumers to be treated more fairly. They could still charge us fees, but they couldn’t trick us anymore,” says Ed Mierzwinski, Consumer Program Director at the US Public Interest Research Group.

While Mierzwinski says the rule could use an upgrade, the best way to stop consumers from being cheated is to have a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the consumer watchdog agency, so it can go after unfair credit card practices. If you’ve been wronged by a bank, Mierzwinski urges all consumers to report it to the CFPB so they can document and track unfair or fraudulent trends.

When it comes to avoiding having to pay those high APRs, the best credit card behavior is, of course, to pay off your balance in full each month. But if you’re unable to do that, there are some ways to minimize the pain of APRs.