0% cards have the most catches

Borrow for nothing. What could possibly go wrong?

The answer is: Lots. On the whole, it's the cheaper forms of borrowing that come with the most catches, as you'll see now.

Borrowing on a 0% cardCredit cards allow you to make purchases interest free if you pay off the balance in full every month. Some cards have introductory deals that allow you to make purchases interest free over longer periods: so-called '0% on purchases deals'.
Other cards come with balance-transfer deals, which allow you to transfer debts for an interest-free period, although this typically costs a 3% up-front fee. However, a 3% fee is more than 3% APR, as this article explains. This is just one way that credit cards can deceive us or trick us into paying more than we realise.

Credit cards can be the cheapest way to borrow if we use them correctly, but they also come with the most catches.

Read Beware these 19 credit card tricks to find out more.
Borrowing at 8% to 12% APR with a loanNext we have unsecured personal loans. The cheapest right now are advertised at a little under 8% APR, although I explained in this article how the APR can be seriously manipulated, particularly if there is a compulsory payment holiday at the start of the loan.

Some unsecured personal loans charge over 20% APR, but 12% APR is the most you should consider paying on any form of borrowing without getting advice. If you're unable to borrow at 12% APR or less, you should consider other debt solutions first.
Some of the tricks loan providers use are similar to credit-card providers, such as atypical APRs, big penalties for small mistakes and over-priced protection insurance. A different trick is to decline your application and refer you to other lenders, which will pay the original lender a fat commission if you take up their much more expensive products with worse terms and conditions.

Another trick is an annual payment holiday, which will increase the interest you pay every single month until the end of the loan.

One particularly nasty trick that people aren't made properly aware of is that unsecured debts can still be secured against your home if the lender can obtain a court order, and this can lead to repossession of your property if the lender is able to obtain a second court order. The larger your total debt, the greater the risk of a repossession order being granted on an unsecured debt.
Despite these tricks, cheap, fixed-rate personal loans come with far less booby traps than credit cards.