Your relationship with your credit cards, which might already be testy, may get worse.

The heat’s turning up, both on the industry and on borrowers, says Curtis Arnold, the founder of CardRatings.com, a very consumer friendly site. Arnold is the author of the just-published How You Can Profit from Credit Cards; Using Credit to Improve Your Financial Life and Bottom Line.

The pressure comes from several fronts. There’s the credit crunch. You may have noticed that some lenders are cutting or capping home equity lines of credit. So are credit card companies, Arnold says. If your credit score isn’t the highest, this could happen to you.

There’s the profit crunch, as defaults on credit cards have increased in the weak economy.

And, the industry is facing the possibility of tighter regulation by the Federal Reserve and other financial regulators. The proposed rules call for an end to some very consumer-unfriendly practices, such as cards hiking your interest rate on a balance after you’ve made purchases.

The banking industry opposes the new regulations and Arnold says the card industry has hinted at retaliation. “They say they’re going to have to get less aggressive, that zero percent offers may disappear and that super-low rate offers may disappear,” he said.

Caps, fewer tempting offers. What can you do?

You might want to transfer your balance to the lowest-rate card you can find. But be careful. Check to see if there’s a transfer fee. Arnold says those fees have been going up dramatically.

His best idea: Find a card that charges a low fee and offers a low rate on a transferred balance for as long as that balance exists.

Two he likes: Blue from American Express will charge you a fixed 4.99 percent rate for the life of the balance. The Advanta Life of Balance Platinum Card charges 2.99 percent.

Here’s his full list of low-rate balance cards.

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If your have a dispute with your credit card company, what can you do?

You need to know the ropes, if you're going to try to fight.

I say try, because in 0.16 percent of the cases handled by the National Arbitration Forum between Jan. 2003 and March 2007, consumers prevailed over the credit card companies. That is, credit cards 18,075 wins vs. consumers, just 30 wins.

The figures come from a lawsuit that the city of San Francisco filed against the arbitration company, claiming it almost always sides with the card company. The National Arbitration Forum, according to an article in BusinessWeek, is the dominant arbtration firm in credit card disputes.

What can you do? When you take out a card, you could try to opt out of mandatory arbitration, says Gerri Detweiler, author of The Ultimate Credit Handbook. If you are given the choice. Or, you could stuff a notice in the envelope with your payment saying you don't agree to arbitration.

But it's not clear to me that this will work. Any lawyers out there care to tell me what they think?

Best idea: Look for a card that won't force you into arbitration. Cards from credit unions might be a good choice.

For more, go to www.givemebackmyrights.org

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Many consumers will soon be able to learn their credit score, at no cost, and to have their credit report monitored, also for free.

But consumer advocates say the deal, which results from a stack of privacy lawsuits filed over the last decade, may not be as good as it seems.

TransUnion, one of the nation’s three major credit bureaus, will open the doors for an estimated 150 million Americans on Monday, June 16, Anyone who has had a credit card or loan at any time since Jan. 1, 1987, can get credit monitoring for free for up to nine months, according to a preliminary court settlement.

The catch: The credit monitoring is only for your TransUnion credit report, not from the three major credit reporting bureaus. And the credit score you're going to get is not the FICO score, which is the one most lenders rely on.

It's important to know about your credit score, especially if you have a big purchase coming up, says Linda Sherry, spokesperson for Consumer Action. But don't put too much faith into this score from TransUnion. "Some people call them Fake-O scores," she said.

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