Suppose that you receive a bill from your card issuer this month for charges that you made last month for a refrigerator - let's say $1200. You send a check as payment for $600, half of the charges. In the next month, when the bill comes for $600, how much will your finance charges be based on? Only the $600 that you owe?
The previous $1200 plus the $600 remaining.
How can banks get away with this? Congress tells them that they can. (Congress oversees banking issues.) There are no laws against it. You can be charged interest twice on the same dollar. Nice business practices the banks have. Would you like to charge your customers one and a half times for the work that you do just once?
Before applying for any credit card, ask the card issuer whether they have double-cycle or dual-cycle billing. The largest companies do. Look for one that does not. You will save yourself a pile of money in the end if you are not in the habit of paying off your balances every month during your grace period.
You have almost unlimited opportunities to say "yes" to bad ideas. Don't make this one of them by taking a credit card from a cardsharp.
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