The Hidden Cost Of Credit Card Debt

Unfortunately, the sad truth is that figures do not ever lie and when things are not going the way that they should be they can make one feel very insecure and result in much reason to be concerned. This is what is happening in the United States, where it seems that Americans are increasingly becoming burdened by debts, and credit card debt statistics show that this trend has been steadily rising ever since the eighties, because that was the period when credit card usage increased considerably and was fast becoming the normal mode of transacting purchases and sales.

Additional Hard Sell Tactics

As reported statistics regarding credit card debt got worse and worse, credit card companies went on the offensive. They started to produce lots of advertisements, trying to entice new customers. Hard sell tactics started being applied and offers for credit cards now show up on TV and in the mail.

Thus, the eighties saw a shift from the cash-based society towards using credit cards, which in turn can be attributed to the beginning of the information age. With more computers being used to do various tasks, it led to more people also using credit cards and according to some revealing credit card debt statistics of those times, there were more people using credit cards than were using checks or cash in a single year.

And, when people became accustomed to using credit cards, there was a subsequent rise in credit card debts as well and according to available credit card debt statistics, the average American had run up debts to the tune of approximately nine thousand dollars per year that were directly attributed to use of their credit cards.

A common reason for such misuse of credit cards was that often the user mistakenly thought that he or she was using their own money when making credit card purchases.

This erroneous belief is not true in any way and is dangerous. The money used to make purchases on credit is that of the credit card company and it is your responsibility to return all money you borrow in accord with the terms you agreed to when your credit card was issued.

In addition to purchases made, interest also builds up in your credit card account, bringing debt to staggeringly high levels. The average interest rate on most credit cards is roughly fourteen percent, a rate that can quickly change a small credit card balance into overwhelming debt.