Although there hasn’t been nearly enough time for the effects of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act — passed into law by the Congress of the United States of America in the late spring of 2009 (and implemented the beginning of last year) — to be properly assessed, commentators and pundits have nevertheless judged the legislation a qualified success.  However, as an unexpected consequence of the strengthened restrictions guiding interest rates and penalties levied upon unsecured lines of credit, borrowers have found their credit card debt account balances suddenly reduced without warning.  While we may all encourage the macro-economic rewards of restrained credit card debt usage by any means necessary, the constrained credit availability will inevitably seem far less desirable to consumers when their own financial opportunities are put in question. Furthermore, consumers — beyond, of course, the men and women below the age of twenty one...

Read more »

When surveyed about the reasons that they first take out a credit card, college students inevitably rank a concern for credit scores as their primary motivation, beating out even convenience and protection in case of emergencies.  To a degree, of course, this is utterly specious, and we would expect our most responsible and ambitious young Americans to underscore the importance of FICO and Vantage figures (highly complicated logarithms guarded zealously by the three credit reporting agencies and only vaguely understood even by seasoned consumer finance professionals) above their desires for late night pizza runs or shopping binges. All the same, though, it is true that credit card debt payments are an excellent means of creating and then elevating the three digit scores, and, furthermore, the credit bureaus will admit that the length of time that unsecured lines of credit are held in good standing also plays a significant role...

Read more »

Although the legislation empowering the Consumer Financial Protection division of the federal government won’t formally take effect until the third week of July, the largest corporations issuing credit card debt accounts have already started making changes to their policies in anticipation of the coming industry wide upheaval.  Thus far, while waiting for their formal mandate to begin, the CFP has limited its moves to the preparation of introductory literature and consumer friendly information on how best to avoid bankruptcy and develop a personal credit card debt relief plan that would fit the individual household’s current status.  As well, they’ve already designed a internet portal to be used as a virtual bulletin board for group counseling about credit card debt relief, and, despite little media attention and no advertising this far in advance of the bureau’s technical opening, a small community of aggrieved borrowers has already started posting advise and...

Read more »

Five out of six major credit card providers in the US have reported further reductions in credit card debt. Overall credit card debt stood at $785 billion at the end of March, according to the Federal Reserve. Figures for April show only Bank of America with increasing debt balances with approximately 1 in 12 in arrears. Best performing institution was Capital One with a default rate of 3.5%. This hardly reflects a strengthening of the consumer base since the financial meltdown of 2007/8. The explanation given by most analysts is that the reduction is due to the inability of customers with any payment problems in the past to get new cards. Nevertheless, there are ways that consumers can widen their choice of card, so click here to browse those on offer. Banks and other financial institutions have written off billions of dollars over the past few years and have...

Read more »

In this age of credit card debt relief nightmares, when so very many Americans find themselves in the position of begging lenders for debt settlement negotiation just to avoid bankruptcy, it seems a tad silly that anyone would spend time worrying over what they can’t buy through card accounts, but lending banks have increasingly decided to impose odd and arguably unfair restrictions upon consumer purchases.   While helping their clients through eventual debt relief by disallowing otherwise legal expenditures on gambling web sites or casino currency at least makes sense, the largest credit card debt companies are also have expanded the purchasing bans to cover such items as pornography and medical marijuana (currently legalized by more than a third of the United States ). Representatives of the creditors insist that these sorts of strictures are fully within their corporate rights and, rather than enforcing their notions of morality upon the...

Read more »

As a result of increasing public pressure for governmental support of debt relief measures (spearheaded by the ever more powerful advocacy groups tackling the basest tendencies of the credit card debt industry), commentators and pundits familiar with the goings on around Capitol Hill agree that our elected officials may soon have no choice but to bow to popular opinion and create a wholly separate branch of the Federal Trade Commission specifically designed to constrain the abusive practices of the burgeoning credit card debt collection market.  At the same time, however, the fairly explosive political landscape concerning interest bearing consumer debt loads raises very real fears that the implementation of any substantive changes may actually do more harm than good. The prospective Department of Consumer Financial Protection (one of several possible titles currently being tossed around Congressional back rooms) would not necessarily effect a notable improvement within the legislative oversight...

Read more »