subject: The Importance of Accurate Credit Card Debt Information [print this page] If we could find any silver lining from the post millennial recession that tore apart so many American industries (and still threatens the stability of leading financial indicators around the United States and our economic allies), there has been a sea change in the way that our countrymen and our government view unsecured lines of credit. Seemingly for the first time, people began to pay attention to their Visa bills, and, the more they looked into objective credit card debt information, the more upset they became. After more than a decade and a half of dismal forecasting for personal economic responsibility, commentators were pleasantly surprised to find that the uncertain financial prospects and double digit unemployment levels around so many parts of the nation actually had the effect of convincing ordinary consumers to reduce their levels of borrowing and increase the average household's savings accounts.
In fact, as credit card debt information became more of a topic and a larger portion of American citizens first took the time to sit down and think about just how long it would take to pay off their bills through minimum payments (and how much of that money would solely go to financing the interest), the private sentiments coalesced toward a groundswell of overwhelming mistrust as concerns the entire consumer finance industry. Regardless of the political reach and monetary dominion wielded by the largest credit card companies, the thrust of public opinion turned so far against the lending institutions that the United States House of Representatives had no choice but to formulate new legislation and credit card debt law meant to clean up the more ethically questionable corporate tactics.
Indeed, the most easily understood bits of the Congressional tinkering concerned such egregious and dastardly business practices that those Americans who did pay attention to the back pages of the newspaper tended to be aghast that something wasn't done sooner to protect unwary borrowers from such technically legal but thoroughly unfair scams as surprise interest hikes or intentional obfuscation of payment due dates. Previously, so long as some mention of the planned changes had been buried in the monthly billing statement's amassed fine print minutiae it's no coincidence that the lenders would splatter every available inch of the bills with credit card debt information ranging from the superfluous to out and out indecipherable the finance outfits could do just about anything they wanted without fear of government intervention. Thankfully, the new appreciation of transparency among the American public set in motion legislative constraints upon the appearance of consumer account statements.
Not only must warnings of rate increases or additional fees now be printed upon the most noticeable area of the bills the right upper corner the most vital credit card debt information has to meet a congressionally sanctioned font size. More useful yet, to better illustrate the true dangers of compound interest and inherent meaninglessness of minimum payments, the lenders shall also have to include a calculation of the money that the borrower had already paid in finance charges and how long it would take to satisfy the monetary obligations through the lenders' requested minimum. While there are always going to be a certain portion of borrowers who prefer to close their eyes and ignore the realities of credit card debt information so that they may continue to spend without conscience, an increasing number of consumers have had their first opportunity to truly think about the consequences of revolving debt lines and change their behaviors as a result.
The Importance of Accurate Credit Card Debt Information
