essay help

Credit Cards; Sinister, Sneaky Debt Traps


Abstract

President Barack Obama signed the CARD Act in 2009, limiting Banks’ deceptive industry marketing techniques. Now legislation is tasked to protect credit cardholders taking advantage of the recent explosion of debt-trap, credit card offers. The offers are cyclical yet effective. They provide short-term relief (12-14 months, zero interest) and trap people into dependency on credit.

Credit Cards; Sinister, Sneaky Debt Traps

Remember the past so that it doesn’t repeat itself should ring in the ear of credit cardholders, as credit card issuers dangle a caret of zero-interest balance transfer rates under their nose. Yet as in pre-credit card legislation, cardholders might not see the writing on the wall.

The debt trap works, with $992 million credit card offers mailed in the first three months of 2014, up 72 percent from the same period in 2013. Banks are ready for an economic recovery when consumers open their purse, grab their 12-14 month, zero-interest credit card, and max them out. It seems to be another sinister, sneaky debt trap with card issuers pushing their card into consumers’ pockets for the Christmas time spending surge.

Credit cardholders rush in where wise buyers fear to tread

Credit cardholders’ “Bill of rights” (CARD Act), protects consumers from the credit card industry’s previously unregulated atrocities such as, imposing retroactive rate increases for cardholders when their credit scores dropped, even though their payments were on time.

The CARD Act has limited some of the industry’s deceptive practices, and saved consumers upward of $12.6 billion per year. However, predatory lending is on the rise as the industry haphazardly provides low-income or disadvantaged consumers easy credit card access.

Consumers desperate to save or fix their credit aligned with quick credit card access could usher in another maladjusted, hotbed of industry dirty tricks. Yet some economist firmly believe that access to credit is one way for Americans and the credit card industry to move forward. They point to the fact that nearly 30 percent of Americans are paying off their balances in full each month. However, a third of consumers still have trouble paying debts on time and 35 percent have debt in collections, according to a study of seven million Americans by the Urban Institute.

Conclusion

Legislation protects consumers from being duped by the credit card industry. While the US economy continues to recover, the credit card industry devises new money-making schemes that push credit cardholders deeper into debt, amid rising fees. There should be more viable ways for consumers and the industry to move forward without this new entrapment scheme.

Some credit card crisis’ can be avoided if consumers weigh their card’s pros and cons, read the fine print, look at the laws, and remain diligent in remembering the industry’s consumer disregard before legislation regulated their activity.

Learn more

Testimonials

  • Thank you so much for helping me write my IB extended essay. I am a foreign student and had a problem writing such a big and complex paper on my own. I was even planning to pay a professional writing service to have it written but my budget was too small. I will definitely recommend your blog to all of my friends.

  • At first I could not believe this academic resource does not charge for help. There are plenty of essay writing guides, tutorials and how-to's that any student can use to build a better paper. I appreciate all you've done for me.

  • I was looking for a free term paper sample as I am not quite good at formatting and found it here.

#