Credit Card Debt Reduction: Is A Time Bomb Ticking?
Many of us who carry balances on credit cards feel confident that we have our finances under control. We limit our charges to basic necessities (and the occasional extravagance), and we keep up with our monthly payments. Perhaps we even add an extra $20 or $50 to the minimum due in order to gradually pay down our principal. We are confident that we are being responsible consumers, and our confidence would appear to be well placed – after all, we are playing by the rules. However, what most of us don’t realize is that we are sitting on a financial time bomb which threatens to explode at any time, wrecking sheer havoc with our finances. This hidden menace is often buried deep with the fine print of our credit card user agreements, and this hazard is deceptively simple and insidious. Worse yet, millions of consumers have fallen prey to this very trap in recent years. What is this hidden menace? Simply a clause that allows many credit card companies to raise interest rates almost at will.
