The Warning Signs of Credit Card Abuse
Credit cards are easy to come by, easy to use, and hard to resist. The more often you use them, the easier they are to use. And the more banks and credit card companies know that you like using credit cards, the more they will offer you. This in turn will give you access to more cards, and the temptation to use them will increase. If this sounds like a familiar pattern, it is. As with anything that is easy to get and tempting to use, credit cards can be addicting and they can be abused.
Our current consumer society seems to be built on debt. There is good debt, such as student loans and home loans, and bad debt, consisting of credit card debt and other high-interest loans. There is even an “acceptable” level of debt, in comparison to “too much debt.” It is easy to see why it’s often so hard to tell which path you are on.
Luckily, there are warning signs that could indicate that you are either in the danger zone or heading there when it comes to the way you use your credit cards. Here are a few of the symptoms to watch out for. You may not have all of them, but if you have two or more, you may want to take a serious look at how you use and manage your credit cards.
1. You have more credit cards than photographs in your wallet.
2. You find yourself wanting to look only at the “minimum payment” on your credit card statements.
3. You actually pay only the minimum payment amount on your monthly statements.
4. You are afraid to answer the phone because it might be your credit card company calling because they didn’t receive your payment on time.
5. Your mailbox is always full of credit card offers and you actually read and consider each applying for each one.
6. You pay interest charges each month on all of your credit cards.
7. You think that having credit card debt isn’t really so bad.
8. You keep asking for higher credit limits and/or applying for new credit cards.
9. Your credit card is not always approved.
10. You have to try more than one credit card to find the one that still has a credit balance to cover the purchase you are making.
11. You are excited when you see a new credit card that you don’t already have.
12. You have already transferred your credit card balance more than once.
13. You have been turned down for a credit card or a loan.
14. You don’t know that credit card scores even go above 600.
15. You wouldn’t know how to survive without your credit card.
Clearly, some of these situations are more serious than others. Some of them even sound humorous – until they actually happen to you. The truth is that credit cards should not be used lightly. They affect one of the most important numbers in your life: your credit score.
If you do thin that more than a few of these symptoms apply to you, then you should take some steps to change the way you treat your credit. At the least, you should stop adding any new cards or new debt to what you currently have. The best choice is to start paying off your credit card debt and maybe even cancel some of current credit cards. The first step is to realize that you have a problem and admit it.