Excessive credit card debt
Most people advocate the case of credit cards, quoting the benefits and convenience that
arises from them. However, there is another group/line-of-thought that strongly opposes
credit cards. The reason being ‘Excessive Credit Card Debt’, which is one of the most
serious problems faced by the credit card holders and credit card industry. However, you
can’t pull the shutters on the credit card industry just because of a few irresponsible
people (or even if it’s more than few). That is not a solution for beating excessive credit
card debt. Moreover, you can’t overlook the benefits associated with the credit cards.
The issue of excessive credit card debt can be looked at from 2 angles. First is
addressing of the excessive credit card debt problem at the industry level and second is
the addressing of the excessive credit card debt problem at the individual’s level i.e. at
the credit card holder level. The first method involves increasing awareness of the
excessive credit card debt problem to the masses. This is more or less being done
currently too. However, there should also be an effort to tackle this problem of excessive
credit card debt at an even deeper level. This means trying to devise a mechanism to nip
the problem (of excessive credit card debt) in the bud. This mechanism should actually
be a part of the overall system. A lot of thought needs to go into devising such a
mechanism. Case studies should be taken up, statistics gathered and a proper forum
formed (with representatives from the credit card holders and from the credit card
suppliers). As of now, the credit card suppliers just seem to be engaged in coming out
with new products and getting customers enrolled to those products. There is little
attention paid towards addressing the problem of excessive credit card debt in the real
sense. Something like attending mandatory seminars on the root causes of excessive
credit card debt could be made part of the credit card application process. Another way
of dea