Secret History of the Credit Card (2004)
Secret History of the Credit Card(2004) This Frontline documentary focuses on how credit card companies, since 1981, have increasingly avoided previously restrictive usury laws and have imposed a plethora of fees on credit card users. Some of the problems include: contracts that, in tiny print, permit a credit card company to increase interest rates (at times double) for a number of scantly-related activities and to increase fees to users; and a failure by the Federal government and Congress to curb deceptive practices. The credit card business, with profits of over $30 billion in 2004, has an extremely potent Washington lobby.
Clearly credit card companies how sought to maximize profits by pursuing consumer-unfriendly practices. Credit card user complaints rank as the largest single category of business-related complaints. From a focus group of credit card users, it is evident that credit card holders are generally uninformed about the nature of their contract with a credit card company. Certainly credit card companies are guilty of questionable business practices. However, this one-sided documentary does not mention that credit card users frequently are irresponsible in their ‘spend now’ habits that often result in unmanageable debt. In 2004 only 55 million of 144 million credit card holders paid off their total debt monthly. This contributes to nearly 2 million personal bankruptcies annually. A www.pbs.org website provides helpful consumer information related to credit card practices and how one’s credit score is calculated.
