ATLBob

Capital One Defies Even Constanza Logic

There have certainly been predatory late fees, way too much fine print and many indiscriminate changes to terms and conditions applied by the credit card companies, and I'm fine with reasonable legislation outlining guidelines to protect consumers that also allows the companies to engage in a profitable business. The root cause of the problem continues to be that too many people carry high credit card balances because were not prudent with the use of their credit cards when the economy was humming and credit was easy and available. Whenever you run up your card balance for purchases that you WANT, you accept the risk that if your economic circumstances change (i.e.--you lose your job, your bank cancels your HELOC due to the decline in real estate valuation), you won't have the available capital or capacity to pay your bill on time, and you won't have enough credit left to help pay for the things you NEED. The moral of the story is simple: pay down your credit card debt ASAP and then only charge what you can afford to pay-off in full each month.