Credit Card defaults rising
U.S. consumers are defaulting on credit-card payments at a significantly higher rate than last year, according to a Financial Times report citing Moody's data. Credit-card companies were forced to write off 4.58% of payments as uncollectable in the first half of 2007, almost 30% higher year-on-year, the report said. But Moody's said the rate of losses remained well below the 6.29% average seen in 2004, a year before the US enacted a new law that made filing for personal bankruptcy more onerous, the report said.
Not a good sign and probably partially related to the credit crunch and housing slump. People expecting to take out home equity loans are finding they can't.
And on another level, I find the figures they give for not paying to be quite scary. If they are really not getting that much of their money, wouldn't it make sense to stop issuing cards to every deadbeat that asks for one?
Jay