Although it's not always good news, numbers can't lie. Throughout the United States, Americans are racking up some very unpleasant statistics regarding credit card debt. This trend seems to have begun in the 1980's, because it was during that decade that credit card use started to become more popular and eventually came to be a very normal way to make everyday purchases.

Additional Hard Sell Tactics

Another reason to be worried by the unflattering picture that such credit card debt statistics were showing is that the credit card companies began to do their best to find more innovative ways to sell credit cards to consumers and if you have checked your mail box, or watched TV or been otherwise bombarded by different marketing tools, you would realize the hard sell tactics that were used to get you to use credit cards.

As these advertisements began to affect consumers, cash became a less popular way to make purchases, and thus, at least partially, credit cards led to the rise of information age. When computers took hold in society, so did credit cards. It also led to the less than desirable rate of debt that statistics now present, since during the 1980's people used cash and checks less than credit cards.

And, when people became accustomed to using credit cards, there was a subsequent rise in credit card debts as well and according to available credit card debt statistics, the average American had run up debts to the tune of approximately nine thousand dollars per year that were directly attributed to use of their credit cards.

A common reason for such misuse of credit cards was that often the user mistakenly thought that he or she was using their own money when making credit card purchases.

However, the truth is that the money that you spend when using your credit card actually belongs to the credit card company, who are actually just lending you the money with the condition that you need to pay it back.

In addition to purchases made, interest also builds up in your credit card account, bringing debt to staggeringly high levels. The average interest rate on most credit cards is roughly fourteen percent, a rate that can quickly change a small credit card balance into overwhelming debt.