Credit card issuers lead their consumers up the garden path with obscure bills

The Australian group, which tracks the clarity and efficacy of communications between corporations and other organizations and the people they serve, presented last week the results of a new international research that showed most of credit card users across the globe have little idea of how their statements should be understood. The survey covered credit card statements received by consumers in Australia, Argentina, Austria, Chile, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Credit card statements issued by most banks and other card issuers around the world are "virtually incomprehensible,” the study found. Reading the bills they receive cardholders cannot determine how much credit they used, how long it will take to repay their debt or how much interest they are racking up. While some customers can at least discern suspicious practices of credit card issuers who play with payment due date and total balance, a great deal of card users cannot find that most fundamental of information on their statements. 

The study showed that American cardholders have the most difficult statements to comprehend. One statement from an unidentified U.S. credit card issuer earned a score of 32 percent on a test with a minimum passing grade of 81 percent. It was the second-worst performance in a test that examined 11 statements from nine countries. 

"This is frightening because it suggests there are many people all over the world who get into difficulty with their credit cards and they won't quite know why they're having this trouble, and they won't be able to control what is happening to them," said David Sless, director of the Communication Research Institute, which conducted the study. 

Sless said he was appalled by the result: Not a single statement passed the test. Meanwhile, consumers around the world are trying to stay afloat in a $40 trillion ocean of credit card debt. 

"To be easily understood, people should be able to find at least 90 percent of what they are looking for on a credit card statement and then use appropriately 90 percent of what they find," Sless said. "The only information that can be found reliably on the statements we tested is the name of the organization sending it and the person it is addressed to. Everything else falls well below an acceptable level."