So here is an article about how hard it is to read credit card agreements.
Apparently, “average” Americans read at a 9th grade reading level (and people wonder why I tell my children average isn’t good enough in this house), and the average CC agreement is writted at a 12th grade reading level. So, you see, CC agreements are “unfair”.
“It is clear from your study that something must be done to make these agreements easier to read,” says Lauren Z. Bowne, staff attorney for Consumers Union, the nonprofit owner of Consumer Reports magazine.
Oh look…there it is. “Something must be done“. The cry of the whiner whenever he doesn’t like reality, and wants it “fixed” to his standard, but is unwilling to take his own action. Something must be done! HE won’t do it, you see, because he hasn’t (and can’t or won’t) thought through what’s actually “wrong”, the ramifications of changing it, or even how one might go about doing so…that’s for “others” to do.
The article goes on to explain why various experts think card agreements are hard to read (more on this in a minute), which cards are “best” or “worst” (I have to admit…I laughed that one of them has an agreement roughly 5 times longer than the US Constitution), avd so on. In fact, at one point, they even take a break to explain why it’s prefectly ok that people with 12th grade educations read at 9th grade levels…perhaps a post for another time.
The real issue here, however, seems to have been covered fairly early in the article:
“Credit card contracts and other such documents are written in dense prose for a reason: So that the customer will NOT be able to understand it,” notes Roy Peter Clark, a national expert on writing and a senior scholar at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla
Uh…duh?
Really? Credit card issuers try to conceal the fact that they wish to play the master to your slavery? REALLY? Someone alert Ted Koppel.
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Of course, mentioned not once in the whole article is the rather obvious way to “solve” this problem…
Don’t use credit cards.
Amazingly enough, when you stop paying through the nose for the privilege of buying things you can’t afford to impress people you don’t like….you stop worrying about the conditions of doing so!
And that, really, is the whole issue here…
Credit is not a “right” or a “need”. It is a CHOICE one makes. If you can’t or don’t want to understand the conditions of your CHOICE, then…don’t choose that option! This isn’t a “something must be done” situation…it’s a “I signed a contract I couldn’t or wouldn’t read, and now I want someone to fix my stupidity situation.
Wah. Get over it. Pay your stupid tax, and stop entering agreements you don’t understand to buy things you can’t afford.
