Caught in the Credit Card Vise

"I 'm still paying for groceries I bought for my family years ago," said Julie Pickett. She meant it literally.

Mrs. Pickett and  her husband, Jerry, of Middletown, Ohio, are trapped in the iron grasp of credit card debt. Except for the fact that no one is threatening to damage their kneecaps, they're in the same dismal position as the classic victim of loan-sharking.
 

Erase Debt Now. (Lose Your House Later.)

MICHAEL A. KNOX thought he had run out of ways to pay off his credit card bills when he got the salesman's call two years ago. To wipe out his nearly $20,000 debt, he was told, all he had to do was take out a new, bigger mortgage on his house.
 

The Power Of Plastic

Sean Moyer, a National Merit Scholar, hung himself after he racked up more than $14,000 in debt.

(CBS) If the bill for America's love affair with credit cards came due today, it would cost $600 billion dollars, an expensive affair.

Modern-day loan sharks disguised in plastic
Today's loan sharks are no longer lurking on street corners or hiding in alleys, breaking kneecaps to collect their payments.

They now wine and dine with the president and other powerful political leaders, wear Armani suits, make hundreds of millions in total compensation and head banks like Citigroup, MBNA and Capital One.