Reply #81: Um, you are legally obligated to make payments on your credit cards.

[backscatter712]

When you get a credit card, you sign a contract with the credit card issuer agreeing to pay the debts, fees, etc. as written in the terms. Granted, this is a civil legal matter, not a criminal matter, so unless fraud has taken place, we're not looking at people being arrested or going to jail.

But if you don't make payments on your credit cards, the lender or whoever the lender sells the debt to, probably some sleazy collections company, will sue you, get a judgment holding you liable for the debt, then use the judgment to do things like garnish your wages, seize your bank accounts, etc.

One bright side of being poor is that if you have little to no assets - no house to put a lien on, unemployed, no car (the car's gonna be repoed), etc. you end up in the state of being "judgment proof". That is, the collector will look at your assets, decide there's nothing they can take that would even cover the court costs, and hold off on suing.