Young people now have another opportunity to learn how to get into debt—at an even younger age. Beginning this fall, teen idol Hilary Duff will endorse a new Visa card with her picture on it. The new card will specifically target children ages 6 to 13. Although the card will be a prepaid gift card, it will teach grade-school children that using “plastic” to charge what they want is the way to buy. Now, a 6-year-old can walk up to the counter and say, “Charge it!” without even understanding where the money comes from.

Appealing to youths’ desire to have the latest clothes, music and cell phones, lenders practically guarantee that young cardholders will become lifelong debtors. The average debt for college students who carry credit cards is close to $3,000—with 10% of these owing over $7,000!

Ninety-three percent of American teenage girls report that shopping is their favorite activity. Add this to the ease in the use of pre-paid cards and, as they grow up, the ease of obtaining a credit card—the obvious next step—and this becomes very dangerous thinking. Little does society realize the hazards of unchecked credit spending. Most will spend years trying to pay off mountains of debt that only took moments to incur. In reality, the buy-now, pay-later mentality is better described as “buy-now, agonize-later”!

Source: USA Today