It all seems so easy. You open your mail and find that one of the biggest banks in the country wants to give you a credit card. A letter from the bank's executive vice president tells you that your superior credit qualifications entitle you to the best, most prestigious piece of plastic in the world. You don't even have to fill out an application. Just sign on the dotted line and two weeks later, it arrives: your major credit card. 

You whiz on over to the shopping mall, pick up a few things you don't really need, plop down the plastic on the counter, and it's all yours. No pain, lots of gain. 

Until the bill arrives, that is. 

You can't believe your eyes. You really charged $1,500 worth of stuff that day? And the credit card company is really going to charge you twenty-three bucks in finance charges in one month if you can't pay the bill off? Soon, your major credit card is giving you a major headache. 

This scene has probably been repeated countless times across the country. With more than six thousand financial institutions pushing Visas and MasterCards, plus countless others hawking department-store cards, charge cards, and gasoline cards, competition for customers is stiff. Lenders are scrambling to attract new customers, each claiming it offers the best credit card. Millions of offers for easy credit flood Americans' mailboxes each year.