Many credit card issuers have experienced problems with their loan portfolios as defaults increase. Instead of encouraging prudent usage, they are starting to cut off those that don’t spend on their cards! The target: Inactive credit card users with high limits. Often times, these are people with a strong credit score that have left open their cards to maintain it – and they could be in trouble.

Credit card companies are increasingly worried that inactive cards with large open credit lines present a real risk of fraud and large potential liabilities. As a result, many major issuers including Chase, Bank of America, American Express and Citibank have been slashing credit lines and closing accounts of those who do not spend on a regular basis – oftentimes without much notice!

The only way for consumers to stop this trend is to start spending on their cards again. Otherwise, credit card companies will keep shutting them down. In fact, Discover alone closed 3 million accounts in 2008 due to inactivity and plans to cut up to 2 million more. After all, there’s no sense in trimming the loan portfolios yet if they can reduce risk for free by cutting inactive users…