Senator Thomas Carper of Delaware recently admitted that he wouldn’t read the critical health care bill currently being debated before he voted on it, because the details were similar to the “gibberish” used in credit card disclosure forms. Putting dereliction of duty aside, he has a point that banks don’t make it easy to understand their terms and conditions. But just as he has a fiduciary obligation to understand what he’s voting on, you need to understand what you’re signing up for.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) found that these statements don’t lend themselves to easily comprehension.  A recent report stated that “Although credit card issuers are required to provide cardholders with information aimed at facilitating informed use of credit and enhancing consumers’ ability to compare the costs and terms of credit, we found that these disclosures have serious weaknesses that likely reduced consumers’ ability to understand the costs of using credit cards.”

Credit card issuers use the pages of legal mumbo-jumbo on their websites and monthly statement inserts as excuses to arbitrarily jack up rates and hike fees on unsuspecting consumers. This is exactly why Congress is looking to speed up enhanced regulation of the credit card industry. Even after these new rules go into effect, it will still be up to borrowers to know what their rights are and opt out of bad agreements.

How do you do that? Peruse the web for tips on how to read your credit card statement and how to choose a new credit card. It’s critical that you as a consumer understand rates, fees, legal rights and obligations and the terms under which the card issuer can change the existing payment structure. These should all be easy to decipher, and if there’s any confusion or ambiguity, it’s probably not in your favor.

Read and understand what you’re agreeing to! That’s plain English.

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That’s gibberish. Your credit agreements shouldn’t be. Don’t know what a particular clause or statement is holding you to? Ask a financially-savvy friend to review it and explain it to you. If they can’t, think twice about how badly you want to do business with that company.