If you are the owner of a credit card that you may not use very often, you had better double check your credit limit before making your next purchase with it. Credit card companies have been slashing the credit limits of their customer's cards thanks to the current financial global crisis as a pre-emptive measure, and many of the consumers being affected the most include older customers, those who have lost their jobs, and the aforementioned customers who simply do not use their cards very much.

The slash in customer's credit limits - and in some cases total use of the credit cards all together - started about a year ago when the internet bank Egg pulled the credit on 161,000 of their customers after only giving them 35 days' notice. The bank was attempting to limit their exposure to customers with bad credit records, regardless of whether or not the customer's record with Egg was poor. Egg set what is turning out to be an extremely aggravating precedence, as many other banks, financial institutions and building societies are starting to do the same thing.

Some of the banks are using credit reference agencies to review their customer's lines of credits and making their decisions on whose credit limit to slash and who to leave alone, based on what they are seeing. They are not taking into account the customer's previous record with the bank, slicing the credit limits of people who have never missed a payment, paid their bills in full, or have been a customer in good standing for numerous years. One customer who had a clean payment history and had even paid off their mortgage and all of their loans received a letter from their credit card company telling them they had their limit reduced because the bank felt that the customer was ‘overcommitted' and possibly even needed debt help, insulting the customer.

According to Steve Willey, the head of credit cards at the popular website MoneySupermarket.Com, getting regular credit behavioural information from the crediting reference agencies has become a practice with the credit card companies. "Some credit card companies have an age threshold, but they don't talk about it. When they are assessing risk, one of the factors they will look at is mortality risk. Although outstanding credit card debts can be reclaimed from somebody's estate if they die, companies try to avoid having to do so as it is not good publicity," he says.

Barclaycard, another popular financial institution in the United Kingdom that reduced the credit limit of about a million customers in 2007, did so on the basis of the customer's records showing that they were not currently employed. According to their spokesman Andrew Bond, this was not a controversial move and that the company was acting as ‘responsible lenders'. "If we turned a blind eye and let people increase their debts when they are unemployed, we would be criticised," he says.

Consumers need to verify their credit limits before using their cards if they have not received any notification from their lender about their credit limits being changed. Many of the banks and financial institutions are not affording their customers warnings, and consumers can protect themselves from embarrassing situations ahead of time.