Credit card companies have gradually been inching up interest rates over the last year according to a recent survey by Consumer Action. The San Francisco-based consumer group released their latest annual credit card survey today that explored the reasons for the increases. This report was compiled by researching the pricing policies of 146 cards from 47 issuers.

They found that universal default rates and penalty fees are up across the board and at all time highs. One of the causes from this is many card issues have decreased the grace period allowed before imposing penalty rates to only one month. Another key reason is that credit card interest rates are tied to the prime rate which has increased by two percentage points since the 2004 survey.

The other key factor is the increase in the universal default rate. This rate increase is enforced even though you may have a perfect history with your credit card issuer. If you miss a payment on any of your cards or lines of credit, the rate for all your cards can increase. This is a recent trend that is starting to catch on by issuers. This year 45% of all issuers now impose a default universal rate.