With the Christmas shopping season in full swing, Bermudians are set to get into record levels of debt this year, the Bermuda Credit Association (BCA) has warned.

Last year, companies handed over bad debts of $5.2 million for BCA to pursue.

By October this year, BCA was chasing debtors for $3.75 million, and yesterday, assistant manager Shirlene Nisbett said this will soar beyond last year's levels by the end of the year.

Horrendous cell phone bills are pushing up the bad debt levels, combined with a "who gives a damn" attitude to bills, said BCA General Manager Dora Whitecross.

She revealed one customer ran up a telephone bill of $100,000, while a cell phone owner was pursued for a $16,000 bill.

But this is only the tip of the debt iceberg, as the more than 400 companies which use BCA only turn to the service when they have hit a dead end trying to get back their money from spendthrift customers.

"It gets worse and worse and worse and worse every year and the attitude is 'I don't give a damn because I need the best and biggest'," Mrs. Whitecross told The Royal Gazette.

"I would say over the past ten years we've dealt with over $15 million or maybe $20 million. That's probably a conservative estimate, and it's going up.

"It is the attitude that stinks. No one cares, they think they can do whatever they please. They couldn't care less, and when we do get them here to get them a commitment to repay, they may pay twice, or for a month, and that's the goody goody ones.

"We feel that credit is way too easy to come by. Over the Christmas period, when they need to go away, and Cup Match (are busiest).

"And everyone wants to get these travel cards, so it is a revolving door and we never get out of this tunnel vision.

"It is a whole other society that has been born into this that says 'who is going to pay their credit cards off in full?'.

"Go into a bank and pay the full amount and the teller almost falls off their chair as if 'what's wrong with you?'"

She said residents need to take a "reality check" and live within their means this Christmas.

"They need to be realistic and know what their disposable income is and live within it and not be tempted by all the wonderful advertising," she said.

While many young people had a lackadaisical attitude to credit, older Bermudians in the hotel industry also got into debt problems recently because of the tourism slump after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Ms Nisbett said she was baffled by how telephone companies allowed customers to run up such enormous bills.

"We ask the same question when a bill comes in. How could you allow them to run up a bill so high?

"I suppose the telephone companies have the answer to that question because you would think that after month one they should be thinking about putting a stop to it. I raise my hands."