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Millions of Americans are still working to find debt relief and get out from under the burdens of the credit missteps they may have made in the past, and that has likely prevented them from generally feeling good about their lenders.

Credit card lenders are the companies that consumers are least likely to forgive when they have a bad customer service experience, likely owing to years of acrimony built up during the recent recession, according to the latest annual Forgiveness Ratings issued by the Temkin Group. The company reviewed customer sentiment for 18 industries, and credit card issuers ranked the lowest by far, with just 13 percent of consumers willing to forgive their lender for a bad customer service experience.

However, it should also be noted that as the economy improves, so too has consumer sentiment toward these companies, the report said. Though only 13 percent of consumers said they'd forgive their lender, that's more than four times greater than the 3 percent who responded similarly last year.

Consumers may be feeling better about their lenders because their personal economic situations are improving and they're getting a better handle on paying down their credit card debt.

In the past few years, a number of laws have been passed to help protect consumers from carrying more credit card debt than they can afford. But one group that was supposed to have been specifically safeguarded might not be receivingthe security intended.

Young adults under the age of 21 were supposed to see their protections increased under the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, but it seems that hasn't entirely been the case, according to a new study from Professor Jim Hawkins of the University of Houston Law Center. Among the findings of the study are that 68 percent of college students under the age of 21 have received direct credit card offers in their own name by mail in the past 12 months, and 40 percent reported seeing college students given gifts in return for signing up for credit cards, though this practice is expressly prohibited by the Credit CARD Act. Further, 27 percent of those under 21 said they were able to list their student loans as income in an attempt to qualify for a card in their own name without a co-signer.

Another area of concern the study highlighted was the relationship between colleges or associated groups and lenders, the report said. Hawkins examined 300 such marketing agreements from both 2009 and 2010 and found that about 64 percent of these documents were unchanged from one year to the next despite the Credit CARD Act taking effect early in 2010. Many of these deals were terminated, but only two specifically listed the regulation as the reason for it being shut down.

"If Congress was concerned about people under 21 receiving credit card offers in the mail, it could directly prevent that conduct by making it illegal to mail anyone under 21 a credit card offer," Hawkins said. "Similarly, if Congress was concerned about abusive terms in the agreements between credit card companies and colleges, it could directly forbid those abusive terms instead of just requiring companies disclose the agreements."

Consumer advocates have noted that credit cards can be particularly troublesome for college students because it might prevent them from being able to gain financial independence after graduation, and could lead to their needing significant debt relief down the road.

When making efforts to deal with credit card debt responsibly, it seems women might have more difficulties than their male counterparts.

Women tend to make a larger number of mistakes when dealing with their credit card balances than men do, including carrying balances from one month to the next and not comparison shopping when seeking a new account, according to new data from FINRA. In all, 60 percent of women said they carried a balance regularly, 9 percent more than men. Moreover, 42 percent of women made a habit of making only the minimum payment to their lender every month, compared with 38 percent of men.

Further, when it came to looking for a new card, just 31 percent of women compared a number of accounts to find the best deal possible, the report said. Perhaps as a consequence, women tended to face higher interest rates on their credit cards than men did, regardless of their financial literacy.

Consumers who face higher interest rates may be more likely to run into rapidly-expanding balances if they don't pay their bills in full every month. This may require them to seek debt relief as they attempt to get their finances in order.

The way in which consumers currently deal with credit card debt could soon become a thing of the past.

A recent poll of experts found that 65 percent believe mobile wallet technology – in which payments are completed with near-field communications-enabled smartphones – will become so ubiquitous within the next few years that it will have largely supplanted traditional credit card use and even cash by 2020, according to new research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. However, another 33 percent say that consumer's concerns about the privacy and security of their payment data will prevent this technology from becoming too popular.

Already, a number of companies are developing and pushing their own mobile platforms and it's expected that a larger number of smartphones will come with the necessary NFC technology embedded within the next year or so.

The financial management tools that may come standard with a mobile wallet program – such as the ability to track spending and move funds around with greater ease – may actually be helpful in allowing consumers to avoid borrowing too much, and possibly even help them find some debt relief.

Despite recent laws designed to prevent young adults from running into credit card debt, it seems college students haven't been doing enough on their own to find debt relief.

Today, 70 percent of undergrads and 96 percent of graduate students have at least one credit card in their own name, and few know how to properly manage their accounts, according to a study entitled Financial Literacy and Credit Cards: A Multi Campus Survey, published in the International Journal of Business and Social Science. About 36 percent of college kids have two or more credit cards in their name.

Just 9.4 percent of those polled said they pay their balances off in full at the end of every month, and very few actually knew the cost of their accounts, the report said. Only 14.6 percent knew the interest rate on their card, while 24.3 percent and 29.2 percent claimed knowledge of their late payment and over-balance penalty fees, respectively. Altogether, only about 10 percent said they knew all three.

The Credit CARD Act requires consumers under the age of 21 to either obtain an adult co-signer on their account or provide proof they can afford a credit card on their own.

Americans have been far more conscientious about their attempts to avoid falling behind on their credit card debt in the past few years, and that trend is expected to continue throughout the year even as balances grow.

Consumers' credit quality will likely improve this year, as charged off credit card accounts are expected to drop by between 15 and 20 percent to a new total of just 4.5 percent of all balances, according to new data from Moody's Investors Service. However, this rate of improvement is well below the one seen last year, when defaults dropped 40 percent.

And even as more consumers find debt relief by making increased payments and dodging charge offs, it's also believed that balances will continue to grow as card use expands, the report said. While in many cases consumers have switched their habits so that they use their cards but pay off their balances at the end of the month, it's believed debt totals will increase some 5 percent by the end of the year.

Consumers have been far more conscientious about paying off debts in recent years, but experts say both balances and defaults must hit bottom and begin growing again at some point.

While consumers continue to feel better about their finances and the economy in general, many seem to still be cautious about once again dealing with credit card debt.

The amount of money being borrowed on credit cards nationwide slipped once again in February, this time falling to a total of $798.6 billion from January's total of $800.8 billion, according to the latest monthly statistics issued by the Federal Reserve Board. That's a decrease of 3.3 percent, following January's slightly larger drop of 4.4 percent from December's total.

But at the same time, borrowing increased overall once again, as consumers continued to tap lenders for financing on nonrevolving credit – that is, installment loans for things like auto financing and education costs, but not including mortgages, the report said. In all, this type of borrowing rose 7.7 percent in February, to a total of more than $1.72 trillion.

Experts had noted that increases in consumers' borrowing on credit cards seen at the end of last year bucked recent trends toward trying to find debt relief, but also cautioned that it was likely the result of many using their cards to finance their holiday shopping.

The rate at which consumers fell behind on their outstanding credit card debt and other balances slipped in the fourth quarter of last year, as consumers were once again more conscientious in their efforts to reduce debt.

Delinquency rates on outstanding balances across eight different loan types slipped to 2.49 percent in the final three months of 2011, from 2.59 percent at the end of the third quarter, according to new data from the American Bankers Association. That is the lowest rate for loan balances 30 days or more past due since 2008.

Meanwhile, delinquencies on credit card balances slipped once again as well, to 3.17 percent from the previous quarter's 3.25 percent, the report said. That is the lowest total seen since 2001.

Since the end of the recent recession, consumers have changed their borrowing habits considerably and are now far more likely to seek debt relief and avoid carrying a balance from one month to the next.  However, some experts caution that delinquencies will soon bottom out, meaning they may increase again toward all-time historic averages.

As Americans continue to be more conscientious in their efforts to pay down their outstanding credit card debt and other loan balances, lenders believe they will be in a better position to continue broadening lending standards.

Credit risk professionals expect that they will see declines in delinquencies across nearly all loan types in the next six months, and as a consequence will keep expanding their efforts to offer more lines of credit, according to the latest quarterly survey from the credit scoring firm FICO. For example, 68 percent of respondents to the poll said they expected credit card delinquencies to either stay the same or continue declining in the next six months, an improvement from the previous quarter's 61 percent. That's also the lowest rate seen since the second quarter of last year.

Consequently, 71 percent of credit issuers believe they will give out enough new credit cards to satisfy consumer demand during the next six months, the report said.

Consumers have been trying to reduce debt for some time now, having changed borrowing and repayment habits during and following the recent recession.