TERRY DONOHOE arrived for work at 10am on Friday morning. By 11am the 41-year-old debt adviser had spoken to seven different people, all battling with huge credit-card arrears.

“I’ve just spoken to one guy who has £22,000 on five different cards,” said Donohoe, one of some 400 helpline advisers who work at the Consumer Credit Counselling Service’s headquarters in Leeds.

“He was only earning £12,900 a year as a part-time hospital porter. It would take him about 30 years to pay that off.”

Donohoe fields 3,000 calls a year from all over the UK. He sees evidence every day that credit-card debts are increasing. Soaring fuel costs, rising food prices and climbing energy bills are all being kept at bay with credit cards. Shortfalls on mortgage repayments are also being made up with cash from credit cards. Many of these debt-soaked consumers were already struggling to make their minimum monthly repayments.

More than $1 trillion (£500 billion) is held on credit cards in America. In the UK, debts of more than £50 billion have been run up on the plastic. Across the world, somewhere between $2 trillion and $3 trillion is owed on credit cards.

Up to now, the credit crisis has passed by without plastic going into meltdown. Statistics have shown steady levels of arrears, and suggested that many consumers have been successfully paying off part of their balances.

Now there are increasing signs that this last breakwater, shoring up the economies of the western world, is about to crack under ever-increasing strains.

“One of the indicators we watch very closely is unemployment as historically that has been quite closely correlated with deterioration in performance on credit cards,” said Anthony Jenkins, chief executive of Barclaycard.

“Right now the employment situation in the UK seems to be relatively stable, but we’re obviously watching it carefully.”

News last week from Britain’s biggest housebuilders tells a different story, with Barratt, Persimmon and Taylor Wimpey all announcing thousands of job cuts. Industry estimates suggest the total number of unemployed brickies, plasterers and plumbers will hit 60,000 within a few short months. That comes in addition to the thousands of jobs that have already been lost in the City.

Analysts always say that “the markets get it right”. Current market prices suggest that more than 20% of the money owed on British credit cards is unlikely to be paid back. That would be almost three times higher than the previous record for bad credit-card debts, eclipsing the problems witnessed in the last housing crisis of the early 1990s.

“We are already hearing stories about people using their credit cards to keep up with their mortgage payments,” said Peter Crook, chief executive of Provident Financial, the door-to-door moneylender. “If that’s what’s happening, it’s a big red warning sign.”

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