Consumer credit has been declining, and I had assumed that people were using their credit cards less and paying down their balances, just as Suze Orman told them. Maybe even building up their “emergency fund”. Actually, no.

Credit-card debt has been falling for 16 straight months but consumers aren’t paying off their financial obligations as much you might think. Instead, they’re walking away from the debt, forcing credit-card issuers to write off as much as 90% of that reported drop, according to a new report by CardHub.com.

U.S. banks charged off a record $83.3 billion in credit-card losses last year. That makes up the bulk of the $93.2 billion drop in outstanding credit-card debt that was reported by the Federal Reserve for 2009.