With the economy in flux and consumers feeling the far-reaching affects in the rise of gasoline prices, one major U.S. bank is getting pro-active with credit-card holders it deems to be at-risk.

According to the San Francisco Business Times Wells Fargo has sent letters to card holders the bank feels may be in danger of falling behind on their payments. The letter is not a warning or a slap on the wrist – to the contrary it offers help in the form of setting up automatic payments, coming up with a plan to pay down a balance, or putting them in touch with a credit counselor.

While some Wells credit-card customers may be miffed about getting one of the letters – the bank would not disclose what the parameters were for a customer to be on the mailing list – some disgruntled cardholders might be a small price to pay for avoiding costly delinquencies.

The bank has ready access to some members’ financial situations as many of those with a WF credit card have their accounts with the bank.

And Wells officials may be smart to be moving pro-actively. According to the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, charge offs (the point at which a creditor writes off an account balance as a bad debt) on credit cards increased in the third quarter of last year.

Some banks have also moved to lower cardholder’s credit limits, theorizing that if they do have problems paying their bills the outstanding debt the bank is carrying will be lower. However, the move has hurt some consumer’s credit scores, as their lowered available credit amount is now closer to the balance they are carrying, skewing their rating through no fault of their own.

And while this has ruffled some feathers, again the banks are willing to do so if it can help them lower their risk. While they don’t want anyone defaulting on their card, better a possible charge off of, say, $2,000 than $6,000.

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