This week’s election was a cliffhanger for many people, but the stakes were higher than most for the director and staff of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The agency, which opened its doors in July 2011, was a …
Paying With Plastic
The Poet Laureate of Identity Theft
To literary-minded Americans, he’s a scribe of suburban ennui. To a loose confederacy of Nigerian hackers, he’s a potentially lucrative collection of account numbers and passwords. In both cases, he’s Rick Moody. And after a …
4 Ways You Pay Too Much–and What to Do About It
By seizing on promotions and not paying attention to new products and changing markets, consumers end up in the wrong loans all the time. They spend an estimated $541 a month more than necessary on their debt repayment. Here’s …
Think You Just Bought Your “Real” Credit Score? Think Again
Conventional wisdom says before you make a big purchase like a house or a car, go online to check your credit score. Although you can get one report per bureau per year for free through annualcreditreport.com, you have to pay to …
We Finally Have Slightly Better Credit, Not That It’s Doing Us Much Good
Americans’ credit scores finally appear to be inching back up after taking a beating during and after the last recession. But for a whole host of reasons, this might not have as much practical benefit as you’d expect. While
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Which Cost Less: Checking Accounts Or Prepaid Debit Cards?
Unless you’re a whiz at managing your money, a checking account is going to cost you more than a prepaid debit card, a new report concludes. And if you do a really poor job handling your personal finances, you could end up paying …
Who Says Kids Are Spoiled? Parents Expect Pre-Teens to Start Saving for College
At 12 years old, most of us didn’t hold down regular jobs, except for maybe the odd baby-sitting or lawn-mowing gig. But one-fourth of parents today expect their kids to start socking away the contents of their piggy banks to …
Your Credit Card Rewards Aren’t Worth As Much As You Think
With issuers dangling bonuses like $100 cash back just for signing up, it can be easy to lose sight of exactly how rewarding (or not) credit card rewards truly are. You may be asking, why should it matter? It’s true that many …
Make Sure You’re Not Being Charged This Credit Card Fee
Last month, Capital One was hit with a $210 million penalty for engaging in sneaky marketing practices, including pressuring customers to sign on to pricey services of dubious value such as credit monitoring and “payment …
Time to Cancel the Road Trip? Highest End-of-Summer Gas Prices Ever
The average price for a gallon of gas now stands at $3.72. That’s nearly 40¢ higher than the summer’s low, which was reached in early July, just a few weeks ago. It’s also the highest ever average gas price for this time of year.
Is Credit-Card Debt Collection the New Robo-Signing Scandal?
The big-bank robo-signing scandal lifted the proverbial rock on the unsavory things financial institutions were doing to force people out of their homes, whether they had the legal grounds to do so or not. Apparently, similar …
The Verdict Is In: Tackle Smaller Debts First
Financial experts have long debated the best strategy for paying down debt. Some advise paying off debt in the order of APR, taking on the loan with the highest interest rate first. With this approach, you reduce the amount spent …
