Did you know there’s a virtual online marketplace where hackers gather to buy and sell the fruits of their criminal labors? Think of Amazon or eBay — except the items customers put into their virtual shopping carts are stolen credit card numbers rather than audiobooks or dusty collectibles. If this sounds infuriating, just wait until …
Fewer Americans are defaulting on their credit card bills. That’s good news for our budgets and credit scores, but the improvement is also making credit card issuers happy. Fewer charge-offs means they’re in a better position to …
There are a whole host of things that can wreak havoc on your credit score, from maxing out a credit card to having a home foreclosed on or declaring bankruptcy. But people often worry about situations or events that actually …
Nothing seems to make consumers angrier than getting charged a fee by their bank when they weren’t expecting it. Some people even leave banks altogether just to get away from the onslaught of fees that are disclosed only in …
The Euro is about as low relative to the U.S. dollar as it’s been all year, as policymakers and bankers alike fret that the shared currency masks deep sovereign debt problems and that the European economy is about to slide into …
Chicagoland teenager Daniel Ganziano thought he was doing the right thing when he opened an account last year with TCF Bank near his Illinois home to learn how to handle money responsibly. Instead, Ganziano learned that bank fees can very quickly spiral out of control — in his case, to more than $229 in less than two weeks.
When researchers from the University of Arizona set out to study people’s couponing habits and motivations, they discovered that a significant number of the most die-hard coupon aficionados aren’t clipping out of financial need. …
What if your credit score included things like rent payments, utility bills and tax obligations? What if it also told lenders if you’d ever borrowed using risky or subprime products? A new type of credit evaluation being rolled …
Given that most families’ budgets are stretched tight during the holidays, would it surprise you to learn that you have a little more than $200 that you’re never going to use? A new study says Americans “throw away” nearly a third of the credit card rewards they earn over the course of a year. Want to be $205 richer? Read on.
The Senate is scheduled to take a procedural vote concerning the nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today, and pundits are predicting failure. A group of 44 Republican Senators have …
When consumers threw a collective fit over fees charged by big banks for debit card use, credit unions were thought to be poised for a windfall. Customers were expected to defect in droves — and the initial data seemed to bear out this hunch: The Credit Union National Association announced in early November that 650,000 consumers had …
