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Give Me Back My Credit! Identity Theft Prevention and Scam Alerts By Denise Richardson
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Consumer news, identity theft prevention, credit reporting facts, tips to avoid fraud, mortgage servicing issues, debt collection practices, binding arbitration issues, scam alerts and consumer stories. Tell us your story...
Recent Posts Tagged With 'current events hot topics'
Consumers rally against unfair banking practices as bankers gather in Chicago
As bankers gathered in Chicago this week, thousands of consumers from across the country showed up in Chicago too. Protesters are calling on these banks who received billions in our taxpayer bailout money to help consumers who have fallen victim to ...
Scam Alerts: FBI and FDIC warn public not to fall for latest phishing scams
A Phishing email is designed to appear both urgent and legitimate. It may appear to come from your bank, credit card company, cell phone provider, or as in many cases -various government agencies. The spammers will often encourage you to click on a...
Confused over where to get those free credit reports? The FTC wants to hear from you
Free credit reports -where? When was the last time you saw a television commercial or a public service announcement advising you how to get copies of your free credit reports? And I don't mean those non-stop catchy rhyming jingles singing "F.R.E.E. s...
Cyber Security; Cell Phone Hackers Stealing your Privacy, Identity and Peace of Mind
You may think you are downloading a game -but you may be downloading malicious keylogging software that has the ability to intercept email and SMS text messages, allow hackers to listen-in on voice conversations and even track your location.Nearly on...
Former Bank of America Branch Manager Joins Debtors' Revolt
A former Bank of America employee is one of many following in Ann Minch's footsteps by offering Bank of America a public video message. "We're pissed...you are not getting another penny from me..." Here's a small excerpt from the below video;"I was ...
Debit Card Overdraft Fees Fuel Public Outcry
After recent public outcry about bank fees, both Bank of America and Chase chose to reform their policies that had them charging $35.00 and up on bank overdraft fees. The mega-banks announced last week that beginning next year they would eliminate o...
Five Ways to Identify Loan Modification Scams
Hiring someone to negotiate a mortgage loan modification on your behalf is similar to blindly feeling your way through an unknown, pitch black room, with nothing to steer you in the right direction. The stress increases with the wide-spread eme...
As Banks Cut Credit Limits, Consumer Credit Scores Slashed too
According to research by the credit scoring company FICO, 58 million consumers had their credit limits cut. This abrupt loss of available credit has caused an avalanche of problems for consumers. Though the intent behind rec...
The Loan Modification Run-around; Wrecked Credit and Foreclosures
Michelle McCloskey and Michele Cheverez both tried to get loan modifications with Litton Loan. And both were ignored or stalled until it was too late. Foreclosure proceedings began, leaving them with wrecked credit and the loss of home...
LifeLock Launches New Protection Services in Response to Recent Ruling in Experian Lawsuit
A federal judge on Friday appeared to deliver a blow to both LifeLock and consumers when he ruled that LifeLock may not continue to set fraud alerts on behalf of consumers. But it appears that while Experian was busy trying to stop LifeLock...
Former Bank employees say they were forced to violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
As an update to yesterday's blog on bank employees speaking out against predatory practices -today comes with claims that some bank employees felt forced to take part in illegal debt collection practices as well as"pushing premium services to those...
Cornell University Reports Data Breach and Issues Warning of Identity Theft Risk
Cornell informed more than 45,000 current and former members of the University community that their names and social security numbers had been exposed when a University-owned laptop was stolen earlier this month.The laptop that contained unencrypted ...
Tell Congress to Restore Consumer Protections; Sign Petition in Support of Consumer Watchdog Agency
Congress is considering creating a Consumer Watchdog agency! It's obvious that we need reform and oversight in the financial arena if we can ever hope to stop fraud and predatory lending practices from bringing our economy to its knees ev...
Tax Certificates; Another way Big Banks found to make Big Bucks off Already Struggling Homeowners
Big banks are making a lot of money off of delinquent property taxes -and already struggling homeowners facing foreclosure. And there lies the potential conflict -and potential reason, why many Floridians continue to point out they get the run-...
Experian Notes a Connection Between High Credit Scores and Identity Fraud
Experian one of the big 3 credit reporting bureaus today released a press release pointing out "a study" they did "finds a significant relationship between high credit scores and propensity for identity fraud victimization." They further note...
Florida Insurance Industry seeks to Scam Floridians...
Ed Mierzwinski's great blog over at uspirg.org on the Florida Insurance industry points to anti-consumer insurance industry practices. (Also below see; "Connecting the Dots" another bout with computer hackers) Insur...
Credit Card Reforms; Senate Voting Today
From Americans For Fairness in Lending; The Senate is scheduled to vote today on H.R. 627, which passed the House on April 30. The bill will be amended according to an agreement reached between Senators Dodd and Shelby, who are the Chair ...
A Peek Inside the Mortgage Bankers Association Annual Meeting; And it ain't pretty
Caution -if you're tired of the lending industry ruling our world, taking bailout funds and not helping helping struggling borrowers, watching the below video may outrage you. On the eve of introducing Senator Durbin's Helping Families Save Their Hom...
Twitter-Jacking: Scammers Hack Celebrity Profiles and use Names to Lure Victims
Twitter has become a growing phenomenon, a unique social networking site that revolves around one simple question, "What are you doing?"At the outset most people would respond with a big "Who really cares?" But as it turns out, just about every...
Former NY Tax Dept. Worker Steals Social Security Numbers -and Identities of Thousands of New Yorkers
ALBANY - A former state Tax Department worker stole the identities of thousands of New Yorkers and racked up more than $200,000 in bogus credit card charges.Walter Healey, tapped the personal info of more than 2,000 victims and set up some 90 credit ...
Fair Arbitration Now Coalition Launches New Website, Campaign and Petition for Arbitration Fairness
Arbitration Fairness Day takes place on April 29th. Just a few days ago, Fair Arbitration Now.org launched a new Coalition, Campaign and Petition to stop unfair forced arbitration practices that currently run rampant in consumer contracts. The petiti...
Elizabeth Warren Offers Finanical Chicken Soup for the Soul...
Kudos to the tell it like it is Harvard Law Professor and Chairman of the Congressional Oversight Panel on TARP, Elizabeth Warren, who made an appearance on the Daily Show last week. Jon Stewart calls her appearance "Financial chicken soup for the so...
$500,000 Award for Violations of Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Finally some good news to report. Following a nine day trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The jury awarded Plaintiffs, Manuel and Luz Fausto, $500,000 in their suit against Credigy Services Corporation....
What if you could cut your credit card interest rate -without your bank's approval?
You can. If you're like thousands of Americans, you have credit card debt. In this economy, making that credit card payment every month--even just paying the minimum--can be difficult, especially since, odds are, you're paying a pretty high rate of i...
Spoofing; Don't Trust Your Caller-ID -or the Person on the Other End of the Call...
Caller ID spoofing is a term used to refer to the practice of causing your telephone network to display a number on your caller ID display which is not that of the actual entity or place the call is originating from (similar to e-mail spoofing). Scam...
Data Loss Incidents Reported Since April 1st
The Identity Theft Resource Center's 2008 Data Breach Report released in January indicated a dramatic increase in data breaches -an almost 50% increase over 2007. It's easy to see why! Listed below are the results of a quick search for re...
Conficker Virus; What you need to know to protect your computer
A dangerous internet threat, a computer worm known as "Conficker," is spreading throughout the worldwide web. Computer experts are concerned about its growth and what it will do when the expected trigger date launches an attack on millions on April f...
Dateline's Investigation into the Financial Crises Continues this weekend
Don't miss Dateline's investigation into the U.S. economic troubles that airing this weekend. Watch a clip from last week's show and find links to more Dateline videos below. Dateline's series on the financial crises began last Sunday with "If ...
Hearings Held on Curbing Abusive Practices, Strengthening FTC and Consumer Protection
This week the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection held a hearing titled, "Consumer Credit and Debt: The Role of the Federal Trade Commission in Protecting the Public" Various advocates offered their informed expert opinions and r...
A Credit Card Industry Insider Shares Truths; Why He Left After 20 Years
The best part of having a blog is building a community where people who want to interact and offer opinions and knowledge with other people can do so. Sharing expertise or providing views based on personal life experiences can both validate and illum...
