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Home2015June

Month: June 2015

Gotchas / Consumer

Share your password with Mint, other apps? Who pays if you are hacked? Banks, law seem to disagree

June 30, 2015 Bob Sullivan 1

Consumers routinely share their online banking passwords with third-party apps that help with everything from budgeting to tax preparation. Apparently banks would like this to stop. JPMorgan Chase posted this notice on its website in April: “If you give out your chase.com User ID and Password, you are putting your [Keep reading]

Gotchas / Consumer

PayPal agrees to change its robocalling / texting policy

June 29, 2015 Bob Sullivan 0

PayPal has backed down on its robocalling and robotexting policy. The online money company sent a letter to the Federal Communications on Monday saying it will change its terms of service to clarify when it will use automated calls or texts, and offer an easy way for users to opt out of [Keep reading]

Gotchas / Consumer

Supreme Court ruling eliminates some ‘cost of being gay’ couple penalties

June 26, 2015 Bob Sullivan 0

Welcome to the marriage penalty, gay couples!  And the end of the health care benefit tax penalty, along with added Social Security benefits — at least in the 13 states where gay marriage wasn’t formerly legally recognized. While emotions overflow about today’s Supreme Court ruling, it’s easy to overlook the real-world [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Expedia warns users about ‘unauthorized access’ of name, phone, email and booking info

June 24, 2015 Bob Sullivan 6

UPDATED: Third party blamed for unauthorized access. Some Expedia.com customers are getting emails from the firm warning that a would-be criminal has obtained “unauthorized access … (to) your name, phone number, email address and travel booking.” The details are being used in an attempt to trick customers into sharing even more [Keep reading]

Uncategorized

Here’s another infuriating reason it’s a bad idea to co-sign a (private) student loan

June 23, 2015 Bob Sullivan 0

Co-signers for private student loans have had significant difficulty handing off the obligation to the primary borrower, despite what the lenders’ marketing materials say, according to a report issued Thursday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Of those who applied for release from their co-signing agreement, 90% were rejected, the [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

The next fraud wave: When banks cash the same check twice, you might have to pay

June 22, 2015 Bob Sullivan 6

Can someone cash a check you’ve written more than once?  Yes, thanks to the intersection of very old and very new banking technology.  Impossible until recently – payees formerly were required to hand paper checks over to banks during a deposit – some experts predict “double presentment” will be the [Keep reading]

Cynja

The Cynja, Vol. 6: On the verge of letting the Internet slip into darkness

June 19, 2015 Bob Sullivan 0

What is this?  Learn about the Cynja comic series here

Gotchas / Consumer

Avoid sleepless nights when bed shopping; how the Web helps with mattress-buying gotchas

June 19, 2015 Bob Sullivan 1

Buying a mattress fits somewhere in between buying a car and buying a home on the dreaded “babe in the woods” scale. As a big-ticket, infrequent purchase, consumers who go looking for a better night’s sleep find themselves navigating a hazy world full of intentional brand confusion and seemingly meaningless [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

A new, improved Do Not Call list — FCC acts against robocalling, texting

June 18, 2015 Bob Sullivan 2

Among all the things that Washington D.C. has done in the past few decades, you’d be hard pressed to find anything more popular than the Do Not Call List.  It had a rocky beginning —  birthing took about a decade — but it worked remarkably well, as federal programs go, and [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

A lesson from that Cardinals-Astros hack: Don’t use old passwords at your new company

June 16, 2015 Bob Sullivan 0

First of all, if you haven’t read it, you must: The FBI is investigating baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals for hacking the Houston Astros, according to the New York Times. Someone from the Cardinals allegedly stole data offering insight into the Astros player evaluation files, details on possible trades, and so on.  This [Keep reading]

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About me

BOB SULLIVAN is a veteran journalist and the author of four books, including the 2008 New York Times Best-Seller, Gotcha Capitalism, and the 2010 New York Times Best Seller, Stop Getting Ripped Off! His latest, The Plateau Effect, was published in 2013, and as a paperback, called Getting Unstuck in 2014. He has won the Society of Professional Journalists prestigious Public Service award, a Peabody award, and The Consumer Federation of America Betty Furness award, and been given Consumer Action’s Consumer Excellence Award.

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