Whenever you hear about one of those big-deal, multi-million-dollar settlements involving a federal agency and a misbehaving company, the news probably makes your eyes glaze over. In most cases, nothing really bad happens to the company — they just have to give back their ill-gotten gains, and maybe pay a [Keep reading]
Identity thieves used the IRS’ own systems to steal personal information from about 100,000 taxpayers, the agency said on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Criminals already armed with some data on the taxpayers used the IRS “Get Transcript” website to obtain even more data on their victims, the IRS [Keep reading]
Debt collectors reportedly have a new strategy to get consumers’ attention: text messages. “YOUR PAYMENT DECLINED WITH CARD ****-****-****-5463 . . . CALL 866.256.2117 IMMEDIATELY,” reads one such text, according to the Federal Trade Commission. (This story was first published on Credit.com. Read it there.) The agency has temporarily halted three [Keep reading]
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A computer security researcher says he recently found a way to hack Starbucks’ gift card system and add value to a gift card essentially for free. Starbucks has not yet responded to my questions about the attack, but the researcher says the bug he exploited has been fixed. Computer security consultant Egor Homakov, [Keep reading]
One of the Internet’s largest adult dating websites has suffered a major data breach, with up to 4 million members impacted, according to U.K. news station Channel 4, which broke the story today. Victims face potential embarrassment or other serious repercussions in addition to the usual potential for identity theft. [Keep reading]
Rents are increasing in most parts of the country. That normally nudges apartment dwellers into the housing market — as rents rise, so do reasons to buy a home — but that doesn’t seem to be happening in today’s topsy-turvy housing market. Instead, many renters are swallowing the increases and [Keep reading]
The disparity is as dramatic as any you’re likely to see in a public opinion survey. Nine out of 10 Americans say it’s important to control the information collected about them and who can see it, but fewer than 1 in 10 Americans are confident that either the government or corporations [Keep reading]
The summer vacation season begins this weekend — by tradition, anyway — as millions of you head out for Memorial Day fun. Regular readers of this space know that I think the classic American vacation season is under assault, thanks to a dastardly combination of a tough economy and always-on [Keep reading]
Whenever a story like this pops up, I think about how these things make life so much harder for folks trying to raise money for legitimate charities. Stealing money is bad enough, but hurting cancer research and the work of other charities is a special kind of evil. The Federal Trade Commission and [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan