STORY UPDATED with Fair Isaac announcement that it will change scoring formula. Surprise medical bills hurt consumers’ credit scores more than they should, the Consumers Financial Protection Bureau said today. Not only is it unfair, it’s bad business. Unpaid of late paid medical bills aren’t a great predictor of a [Keep reading]
Here we go again. I laughed, I cried and I felt like it was 2006 all over again while reading the financial press this week cheerlead administration steps designed to “ease mortgage credit.” I write about money a lot, and I hear from a lot of mortgage brokers and real [Keep reading]
Use email outside of work, and odds are 1 in 2 that you experienced a lot of stress yesterday. Maybe that’s no surprise, but it’s still more evidence that your smartphone might be killing you. Even worse: It’s killing you softly. People who work outside of work *think* their lives [Keep reading]
There’s an epidemic of stuck in America. It shows up in the economic data, of course, but more important, it’s really hitting folks’ lives hard. A new survey by Rasmussen College found that more than half of U.S. adults “say they don’t have significant growth opportunities in their current positions.” [Keep reading]
Feel an urge to check Facebook one more time before diving into this story? Do it. A little hungry? Grab a bite to eat. Use the restroom if that’s on your mind. Cold? Grab a blanket. OK, now that those things are out of the way, let’s talk about distraction. [Keep reading]
It might be the Pandora’s Box of all Pandora’s Boxes. A European Union court has ruled that Google must remove results from its search engine that point to a newspaper post about a Spanish resident’s 1988 auction of his repossessed home. With the ruling, the European Union Court of Justice [Keep reading]
It’s easy to make fun of “Facebook makes us sad” research. After all, when we were kids, we didn’t even have Facebook while walking uphill to school both ways. But Facebook is the way we live now; ignore such research at your own peril, and the peril of the folks [Keep reading]
Penny Williams watches her bills very closely, so she noticed right away when her CenturyLink high-speed Internet bill rose mysteriously by $1.88. A glance at the paperwork revealed two new fees accounted for the difference, but the listed explanation didn’t make much sense. One line of the bill included the [Keep reading]
A Mother’s heart has to be big, and endure many things, but among the most painful — seeing your young adult child thrash about, unable to find a clear path to happiness. Jobs aren’t everything, of course, but the 20s are all about finding satisfying work that pays the bills [Keep reading]
The Facebook status update got the attention of Bryan Rutberg’s friends right away: “BRYAN IS IN URGENT NEED OF HELP!!” Rutberg’s friends soon received emails with frantic pleas for aid. He was stuck in London after a mugging and desperately needed money to get his family home. Rutberg’s daughter, at [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan