(NOTE: This story was updated 11/9/2017 at 2 p.m. with a statement from Freedom Debt Relief) The nation’s largest debt settlement firm was sued by federal regulators today, who accuse the company of misleading consumers and taking their money for doing little or no work. Freedom Debt Relief, based in [Keep reading]
Garbage in, garbage out. America’s only real tool for keeping guns out of the hands of convicted felons and domestic abusers is hopelessly flawed, as I’ve written before. It’s time we woke up to this. It’s easier — much easier — to lie and get a gun in America than [Keep reading]
More than half the homeowners in five New York-area counties, and half of owners in one county in Virginia and New Mexico, would face a tax increase under the Republican tax plan unveiled this week because it would limit local property tax deductions on federal taxes. Roughly one-quarter of homeowners in [Keep reading]
Tinkering with tax law is a matter of picking winners and losers, usually done with as blunt instrument rather than a scalpel. A nip here, a tuck there, an amputation over there. Pull these levers, push those, and call it “reform.” It’s not. It’s just doing favors for some people [Keep reading]
NOTE: I’m doing an ongoing series of stories on elder scams, a “tsunami” of crimes hitting the most vulnerable Americans, according to the FBI’s Debbie Deem. Recently, I wrote about the tragic story of a California teacher found murdered in Jamaica. I also wrote about Deem for CNBC.com recently (Click [Keep reading]
We’ve come a long way since Mark Zuckerberg famously said that it was “crazy” to think fake news on Facebook influenced the 2016 election. How far? Not long ago, Facebook said it had identified only a few thousands suspicious accounts on its service that might have been linked to Russia. [Keep reading]
Consumerist.com (2005-2017) — an obituary. From the start, Consumerist.com was different. Very different. From my perch writing a consumer column called The Red Tape Chronicles for MSNBC.com, I watched in shock (and a little jealousy) as the site boldly went where other journalists feared to go. A few consumers would [Keep reading]
The most important thing about today’s Russia probe news is this: Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos tested out every defense you’ve been hearing from those involved in the campaign: It’s a nothing….it happened before he was part of the campaign…it was just chatter. And none of those defenses [Keep reading]
He is a master of the simplest “hack” of all — impersonation. In recent months, he has pretended to be White House officials like Jared Kushner and Reince Preibus or even Eric Trump. And it worked. He fooled plenty of people who should have known better, including Anthony Scaramucci, former Utah [Keep reading]
While you were busy worrying about health insurance premiums and perhaps Donald Trump’s latest Tweet, the U.S. Senate spat in the face of American consumers this week. In a 50-50 vote that required Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie, the Senate voted to nullify a pro-consumer rule that [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan