What’s your favorite way to quickly settle a debt you owe with a friend, family member or roommate? If you said cash or “catch you next time,” you’re old — maybe even over 30. Otherwise, you probably said “Venmo.” This mobile e-cash tool for young people wunderkind brings with it [Keep reading]
Why can't you use those chip cards? Well, it's a billion-dollar question. Read more:… Posted by Bob M Sullivan on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 Get ready for the next billion-dollar fight in the credit card industry. Two small merchants in Florida say the industry’s shift to chip-enabled credit cards has caused them a [Keep reading]
Where to begin with this spectacularly-named legislative proposal? The Congressional Office of Clever, Original Acronyms (COCOA) deserves a bonus for this one. We all hate airline fees, so a bill to reign them in is playing to the crowd. That’s what Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) did yesterday [Keep reading]
ORDER THE NEW EDITION OF GOTCHA CAPITALISM NOW! ARCHIVE, Jan. 30, 2013 — The Equifax credit reporting agency, with the aid of thousands of human resource departments around the country, has assembled what may be the most powerful and thorough private database of Americans’ personal information ever created, containing 190 [Keep reading]
What’s the accident “penalty” on your auto insurance? A 44 percent increase to your premium, according to a new study conducted by InsuranceQuotes.com. For a driver with an average-priced policy ($841), that’s a $370 price hike. More incentive to drive very carefully. The average comes with a whole wheelbarrow full [Keep reading]
(NOTE: I wrote this piece for Credit.com recently. Here’s the rub: Car sales are at record highs, fueled in part by car friendly loan terms. If cynics are right, that will eventually end badly and there will be a) a flood of used cars on the market from buyers who [Keep reading]
You’re going to see a lot of headlines today about a nasty ransomware program named KeRanger that tries to extort Apple / Mac users by encrypting their files and charging ransom for the unscrambling key. Infected users must pay the virus creators today or risk losing use of their data. Here’s [Keep reading]
Crime does pay! About $28,744 per year, figures researcher Larry Ponemon. But that’s a quarter of the income that security pros make, so mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be hackers. Hackers’ hourly rate suffers too. Computer criminals make about $40 an hour, compared to a little more [Keep reading]
The Internet, and the sharing economy, have changed the way we buy everything — from books to mattresses to “hotel rooms” to taxi rides. Now, it’s the insurance industry’s turn. A series of startups promise disruption of this product consumers love to hate. (Sorry, Flo.) Even well-known author Dan Ariely [Keep reading]
American mortgage holders are optimistic that equity in their homes is rising, and that’s helping fuel— for better or worse — a huge increase in home equity lending, this has homeowners who are over 50 exploring their options and beginning to think about equity release and whether or not it [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan