US consumers broke through quite a barrier earlier this year, when total credit card debt topped $1 trillion for the first time since the Great Recession. Then in June, total credit card debt reached $1.021 trillion, besting the previous record set back in April 2008, just as the Great Recession [Keep reading]
Small merchants who sued the credit card associations alleging a conspiracy connected to the conversion to chip credit and debit cards may proceed with their lawsuit, a judge has ruled. Billions of dollars could be at stake. California federal court Judge William Alsup ruled Sept. 30 that a set of [Keep reading]
Ryan Will was shopping at a Loews near his Washington State home recently and got one of those calls from his credit card issuer, USAA. The operator was trying to verify if a pending credit card change was legitimate. In this case, it was $800 at a plastic surgeon’s office somewhere in [Keep reading]
Citi will refund roughly $700 million to 7 million consumers who paid for add-on credit card services like debt cancellation from 2003-2013 and pay a $35 million civil penalty for deceiving consumers with sale pitches, federal regulators announced today. Citibank and its affiliates intentionally confused consumers, tricking them into purchasing coverage [Keep reading]
Like a teacher dealing with a procrastinating student, it is tempting after all the delays with the implementation of new chip-enabled credit cards to say, “That’s it, no more extensions!” And that’s what it sounds like when the financial industry criticizes merchants for requesting yet another extension for them to [Keep reading]
It’s hard enough to make good financial decisions when you are young without finding out that your college is out to get you. Or at least is encouraging bad decisions through unseemly agreement with banks. Not long ago, credit card issuers crowded American’s college campuses, offering free pizza in exchange [Keep reading]
We’ve long suspected, but now we know: A large part of America’s personal debt problem is medical debt. About half of the unpaid debt entries in credit reports are related to medical bills. Getting sick can ruin a household, leading to pock-marked credit reports, trouble with other borrowing, and eventually [Keep reading]
Americans would gain free access to their credit scores and new rights to challenge errors that keep scores low under a bill introduced in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. The “Stop Errors in Credit Use and Reporting (SECURE) Act” is sponsored by Sens. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). The legislation [Keep reading]
If and when consumers begin receiving credit cards with embedded chips en masse from their banks, it’ll mark a significant change in the way Americans pay for things. Visa’s Chief Risk Officer, Ellen Richey, told me in an exclusive interview recently that for many consumers, the only change will be [Keep reading]
A high-ranking government official is urging banks to give consumers a free, regular peek at their credit score, a step that could revolutionize the relationship that Americans have with their credit. It’s time that happened. Today, many consumers confuse credit reports and credit scores, and are equally confused about what [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan