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]
During the heyday of the housing bubble, mortgage sellers made a killing via kickbacks. They often got bonuses for steering borrowers toward more expensive mortgages. Financial reform, including a strict rule that took effect in 2011 from the Federal Reserve known as the “Compensation Rule,” banned the practice of giving [Keep reading]
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]
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]
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]
Huge cell phones are HUGE. And you’d better get used to them. Awkwardly-named “phablets” — a sort of phone/tablet combo gadget, with a display at 5.5 inches ore larger, are exploding in popularity. Phablets claimed 21 percent of all U.S. smartphone sales during the first quarter of this year, nearly [Keep reading]
Uber was, rightly, getting a lot of NYC praise this weekend for jumping on the crippling outage of the popular L train that connects Brooklyn and Manhattan. The ride-sharing service smartly offered rides along the L route for only $2.75 — regular subway fare — even if the normal cost [Keep reading]
Moving is like death and taxes. It’s inevitable, usually dreadful, and also often costly. So even though you might have fallen in love with a house that was shown to you by a someone like this orlando property management company, moving will still be expensive. There are so many things [Keep reading]
New York City became the latest place to limit se of credit checks as a screening tool for job applicants on Wednesday when Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the “Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act.” The bans most employers from using job applicants’ credit history in hiring decisions. By some measures, roughly [Keep reading]
“Pure political theater.” That’s how a Kansas lawmaker described Uber’s decision yesterday to suspend operations in Kansas after the state legislature passed a law with rule Uber would have been required to follow. Lost amid all the fun headlines about Uber “Not in Kansas anymore” and the ignorant “Uber kicked [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan