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Posted
Aug 11 2008, 01:27 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Guess what country this paragraph from a New York Times story describes: Outstanding card debt here ballooned to nearly $18 billion last year, six times the level five years earlier. Default rates spiked and consumer groups protested sky-high interest charges. It's Turkey, where less than a generation ago consumer debt was almost unheard of and came with a heavy burden of shame.
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Posted
Jul 31 2008, 09:59 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
If you're paying big bucks to credit-repair companies to piggyback on other people's good credit and artificially increase your score, the credit-score police will no longer be fooled.
So says Fair Isaac Corp., the company that devised the widely used FICO credit score. Fair Isaac has figured out a way to detect when people are abusing the privilege of authorized-user status on other people's credit cards. "Fortunately, we were able to come up with technology that makes it much harder to game the system," Fair Isaac chief operations officer Mike Campbell told CreditCards.com.
This is good news for consumers.
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Posted
Jul 31 2008, 06:19 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from Philip Brewer at partner blog Wise Bread. There are certain ways to get free money or free stuff simply by paying attention, keeping track, and being careful. I don't do these things. It's not because they don't work; it's not even because the risk-adjusted earnings don't pay for the time spent. It's because time -- and especially time spent paying attention -- is very precious. The clearest example of the sort of thing I'm talking about is getting a cash advance from a new credit card with a 0% teaser rate. Slap that money in your high-interest savings account, pay off the loan when it's due, and you can pocket the interest. Borrow $100,000, and you could pick up close to $2,000 of free money in six months.
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Posted
Jul 30 2008, 05:26 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller. Credit card companies are masters of marketing. From cash back to travel rewards, and 0% introductory rates to gas rebates, credit card companies have turned a once fledgling industry (remember MasterCharge?) into a multibillion-dollar juggernaut. While taking advantage of credit card rewards can be a financial boon, care must be taken that fees and default interest rates do not ensnare us. Let's take a look at those fees and interest rates by examining a popular credit card -- the Discover More card, Wildlife Edition.
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Posted
Jul 29 2008, 04:28 AM
by
Karen Datko
This post comes from partner blog Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. With the prices of food and gas where they are, everyone's looking for an edge. For more and more people, myself included, that edge is in maximizing what you can get out of credit card cash-back reward programs. Credit card companies charge vendors a hefty percentage to process credit card transactions (AMEX and Discover charge the most; that's why they often have the best cash-back programs), so doesn't it make sense that they pass along some of that to you? Of course it does. Here are eight tips I use to ensure I get the most cash back from credit cards:
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Posted
Jul 25 2008, 07:23 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
This post comes from Joseph S. Enoch at partner blog ConsumerAffairs.com. More than 30,000 consumers have deluged the Federal Reserve Board's public comment system with opinions on the agency's proposed rules to addresses abusive credit card practices, according to the Consumer Federation of America. This is the second largest number of public comments the Federal Reserve has ever received, trailing the reform of the mortgage brokers, said Travis Plunkett, legislative director for the not-for-profit federation. The public comment period ends Aug. 4.
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Posted
Jul 11 2008, 03:45 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
If you thought credit card companies offer rewards and cash back because they want to give you things, think again. Several bloggers were intrigued by a study in the July issue of Consumer Reports about how rewards programs work -- in favor of the companies. "Consumer Reports found that people who have rewards cards often end up spending more money than those with a regular card, and on top of that, they don't always reap the benefits of having the card," wrote Peter at Bible Money Matters.
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Posted
Jun 26 2008, 05:42 AM
by
Karen Datko
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This post comes from Linsey Knerl at partner blog Wise Bread. Debt is the hottest topic on personal-finance blogs around the world. Why? I would venture to guess it's because so many people are drowning in it. The unfortunate truth is that few people care to read about debt until it has already had a negative effect on their financial situation. This can make the final solution to their debt problems even more difficult to hear about.
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Posted
Apr 17 2008, 02:58 PM
by
Karen Datko
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This guest post by "paidtwice" at I've Paid For This Twice Already won the personal-finance bloggers' March Madness competition hosted by Free Money Finance. I have had several questions lately about snowflaking -- what is it, why do I do it, can we see examples of it -- so I thought I would write a quick primer answering those questions and more.
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Posted
Apr 03 2008, 07:46 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Is your windshield frosted over in the morning? Whip out that credit card and scrape it off. That's right. They're also good for removing the crustaceans that grow on the inside of your saltwater aquarium. "Not sure if you're getting a good shave?" writes Gibble at Gather Little by Little. "Run the edge of a credit card over your beard. The noise will tell you how well you shaved." Gibble's not totally kidding. He doesn't like credit cards. But he still gets those fake cards that come in the mail with credit card applications and wanted to figure out uses for them rather than throwing them away. You can also apply his tricks to old cards that you've retired from service. He explains: "I've been burned, and I've seen and read about far too many people's lives turned upside-down through the use of credit cards. Recently though, I've been trying to focus on being more environmentally conscientious."
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