Search results for credit
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Posted
Sep 23 2009, 09:00 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Zut alors! Credit card companies are beginning to offer simpler, more consumer-friendly credit cards to the masses.
For instance, Bank of America's Basic Visa card, which debuts next month, will charge the same interest rate no matter how you use the card. It also comes with a set $39 late fee that won't fluctuate regardless of how large your outstanding balance is.
Also, Jack at Master Your Card said, the interest rate won't go up even if you make a late payment.
Even better, it seems, is Chase's new Blueprint feature, newly available for some 20 million existing credit card accounts. Blueprint allows cardholders to single out certain types of purchases -- say, groceries or gas -- that they can pay in full each month interest-free while finance charges accumulate on the rest of the balance.
Why are card companies trying to make things easier for us? In part, they're trying to get ahead of the curve before new credit card rules kick in. The Washington Post offered another possible explanation:
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 02:56 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This guest post comes from Frank Curmudgeon at Bad Money Advice.
I still don't get the debit card thing. But according to The Wall Street Journal, there is a new trend I do understand: establishments accepting cards but not cash.
Slips of paper and metal disks are an inefficient and archaic form of money. You have to go to an ATM to get some, and often pay a fee. To use it, you have to wait for the clerk to make change. You have to carry it around. And then there is the growing pile of coins most of us have at home.
And don't get me started on parking meters. Offering me a nice parking space for half an hour in exchange for a quarter, and only in exchange for a quarter, is more scavenger hunt than transaction.
Plastic pushing out paper has been a long brewing trend. I can remember when grocery stores didn't take cards. I still feel a little funny charging things there. Today we take for granted that we can use plastic just about anywhere, even in places, like taxicabs, that a generation ago would have seemed implausible as potential users of cards.
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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 04:19 PM
by
Teresa Mears
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Conventional wisdom would seem to dictate that someone with an excellent credit score is less likely to walk away from a mortgage than someone with poor credit.
That's not so, syndicated real estate columnist Kenneth Harney writes in a story The Washington Post headlined "Good credit scores, deadbeat choices." In fact, people with excellent credit scores are 50% more likely to "strategically default" on their mortgages -- intentionally walk away -- than are lower scoring borrowers, according to a study by credit bureau Experian and consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
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Posted
Sep 21 2009, 04:33 PM
by
Teresa Mears
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
Ann Minch, the California woman who took her fight over a credit card rate increase to YouTube, apparently has extracted the concession she sought from Bank of America.
In a new video posted Saturday, she said Bank of America had agreed to return the interest rate on her $5,943.34 balance, which had been hiked to 30%, to 12.99%. The bank's first offer was 16.99%, which she said she rejected.
She said she was contacted by Jeff Crawford, senior vice president of existing credit card accounts, who was polite. He didn't mention either her video or her "taxpayers' revolt" -- which she says is not over.
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Posted
Sep 10 2009, 11:50 AM
by
Karen Datko
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from James Limbach at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
If you're an affluent American, chances are you've seen more offers of MasterCard World or Visa Signature -- the so-called premium credit cards -- in your mailbox recently.
Mintel Comperemedia, a provider of direct-marketing information, reports that credit card issuers are advertising more premium cards in an effort to attract the best customers.
In the second quarter of this year, credit card issuers sent 28% more marketing direct-mail offers for premium cards than they did the quarter before. This occurred even as issuers reduced credit card offers as a whole by 8%.
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Posted
Sep 03 2009, 03:21 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from James Limbach at partner site ConsumerAffairs.com.
Are you happy with your credit card? If not, you have a lot of company.
Driven by a significant decrease in satisfaction with fees and rates, overall credit card customer satisfaction declined to a three-year low, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2009 Credit Card Satisfaction Study.
The study finds that overall credit card customer satisfaction fell to 703 on a 1,000-point scale -- the lowest level since the study's inception in 2007. Overall satisfaction among credit card customers remains the lowest among the financial services industries in which J.D. Power and Associates conducts research, including insurance, banking and investment services.
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Posted
Sep 01 2009, 06:39 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from Jim Wang at partner blog Bargaineering.
A few years ago I had a little credit report error incident. I had just started a new job and was going through a background investigation, which included a review of my credit history. In the course of that review, the investigator noticed that there was an address listed on the report that I hadn't previously disclosed.
The reason I never mentioned the address is because it wasn't mine.
When he told me, I feared the worst. I thought I was joining the millions of people who have their identity stolen each year. In fact, just a year before that, a friend was telling me how it took him several months to get his identity recovered and even then everything credit-related was a pain.
So my mind immediately jumped to ID theft.
Fortunately, it was an isolated, albeit strange, credit report error that was relatively easy to resolve. The error was the addition of an address, a Social Security number (that differed from my SSN by one digit), and a telephone/cable package. I went through the usual protocols of disputing the information, thinking the onus was on the other party to prove the information was true. But I was wrong.
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Posted
Aug 27 2009, 05:01 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
You know what people always say when they complain that the credit card company slashed their credit limit: I've never missed a payment or been late.
Quite likely, a new study shows, they aren't lying.
The study by FICO, originators of the FICO credit score, found that of the 33 million people whose credit limits were reduced between October and April, 24 million had no new marks against them in their credit reports that would prompt a card issuer to tighten the reins.
Also, reports Pamela Yip of The Dallas Morning News, "Those cardholders generally had low balances, didn't use up a lot of their available credit, had very few -- if any -- reports of missed payments, and had a long credit history."
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Posted
Aug 21 2009, 06:16 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner blog The Dough Roller:
Improving your FICO credit score has never been more important than it is now. Your credit score affects whether you are approved for a loan, the interest rate your pay, and even the cost of insurance. Credit card companies now use credit scores and credit history to determine not only the interest rate that will apply to the account, but other terms such as the length of no-interest balance transfers. And your credit score can even impact whether you get a job.
In short, your credit score has a big impact on your finances. The good news is that you can begin to improve your credit score today with a few simple steps. I've been monitoring my FICO credit score through myFICO.com, and I've noticed that my score has gone up about 15 points in the last month. So I thought it was a good time to review the simple steps we all can take to increase our credit scores.
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Posted
Aug 19 2009, 09:22 AM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
Money Blog: Smart Spending Blog - MSN Money
A few provisions of the credit card reform or CARD Act take effect on Thursday, Aug. 20. You'll have to wait until next year for more substantive changes to the way credit card companies operate.
We're referring, of course, to major changes to federal laws and regulations governing credit cards, which won't kick in until February and next August. Because the fact is that credit card companies responded quickly to the passage of the CARD Act by:
Whew! Did we leave anything out? In other words, they're trying to squeeze every drop of blood they can from customers before the government restricts their ability to do that. (To see how widespread these activities are, read "Credit card holders unduly whacked?")
Here are the legal changes you can expect right now:
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