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Consumer Information CenterStudents Getting Smarter About Credit Card Debt But Many Still Carrying Significant Balances The average outstanding credit card balance held by undergraduates has dropped to $2,169, the lowest level since...Read More
Credit Card Rates It is the season for credit card issuers to start cranking up the dials on card rates and fees. Watch your mail closely as most of the top issuers are revising penalty interest rates and fees for such things as late payments, over-limit situations, and cash advances...Read More
Debt Spiraling Out Of Control! Consumers are making minimum or no payments on their credit card balances, according to the Cambridge Consumer Credit Index. Of those people surveyed with revolving balances on their credit cards:...Read More
Consumers Threatened and Harassed For Old Debts The Federal Trade Commission has reached settlements with companies that allegedly threatened and harassed thousands of consumers to pay old, unenforceable debts or debts they did not owe...Read More
Credit Reports Take a Hit From High Debt! An estimated 46 million Americans have high debt that may be causing their credit scores to be lower than they realize. A new study by *Experian Consumer DirectSM found that 16% of the U.S. population use at least 50% of their available credit...Read More
Regulation E protects consumers when they are hit by electronic financial fraud Consumers have well-defined rights with respect to fraudulent electronic transfers, and should generally be able to obtain refunds with little hassle. The rights are spelled out in what's known as "Reg-E," or the Federal Reserve Board's Regulation E...Read More
Mortgage Lenders Keep Raking It In House prices continue to rise -- good news for homeowners with lots of equity, but bad news for the rest. The median price of an existing home in the United States is now at $177,000, up 10.1 percent in the third quarter...Read More
Hidden Auto Finance Charges Hidden Auto Finance Charges Cost Americans As Much As One Billion Dollars Annually “Hidden financing kickbacks typically add at least $1000 to the cost of an auto loan…” -- Stephen Brobeck, Consumer Federation of America American car buyers are being charged at least hundreds of millions, and as much as a billion dollars annually...Read More
Identity Theft Complaints Top FTC List for 2003 Identity theft complaints topped the Federal Trade Commission's list of consumer complaints for the fourth year in a row.* The FTC received more than half a million complaints in 2003 and 42% were related to identity theft...Read More
Police Connect ID Theft to Drug Addiction “Ninety percent of our ID theft cases deal with drugs,” - Eugene, Ore., police detective Steve Williams Perhaps worse than getting your identity stolen is learning that it was used to feed a drug addiction...Read More
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