Cramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Navigating a Brutal Market - TheStreet.com
Posted by: admin in Today NewsCramer's 'Mad Money' Recap: Navigating a Brutal Market - TheStreet.com
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According to the Wall Street Journal, (subscription required) “Big card issuers such as Citigroup Inc. are requiring higher credit scores before issuing new cards. Some lenders, including Bank of America Corp., are offering lower initial credit lines. Other lenders, such as Capital One Financial Corp., are limiting credit-line increases or reducing credit lines for existing customers if they see signs that they are suddenly applying for more credit or are having trouble paying down their balances. And many card issuers are raising late fees and other charges to help offset what they see as higher risk.” In the long run, this is probably good news for consumers. For too long, banks have been in the business of offering people just enough rope to hang themselves, allowing uninformed or irresponsible borrowers to spend money they don’t have, then hitting them with interest rates so high that it becomes almost impossible to get out of debt. In the meantime, this will cause some hardship as people who had been relying on plastic to cover their expenses may find themselves suddenly denied — It could also hurt retailers as people are forced to cut back on their spending. If your credit card got canceled, take the hint and get your financial house in order. Start with Dave Ramsey’s breathtaking book Total Money Makeover — But buy it used or take it out of the library. Filed under: Debt, Ripoffs and Scams Over 69,000 Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) complaints were lodged with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2006, according to a report released by the bureau. These complaints related to the practices of third celebration debt collectors, and totaled nearly 20% of all the complaints received by the FTC in 2006. Is 69,000 a huge number? It depends upon how you look at it. The complaints were up from the previous year, which states something. However, debt collectors make millions of contacts with consumers each year, so the complaints are really a very small percentage based upon the total debt collection activity. The FTC does say, however, that they recognize that there are situations and complaints that go unreported to them. The most common complaint the FTC receives about credit practices is that the debt collector is trying to collect more than the consumer owes or is trying to collect a debt that the consumer doesn’t owe at all. If you’re being handled in this way by a collection bureau or other debt collector, by all means assert your rights against them and stand up for yourself. Of course, if you’ve accrued legitimate interest and fees on the account, you probably don’t have grounds to object. But if you believe the debt collector is trying to get you to pay something you really don’t owe, take action. And that action probably should include complaining to the FTC. One way to make abusive debt collection practices stop is to report the behavior. Hopefully the FTC will take action on your behalf, and if the consequences are severe enough, collection agencies will be forced to follow the law. Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Bookkeeping, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud. Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0  Without copy and paste functionality, modern personal might as well be ancient typewriters. OK, that might be going a bit far, but would you really want to live in a world without copy and paste functionality? It’s extraordinary how much time you can save duplicating and pasting serial numbers, text, URLs, pictures, and other items. But what happens when you hit Ctrl+C and then forget to hit Ctrl+V until after you’ve already accidentally copied something else to your clipboard? Or what if you copied a URL into an email last week but you can’t find the URL or the email today? ControlC is a new service that automatically saves everything you copy to your clipboard to your web account. Since a record of all your duplicates is saved on the internet, you can copy to your hearts content, save in the knowledge that even if you accidentally overwrite the clipboard you can still find that text snippet you need. In fact, you might begin hitting Ctrl+C even when you have no intention of pasting the text anywhere, just to save a URL for later. If you copy a picture, ControlC will not store the image on the web. But if you copy the URL for a web image or video, you can view the photos or video from your ControlC account. You can also mark some text, images, or videos as public if you want to share them with friends or the the larger ControlC community. ControlC is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. The service is currently in private beta, but you can sign up for an account using the code “beta4040.” Free account holders will only be able to access 5 days worth of clippings. But you can remove that restriction by signing up for a paid account for $20 for 6 months. [via TechCrunch]
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Iraqi finance minister: Iraq and Jordan strengthen oil deal - Jerusalem PostPosted by: admin in Today News
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In the wake of the subprime mortgage mess, the banks have had an epiphany: lending money to people who won’t be able to pay it back isn’t such a great idea after all. I hereby award them the prestigious No Kidding! Award For Finally Figuring Out Something That Should Have Been Patently Obvious a Long Time Ago.
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