Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Jobs growth has been solid of late, and manufacturing sentiment has been strong. But the lack of wage growth has been apparent, and one manifestation of that has been the paltry rise in credit-card debt. The latest data on consumer credit is due out Thursday. It’s likely to show non-revolving debt like auto and student debt is continuing to grow rapidly. But credit-card debt has barely budged. “Incomes are only growing so much,” said Josh Shapiro, chief economist at MFR. “[Consumers] are not going to go two-fisted on credit-card and auto debt.”

Will FDIC Regulations Shut Down the Prepaid Card Industry? We have written about prepaid debit cards several times in recent months, but this week we saw the latest news that could throw a monkey wrench in the burgeoning prepaid card industry. As reported by PaymentsSource, Bancorp Inc., one of the biggest issuers of prepaid cards with $4.7 billion in assets, saw its shares drop 30 percent when the company agreed to curtail its prepaid card activity as part of a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). A 22-page consent order mandates that Bancorp institute a number of changes...

Two weeks before Christmas of 2004, Kandy Hildebrandt opened a letter addressed to her husband Russ, at his request. The letter revealed that her husband had a personal loan of $17,500. They sat down to talk about it: Russ also had 11 credit cards totaling $89,000 in debt. “He handled the personal finances,” she says. “I knew we had several credit cards, but I was unaware of the extent of our debt.” The finance charges on the credit cards alone were $1,593 a month – double their $750 monthly rent in New Richmond, Wis. The Hildebrandts knew they needed to...

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Americans are relying less on their credit cards now, and more consumers are able to pay their balance in full each month, according to a recent Gallup poll. The poll found that in 2014 48% of Americans always pay the balance of their credit card each month compared to 42% who paid them in full in 2006 and only 43% in 2008 during the Great Recession. Now only 33% of credit card owners say they leave a balance each month, which is a record low since Gallup began measuring these habits in 2001.

Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services auditing director Delrice Augustus has been formally charged fraud for allegedly buying personal items with a government purchasing card, U.S. Attorney Walt Green announced Wednesday. Augustus, 34, of Baton Rouge, is currently on leave as director of the bureau of auditing and compliance services for DCFS, an agency that receives over a billion dollars in federal funds, a U.S. Attorneys office press release says. A bill of information says that from 2010 though March 2014, Augustus used government purchasing cards for a dishwasher, televisions, I-Pads, hotel rooms gas and other personal items.

In the last three days I have been contacted by credit card fraud offices regarding two different credit cards with questionable charges. Several months ago I was contacted about a third. All the charges quoted were fraudulent. In the past I have received such a call perhaps once every several years, but never two in one week or three in several months. They were legitimate calls and asked for no personal information and the fraud was backed-up by the cards' online webpages. Is anyone else having such a problem? WTH?

A lot of times when someone gets a hold of someone’s credit or debit card info and decides to use it for illicit purposes, the ID thief makes as many charges as possible in a short period of time. But some scammers choose to chisel away at victims’ accounts in the hopes that the crime will go unnoticed.

Is identity theft a real enough problem to warrant $10/month monitoring service? I must decide whether or not to get the service but to initiate it I must trust the service with a lot of personal data.

On February 20, gun control proponents gathered outside Visa's Washington offices to pressure the credit card giant to cut ties with the National Rifle Association (NRA).

A credit card data breach had been detected that exposed guests at certain Marriott, Holiday Inn, Sheraton and other hotel properties to theft, hotel management firm White Lodging Services Corp said on Monday. The breach occurred at food and beverage outlets at 14 hotels, including some operated under the Westin, Renaissance and Radisson names, between March 20 and Dec. 16 of last year, White Lodging said in a statement. The company said information subject to potential theft by cyber criminals included names and numbers on consumers' debit or credit cards, security codes and card expiration dates.

The data breach that struck our company spotlighted the sophistication of criminal hacker networks operating across the globe. We know the attack created significant concerns for millions of customers. We will learn from this incident and we will work to make Target, and the wider business community, more secure in the future. One step American businesses could now take that would dramatically improve the security of all credit and debit cards: adoption of chip-enabled smartcards. The technology is already widely used throughout the world. For many reasons, the United States has been slow to embrace the technology at home. We...

Wondering if your credit card number could be in the hands of a crook? Look for a charge for $9.84. The Better Business Bureau issued a fraud alert last week about a raft of consumer complaints all reporting the same niggling charge. The business levying this fee may purport to provide “customer support,” or it may simply identify itself as any one of a number of different websites.

I am president of the board of a community orchestra, and I want to get a credit card swiper so people can donate at our concerts and/or purchase ticket for our fundraiser. I have done some research on Intuits, Cubes, and PayPal Here. But now I would like to gather some anecdotal evidence. Does anyone have experience with these? Preference? Feedback? Hate them? Cautionary advice? I have an iPhone 4 with IOS 5.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Something old, something new, something borrowed — credit cards used to charge a $50,000 wedding, police say — left a bride facing fraud and grand theft charges. La'Reese Michelle Darville, 31, was jailed Monday after she told detectives she charged bills for her June wedding at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino to credit cards belonging to her employers, who include her father. Darville told detectives she intended to repay the full amount. Police were tipped to the case by one of the owners of Partners III Pawn Shop in Port St. Lucie, who got...

I’m a serial retailer. For most of my adult life I’ve owned and operated gas stations, convenience and liquor stores, and now a small group of Burger King restaurants. It’s been a unique perch from which to watch the “plasticizing” of America and how credit card companies and the nation’s biggest banks are allowed to operate like a cartel and, as a result, drive up the price of goods and services. When I opened my first store in 1994, cash was king and “charge cards,” as they then were called, were status symbols held by a tiny number of affluent...

Adobe announced Thursday that it was the victim of a hack and that personal data for 2.9 million users were stolen. The software company, known for Photoshop and other programs, said cyber attackers were able to access user information, including account IDs, encrypted passwords as well as credit and debit card numbers. The hackers were able to erase data of some Adobe users. The hackers also illegally accessed source codes for numerous Adobe products. That's like stealing the secret formula for Coca-Cola. The company did not specify which users of its various software programs were hit. "We deeply regret that...

The government on Tuesday authorized establishment of a committee that will examine ways to eliminate cash from the Israeli economy—the better to prevent citizens from cheating on their taxes. The committee will be chaired by Harel Locker, director of the Prime Minister’s Office. Cash is easily passed from individual to individual, and transactions using cash can take place without the tax man’s supervision. Not so electronic transactions; with modern computers, banks can keep tabs on how much people deposit into their accounts and how much they withdraw, while credit card companies have an up-to-the-second record of how much people spend....

When Dmitry Argarkov was sent a letter offering him a credit card, he found the rates not to his liking. But he didn't throw the contract away or shred it. Instead, the 42-year-old from Voronezh, Russia, scanned it into his computer, altered the terms and sent it back to Tinkoff Credit Systems. Mr Argarkov's version of the contract contained a 0pc interest rate, no fees and no credit limit. Every time the bank failed to comply with the rules, he would fine them 3m rubles (£58,716). If Tinkoff tried to cancel the contract, it would have to pay him 6m...

I received a phone call from American Express a few minutes ago telling me that Social Security had notified them of my wife's recent, three weeks ago, passing, and that they were cancelling her card and what payment arrangements did I wish to make. I hintend to deal with her cards and our accounts but for the life of me I can't comprehend what Social Security is doing passing bnews of her death to private institutions. Where in the law does SSS get this authority. Tea Party Patriot that my wife was, she would be outraged at this example of...

<p>Technology companies stung by the controversy over the National Security Agency’s sweeping Internet surveillance program are calling on U.S. officials to ease the secrecy surrounding national security investigations and lift long-standing gag orders covering the nature and extent of information collected about Internet users.</p>