“We had a credit party …”
A report from CNBC indicates that 15 million Americans are either receiving phone calls from creditors are are considering filing for bankruptcy. And, according to the article, it’s not only the low income that are at the credit party. Even high income households can get in trouble with credit card [...]
The Washington Post interviewed Obama on consumer debt and the housing crisis.
A Taking Charge article revealed that while the McCains pay zero percent interest on the American Express credit cards with the majority of their $200,000+ credit card debt, they pay a 25.99 percent interest rate on their Chase credit card - ten percentage points [...]
Even though the decision of the Federal Reserve not to increase interest rates last week should mean that consumers are safe from credit card interest rate increases (read more at Taking Charge), Pioneer Press reports that “[n]ervous banks are raising interest rates for almost any reason.”
Disclosures for lobbying spending in the first quarter of 2008 have been in for a couple months now - the data has been compiled and sifted and here are a few of the spending figures from credit card issuers and credit card payment processors:
Citigroup - $1.45 million (over a range of issues).
Visa spent $860,000 [...]
An Orlando Sentinel article tells consumers not to hold their breath for credit card reform from either the Federal Reserve or from Congress. It’s an election year and the credit card industry is putting strong pressure on Congress and the Federal Reserve to weaken reforms.
The Wall Street Journal reported in an article titled Card Issuers Get Personal to Check Credit that credit card companies are going well beyond credit scores in examining whether you should get, or keep, your line of credit. They are now looking at items as varied as what part of the region that you [...]
Here’s the start of a series from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance and the Washington Post on how to complain to the organizations that love to charge you for anything and everything.
The Modesto Bee attempted to address the age old question of how many credit cards is too many this past weekend but the resounding answer - it depends - won’t help much in the debate. The article, found here, is a good discussion of the many factors in the calculation as well as this interesting [...]
Here’s the link to an ABC News article that has links to organizations and resources that can help you manage your credit card debt or report possible credit card fraud. It has links to a variety of types of organizations - from consumer groups to regulators to credit counseling firms to Congressional leaders working on [...]
Atlanta-based Consumer Credit Counseling Service released an interesting statistic as part of an article about its housing counselors in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
“In 2007, the average client’s net worth was $23,569; today, that number is a negative: -$48,095.”
It would be interesting to know what caused that dramatic decline in net worth. Are clients waiting longer before [...]
