Recently released data from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court system showed that personal bankruptcy filings in the United States for the 12 month period ending June 30, 2008, were up 28 percent to 934,009. Tennessee had the highest bankruptcy filing rate per capita, Michigan had the highest per capita rate of Chapter 7 filings (that’s the [...]
Forbes declared Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the city in the United States with the most delinquent credit cards in its recent article, The Debt Capitals of America. The delinquency rate of 2.28 percent in Pine Bluff is nearly double the national average of credit card delinquencies of 1.19 percent.
One of the sad parts of Forbes’ list [...]
Debt collectors in the United States are pretty annoying - but at least they are governed by a set of rules and regulations that put some restraint on their actions (and hopefully their conscience). If you are in the unfortunate position of receiving phone calls from your creditors, things could be worse.
You could be in [...]
The Democratic Convention is slated to begin this week in Denver and I’m already disappointed about Democratic Presidential Nominee Senator Barack Obama’s choice for his Vice Presidential Candidate - Senator Joseph (Joe) Biden from Delaware.
Delaware is the state of incorporation for most large corporations in the United States because of the perception (whether real or [...]
I wrote a brief post a couple weeks back about how banks and credit card companies might begin declaring and exercising a right of offset, particularly on its business customers. If you don’t remember the post, it discusses how banks are increasingly seizing funds in the bank account of debtors who have business credit cards. [...]
Fair Isaac, the developer of the proprietary model used for the widely accepted FICO credit score, has announced that it has reversed its 2007 FICO 08 decision to remove the effect of an authorized user on a credit card account on the credit score of the authorized user. Its press release explains that it [...]
MasterCard spent $1.1 million lobbying in the second quarter of 2008 on, among other issues, the new credit card rules proposed by Congress and the Federal Reserve, according to Forbes. MasterCard’s credit card lobbying efforts cost it $720,000 in the first quarter of 2008.
The United States isn’t the only country where consumers are having difficulty with credit card debt and rising expenses. I previously discussed the problem with credit card debt in Great Britain. And numerous news stories have focused on the growing problems with credit card debt in other countries in the world.
Australians owe a national record [...]
Connecticut is suing three credit rating agencies alleging that the rating agencies gave artificially low rates to municipalities, causing them to pay higher interest rates on bonds. Read more about it here.
I wonder if consumers who believe that they have been unfairly denied access to lower interest rate credit cards and debt could sue under [...]
I recently stumbled across an article about a South Africa company introducing a cell phone based payment system to Cape Town, South Africa.
It’s got me wondering whether this type of mobile payment system will catch on in the United States. While it would be nice to simply carry my cell phone rather than my wallet, [...]
