Get Treated Fairly by Your Bank
If you own your own automobile and have no liens against it, you qualify for an auto title loan. If you need fast cash during a financial crunch and can’t get a traditional loan, open or extend a line of credit or borrow money from friends or family, title loans may be your only alternative.
via Auto Loan » Blog Archive » Auto Title Loans – What to Look For and What to Watch Out For.
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As with anything involving banks and fees, though, none of this will end up being simple. Not surprisingly, the chance to run up insanely high fees has not been outlawed.
As a result, consumer groups say the latest efforts don’t go far enough.
“We’re urging customers to just say no to ‘opt in,’ ” said Jean Ann Fox, the Consumer Federation of America's director of financial services. “You don’t know what you’re opting into.”
Fox said she’s concerned that consumers could agree to overdraft programs that are not consumer-friendly.
via New overdraft-fee rules aren’t a perfect solution | Philly | 03/02/2010.
Of the estimated 19 million Americans who used payday loans last year, at least 12 million are trapped in a cycle of 400 percent interest loans (the numbers look deceptively smaller when listed over, say, a two-week period). According to the Center for Responsible Lending, U.S. borrowers who rely upon high-interest payday lending for quick cash are caught in a “debt trap” that costs them $3.4 billion each year. via What the Mob Can Learn from Payday Lenders | Poverty in America | Change.org.
Seeing an overdraft bank fee show up on your bank statement can be a rude awakening. Life these days is already pretty expensive, even for those who try to live frugally and within their means. But having your own bank, whom you were led to believe you should be able to trust, charge you overdraft bank fees is pretty unsettling.You are not alone. In fact, banks make billions of dollars per year in overdraft fees in the United States alone. Bank fees have become big business. And, as government regulations reign banks in on their often reckless and some say abusive practices around credit card issuance, banks are going to be looking even harder than ever for ways to recoup those lost profits by charging – you guessed it – more bank fees.
Read the entire post via Overdraft Bank Fee Complaints – How to Lodge Them.
In the past, thieves used devices on the outside of gas pumps to extract PINs and other information from cards. They installed tiny cameras and card skimmers to steal the information and then dip into a victim’s account.
This time, devices were installed in gas pumps. Police say they believe the devices intercept information and send the PIN and other debit card information to someone with a laptop.
The criminals then create a card that allows them to withdraw money from the victim’s account at ATMs.
via Sacto 9-1-1: Rocklin gas pump scam discovered after thousands of dollars are stolen.