An alleged big-time old-school credit card data reseller was arrested in France and extradited to America after Department of Justice investigators arranged to buy some credit card data off him via ICQ. His reign as king jerk may have ended, but the flash cartoon he used to promote his netherworldly services is still online (NSFW). [More]
credit cards
Notorious Alleged Stolen Credit Card Data Reseller Arrested, But His Promo Cartoon Remains
By 8.12.10
Which Credit Cards Will Help Me Meet My Goals?
By 8.12.10
Credit cards mean different things to different people. For some they’re a lifeline to get by from month to month, while others use them to streamline their cash flow and reap rewards. [More]
Juror In Burglary Trial Accused Of Stealing Fellow Juror's Credit Card
By 8.10.10
By their very nature, courtrooms play host to any number of criminals. They’re just usually sitting at the defendant’s table and not in the jury box. But according to prosecutors in NYC, a woman who had been sitting on a jury in a recent criminal case stole the credit card of one of her fellow jurors and went on a shopping spree. [More]
Citibank Yanks Your 87,000 Rewards Points And Closes Account Without Warning
By 8.10.10
Andy and his wife were just about to use their 87,000 accumulated rewards points to take a vacation when all of a sudden Citibank closed the account and took away all their points. According to customer service, there’s nothing that can be done. [More]
Starwood American Express Card Hikes Annual Fee To $65
By 8.6.10
The annual fee for the Starwood American Express card is going up from $45 to $65. Is it worth the price to pay for the right to use a credit card? [More]
What Do You Do When A Site Fails To Charge Your Credit Card?
By 8.5.10
Sarah seems partly jubilant and partly terrified that a travel website failed to make her pay for a round trip flight to Alaska. She wants to protect herself and know whether or not she has to do anything more. [More]
Banana Republic Credit Card Comes With Free Account Errors, Late Fees, Disconnected Calls
By 8.3.10
Nick went shopping recently at Banana Republic and applied for a store credit card. Now he’s being called by a collections department and receiving contradictory stories about whether or not the retailer has his correct address on file. [More]
Ticketmaster Bungles My Concert Order, Supervisor Doesn't Care
By 8.2.10
Joe ordered tickets to a John Mayer concert through Ticketmaster but was turned away at will call. His order didn’t go through because someone at the company input his credit card number incorrectly. He wants to run through the halls of his high school and scream at the top of his lungs: [More]
Don't Give Greyhound Tickets As Gifts
By 7.27.10
If you buy a Greyhound bus ticket for someone else, Greyhound will charge you a flat $18 “gift ticket fee,” which must be the worst named fee in the history of transportation. On short rides, like a one-way trip from Cambridge, MA to Hartford, CT, it bumps the price up from $22 to $40. [More]
Report Says The Poor Subsidize Credit Card Reward Programs
By 7.27.10
A new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston says that credit card reward programs have a sneaky hidden cost that the card holder doesn’t have to bear. This occurs because the fee that a retailer pays to run a credit card varies with every card, and reward cards cost more to process–in other words, the card issuer passes the cost of the rewards program on to the retailer. The retailer adapts by raising prices across the board, which distributes the cost of the reward program among all shoppers. [More]
Five Things To Do Before Losing Your Wallet
By 7.24.10
Look, it’s going to happen eventually. Whether it’s pickpockets or carelessness, you’re going to lose your wallet. When you do, you’ll be glad you took these five steps to make recovery simple and painless. [More]
Chili's Server Says Chain Is Getting Portable Payment Devices
By 7.23.10
It’s always a tense moment when you hand off a credit card to your waiter. There are so many potential pitfalls: Your card could slip out of the folder, an unscrupulous employee may skim your data or inflate your tip, and you could forget your card at the table. [More]
Force A Reality Check With This "Real Cost" Credit Card Tool
By 7.19.10
The next time you want to splurge on some big ticket item, you might want to head over to The Real Damage first to see what it’s going to actually cost you in the long run. The free online tool looks at your current balances and interest rates, as well as your monthly payments, and then approximates how much extra you’ll pay in interest on your new purchase before you’re totally debt free. [More]
Chase Made Me A Weird Telemarketed Offer I Easily Refused
By 7.13.10
Tim says a Chase marketer called him up and offered him $150 upfront in exchange for a commitment to knock $1,800 off his credit card balance within the next seven months. Intrigued, Tim asked the company to send documentation for the offer, but the guy on the phone refused. He says the number on his caller ID checks out as a Chase number and doesn’t know what to make of the strange promotion. [More]
Study: American Express Has Most Obtuse Penalty APR Polices
By 7.7.10
If you’re gonna get kicked in the pants, wouldn’t you at least like to know why? Well, American Express is the least clear in how they communicate their penalty interest rate policies, a new Card Hub survey finds. [More]
Hackers Love Stealing Your Credit Card From Hotels
By 7.6.10
Make sure you check your credit card for suspicious charges after you use it at a hotel. A new study finds that 38% of credit card hacking cases involved hotels, way ahead of any other industry. [More]
TD Bank Pushes Totally Flat Debit Cards
By 7.6.10
Run your fingers over one of TD Bank’s new debit cards and you’ll notice something missing. There’s no embossed numbers. It’s not a fake, it’s the future: a completely flat debit card that can be issued right on the spot when you open an account at a local bank, with no waiting for it to arrive in the mail. [More]
Skeezy Car Dealer Is Holding My Deposit Until I Come Back To Talk To Him
By 7.5.10
Don plopped down $500 at a Hyundai dealership with the understanding that he’d get his money back if the sale fell through. He wasn’t happy with the terms of the deal, so he went with another dealership and was assured that he’d get the money back. The dealer still has the deposit and told Dan he’d like him to come in and have a sit-down about why the sale didn’t happen. Dan just wants his $500. [More]
