Joe paid for his restaurant meal, except he apparently didn’t. Two weeks after he paid his check by debit card, the charge has yet to show up on his account. The thing is, he wasn’t happy with the meal or the service, so he’s not all that motivated to call management and tell them they probably forgot to charge him. [More]
credit cards
American Eagle Wants A Note From Charles Schwab Before They'll Accept My $15 Return
By 6.30.10
Tiffany tells Consumerist that she thought that returning a pair of $15 sunglasses to an American Eagle store would be a simple transaction. This seems sensible enough. What she didn’t know that her bank issuing her a new credit card was simply too much for the chain’s computers. Bringing in her credit card statement wasn’t enough, and now store employees now insist that she have her bank issue her a personalized letter in order to issue the refund. [More]
Reader Nearly Gets Jacked By Fake ATM
By 6.29.10
Reader Paul was trying to enjoy fried pop tarts at an outdoor city festival in his hometown when his debit card was nearly stolen by a fake ATM. Someone had modified an arcade cabinet and placed it outside a bank where it had captured the overflow traffic spilling out of the bank lobby. [More]
Watch Out For Tiny Fraudulent Charges On Your Accounts
By 6.28.10
The new hot fraud these days involves something that kinda sounds like it belongs in Superman III, but is new and different. Scamsters make tiny charges to tons and tons of accounts, hoping that the account holders won’t notice a charge for less than $10. And often they don’t. [More]
Even Wells Fargo CEO Powerless To Reduce Your Punitive APR
By 6.28.10
The APR on Kevin’s Wells Fargo credit card got jacked up from 9.6% to almost 23%. He owes $16,000. At 9.6, he could afford to make double the monthly payments, but now he’s paying $300+ a month in finance charges alone. He’s begged up and down the hierarchy, from the CEO to any exec or VP he could reach, to please reduce his APR so he can carry this debt. Nope. The numbers have spoken. The odds are calculated. Your risk has been assessed, and the verdict has been issued: you lose. [More]
Financial Reform Bill Oks Minimum, Maximum Credit Charges
By 6.27.10
The financial reform compromise may keep our financial system from reprising Chernobyl anytime soon, but it will also change the way consumers use their credit cards. Merchants will soon be allowed to refuse plastic for purchases of less than $10, a rate the Fed can boost as they see fit. Both the Fed and universities will also gain the power to set maximum credit charges. That means no more free flights to Europe after charging your kid’s tuition to your rewards card. The changes will go into effect the day after the compromise is signed into law. [More]
Fake ATMs Drain Your Account Dry
By 6.24.10
We’ve talked about spotting skimmers placed on ATMs before, but what if the whole ATM is a skimmer? [More]
Bring A Cash Tip If You're Going To Supercuts
By 6.24.10
If you’re planning a haircut at Supercuts anytime soon, bring cash to tip your super cutter. Joe reports that his local branch of the chain, at least, has stopped letting customers add a tip for their stylist to their total bill. Tips are now cash only. [More]
Hunt Down Your Credit Card Contract Online
By 6.22.10
Hey, you can now look up your credit card contract online. There’s a searchable database over at the Federal Reserve that lets you check them out in both text and PDF form. [More]
POLL: How Much Debt Do You Have?
By 6.18.10
Let’s play a fun game. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Debt, that is! [More]
Credit Cards Limits Reduced Based On What You Bought, Where You Bought It
By 6.17.10
New insight into how the credit card companies have been secretly judging us all has emerged in a new Federal Reserve report. From Nov ’06-Nov ’09, some credit card companies admit to using more than just the usual income, credit and repayment history to evaluate if they should reduce your line of credit or raise rates. Yep, they’re looking at where you shop. [More]
New Rules To Cap Credit Card Late Fees At $25
By 6.15.10
New rules announced today will take some of the sting out of those penalties that hit you when you don’t pay your credit card bill on time. Most fees will be capped at $25, regardless of your balance, and can be much lower in some cases. If your minimum payment is $10 and you’re late, your late fee can’t go above $10. [More]
Authorities Bust International Credit Card Cloning Ring
By 6.15.10
Over 170 people around the globe were arrested on suspicion of participating in a massive credit card scam, reports Reuters. Fourteen countries were involved, and although most of the arrests were in Spain, there were also raids and/or arrests in Romania, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Australia, Sweden, Greece, Finland, Hungary, and the United States. In all, police say they discovered at least 120,000 stolen credit card numbers. [More]
How Card Issuers Sneak Around New Laws
By 6.14.10
Crafty credit card issuers aren’t going to let a little thing like the law get in the way of their profits. Nope, they’re finding creative ways to get around the pro-consumer CARD act and maintain their grip on your pocketbook. [More]
Ex-Disney Worker Pleads Guilty To Skimming $83,000 In Guest Credit Cards
By 6.14.10
Maybe she overdosed on saccharine. A Walt Disney World resort front desk clerk has plead guilty after getting caught for placing skimmers on the computers at work, ripping off 178 people, 32 banks and credit-card issuers of over $83,000. [More]
Why Don't I Get The Cash Discount For Gas When I Pay With My Debit Card?
By 6.10.10
David writes that he recently had a confusing experience at a gas station, and he wanted some clarification. He’s used to receiving a cash discount when he pays with his debit card at gas stations, but came across a gas station owner who wouldn’t give a cash discount for anything but actual greenbacks. Are this gas station’s policies illegal, David wonders? [More]
86-Year-Old Receives Surprise $19k Bill From Macy's
By 6.7.10
Lorene Pounds is 86 years old and says she hasn’t shopped at Macy’s in years. That’s partly why she was surprised when Macy’s called her up and told her she was delinquent on her credit card account. The other reason she was surprised was they said she owed $19,791. [More]
How Fraudsters Make Fake Credit Cards
By 5.27.10
There’s many ways your credit card can be stolen and exploited, but this is one of the more sophisticated: In this WIRED video, Detective Bob Watts of Newport Beach Police Department shows how crooks take your credit card numbers they steal off the internet and turn a blank plastic card into something they could swipe through a Best Buy scanner or plunk down at a fancy restaurant, complete with holograms and embossing. Using these techniques, one criminal ring racked up over a $1 million in fraud before they got busted. [More]
