There are some who wear their religiosity on their sleeves. They never tire of telling people how devoted they are to their church or synagogue, how faithfully they attend services, and how God-fearing, spiritual and pious they are. Some go so far as to suggest others who don’t share their faith are headed hell-ward.
My father [...]

Read the full article »

This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.
You see, as a financial writer, when I cover a story about credit card fraud, it’s supposed to be in the third person — about what happened to some unfortunate victim, or about how laws help protect consumers, etc. It’s not supposed to be in the first person. I’m [...]

Read the full article »

Last week I read the horrifying story of how an otherwise tech-savvy guy got hacked. Big time. The hackers compromised a number of his accounts and he lost tons of files. The good news is that there’s a lot we can all learn from his experiences.
For a bit of background, the entire process started when [...]

Read the full article »

I’ve suggested in the past that you should think twice before writing a check to a complete stranger. After all, your checks contain both your account number and your banks routing number — exactly what someone would need to help themselves to your money.
This is especially troubling given the ease with which checks can be [...]

Read the full article »

A couple months ago, I received an e-mail from a PR person telling me about a new service call BillGuard. I get tons of PR e-mail and, almost without fail, they go straight to the trash.
That being said, this one caught my eye and I filed it away for later investigation. Fast forward about a [...]

Read the full article »

It’s well established that average Americans find it difficult to save money. Come to think of it, there’s good reason for this. In a stagnant wage environment, they face high and ever increasing costs from legitimate sources, everything from supermarkets, gas stations and drug stores to car repair shops, banks, clinics, the folks who collect [...]

Read the full article »

How safe are your passwords? If you bank online, the only thing standing between you and a financial disaster is your password (and perhaps your username). And yet many people do an astonishingly bad job of selecting secure passwords.
A big part of the problem is that secure passwords are hard to remember. When combined with [...]

Read the full article »

While paying my bills recently online through my bank, I had a sudden flash of concern. How safe was my transaction? Was I at risk of identity theft or, even worse, the pilfering of my accounts?
Although experts say online banking is safer than the traditional method of using paper statements, it turns out that my [...]

Read the full article »

There’s a special and fiery place in hell for people who would try to rip off the life savings of retirees and senior citizens. And yet we know they exist, based on countless reports of frauds perpetrated against older Americans.
These snakes (and that’s unfair to the real reptiles) presumably wake up each morning, and rather [...]

Read the full article »

This is a guest post from Linsey Knerl.
Congratulations! You’ve just ordered a copy of your credit report and are well on your way to improving your score. Do you know what red flags to look on your report to keep your score safe? Today, I’ll review five things that shouldn’t escape your attention, and why [...]

Read the full article »