It was a particularly dull morning, the excitement of spring watered down by the constant downpour dampening everyone’s spirits… when my trusted Nokia rang. It was an automated message. I was about to hang up when I caught my bank’s name and it was from the fraud department notifying me of some activities on a [...]
Five of my favorite ‘money themed’ movies in no particular order… The Business Of Being Born (2008) If you are pregnant or about to become pregnant, I would advice you against watching this movie! The movie is about how something as natural as childbirth has become a booming business in the US. Physicians like control [...]
Revenue from last quarter for DirecTV was over $6 billion! For a quarter! And that’s not because customers love DirecTV. Just search for DirecTV and you’ll find numerous complaints blasting DirecTV’s deceptive marketing practices. Here are the most common ones: You are offered a promotion when you sign up which doesn’t extend till the end [...]
Last week, BofA agreed to pay $137 million for defrauding municipalities of millions of dollars by rigging muni bids in its favor. In 2007, BofA voluntarily informed the Justice Department of its role in this muni bond operation. Bank of America was involved in 88 cases involving muni bid rigging from 1998 to 2003. What [...]
The Feds took a lot of heat for the massive bailout of Wall Street. Politicians rode it all the way to the vote bank with their fake outrage and there were some who openly agreed that the bailout was necessary. Just Take It! But were the bailouts justified? In my opinion, yes. Letting large financial [...]
No one likes to admit they got scammed. More so for me since I blog about personal finance! But here’s an old story I think is worth writing about. This happened a few years back … Here’s what happened. I signed up for a new credit card and the card provider automatically put me on [...]
Ever noticed how when you swipe your debit card at the grocery, you have to choose Credit or Debit? Most choose Debit and enter their PIN to pay for the purchases. Did you know you can choose Credit and NOT enter your PIN? Incoming search terms:do you have to sign for a credit card or [...]
Paypal has two modes of payment – a one-time payment and a subscription or pre-approved payment. Sneaky merchants might charge you for a subscription when you might be under the impression this is a one-time payment. They can keep charging you till you cancel. How to find out if you are in fact a victim [...]
Of late, I’ve been getting a number of spam email from friends who use GMail. My spam folder which was until now on a slow carb diet was suddenly inundated with spam! All have the same one line pharmacy spam to some site peddling Viagra. Of course, my friends were clueless that their accounts were [...]
As we move away from brick and mortar to online operators, protecting yourself from online fraud becomes vital. More and more people access their banks online. Yet the only thing standing between you and your money is a 4 to 6 digit number or a word or combination of words. And to make it easier, [...]