Debt City

How would you like to find a low-cost source of credit not far from your home?

If this sounds like an interesting quest, speak with local credit unions — you may be surprised by the idea of lenders with sane instincts.

According to the New York Times, “while virtually all banks and other for-profit issuers increase the interest rate if the borrower fails to make a minimum payment on time, most credit unions do not. Similarly, credit union fees for exceeding the credit limit are on average just half those of other issuers. But contrary to industry assertions, more responsible card users don’t pay the price. Credit union cards actually offer lower annual fees and longer grace periods than regular cards.”

The Times op ed piece by Harvard graduate students, Ryan Bubb and Alex Kaufman, makes the point that the new and tougher credit cards rules are, well, not actually new or tougher because credit unions have largely been following such standards for years. No less important, credit unions actually make profits, meaning that banks can also do well under the new standards.

For the full story, see: A Fairer Credit Card? Priceless

Michael Jackson has passed away, someone with both great gifts and great troubles.
This is not the place to comment on either Mr. Jackson’s talents or his travails, but rather to note that his life and death holds a lesson for everyone: His passing was unexpected. He was 50 years old. He had a personal physician [...]

Interchange fees, also known as swipe fees, are not on your credit card bill and but you pay them anyway.
According to the Merchants Payments Coalition, interchange fees are charges paid by merchants each time you use a credit card. The usual fee is about 2 percent — that’s ON TOP of whatever you pay [...]

If you check your mailbox you’re like to see two trends: First, fewer offers from credit card companies. Second, of the offers you do receive more will require an annual report if you sign up.
The direct mail tracking service Synovate reports that during the first three months of the year that U.S. households received 372.4 [...]

It has usually been said that credit card companies rarely forgive debt, and certainly not without a fight. However, the New York Times is reporting that “as they confront unprecedented numbers of troubled customers, credit card companies are increasingly doing something they have historically scorned: settling delinquent accounts for substantially less than the amount owed.”
The [...]

We know that the American Bankers Association represents bankers and the Association for Postal Commerce represents mailers, but who represents debt collection companies?
It turns out that there actually is an association for debt settlement companies — the United States Organization for Bankruptcy Alternatives.
USOBA says it was “founded by leading members in the debt [...]

The banking industry has begun to complain about one of its own, Ally Bank, a bank which says “we’re a bank that values integrity as much as deposits. A bank that will always be open, accountable, and honest. Yes, honest. We won’t deal in half-truths, kindatruths, or truths only buried in fine print. That’s because [...]

Reading a typical credit card disclosure is about as simple as parsing the text from some ancient Babylonian scroll — good luck to anyone without a microscope and a legal dictionary.
Now David Gibson, Carla Hall and Sylvia Harris are graphic designers and directors of Design for Democracy, a nonprofit group that “promotes accessible and transparent [...]

Why do people go bankrupt?
A new study published by the American Journal of Medicine finds that “62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical; 92% of these medical debtors had medical debts over $5000, or 10% of pretax family income. The rest met criteria for medical bankruptcy because they had lost significant income due to [...]

A new study by Wells Fargo & Company shows that nearly one in four homeowners (24 percent) “do not have any savings to cover their living expenses should they lose their income.” The survey also shows that 29 worry about job stability, 37 percent have reduced their debt and 12 percent paid off debt completely [...]