By Robert L. Cain   Most landlords and many employers check applicants’ credit before they rent to or hire them.  Making it more difficult, however, according to the Identity Theft Center, is that since January 1, 2005 there have been 7,954 security breaches with 1,054,627,432 (that’s right, over 1 billion) personal records hacked, including the […]

Elsie was covered by an employer-sponsored health plan with a $1,000 deductible per person. Then she had a baby. At birth, her son acquired additional $1,000 deductible. That meant, both Elsie and her son were liable for additional cost-sharing expenses up to an annual Out-of-Pocket (OOP) limit, Those cost-sharing charges could vary depending on the […]

They are out to get you. Well, maybe not you personally, just your credit card information. If they get you, that’s only because something you did made it possible for them to get all that information. What you did was most likely totally innocent and something that people do regularly, but this time those creative […]

A clerk at Home Depot offered us a Home Depot credit card.  We told her that we have credit cards we never even use so don’t need another one.  She said they made her offer them to everyone, but then told us that it had taken her and her husband five years to climb out […]

By Robert L. Cain   With the unemployment rate hovering around “no qualified employees” available, it is becoming more and more of a challenge to pick and choose the person who can do the job you want done.  Rental owners and managers have the opposite “problem,”  too many applicants.  Even so, the solution is the […]

How to ensure a judgment gets on a credit report As we discussed last month, beginning July 1 judgments will appear on credit reports only if they contain a minimum of a name, address, and Social Security number and/or date of birth so the debtor can be properly identified.  It is up to county court […]

Reduced Student Loan Payment Concern Here’s something to watch out for on credit reports: student loan payments.  About 43 million people have student loan debt, with industry estimates at around $1.4 trillion nationwide. Of that 43 million, over five million participate in one reduced payment plan or another on their loans.   That has allowed […]

Tax lien and civil-judgment information may be missing from credit reports beginning July 1, 2017. The deletion comes on the heels of a deal that the three major credit-reporting agencies made with 31 state attorneys general in 2015.  That means that some judgments and tax liens normally on credit reports may disappear and some FICO […]

Most, 54 percent, are concerned about paying their student loans. Only about 36 percent own a home, while almost one-third of them, 32 percent, owe more than their home is worth. One-quarter of those, 24 percent, have been late with mortgage payments. And more than one in three, 35 percent have unpaid medical bills.  Those […]

Almost one-third of Americans got calls and/or letters from a collection agency in the past year about debts they hadn’t paid. Over half of those, 57 percent, were contacted about two to four debts. So reports the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) in its Consumer Experiences with Debt Collection report.  You don’t get a call […]