They don’t mean to, but things just happen to them. They aren’t conniving and deceitful, just unconscious. These are people who go through their lives making one bad decision after another, who have a black cloud that follows them around raining (or worse) on everything they try to do, and who wonder why they “never […]

They were 18 years old, got a free t-shirt, $5,000 in debt, and a 600 FICO score. Before the Credit CARD Act’s implementation in 2010 made them stop, credit card companies set up tables on college campuses and handed out credit cards along with free t-shirts and coupons for free food to college students. It […]

Cash is king, at least for $19.99. If $25 or less will bill buy it, chances are that’s what you’ll use, at least if you’re under 25 or over 45. A Federal Reserve study, “2018 Findings from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice,” examined how people use cash and found that cash beats cards hands […]

Own rental property? Homelessness is all your fault. Shortage of available rentals is all your fault. Higher rents are all your fault. Of course it isn’t, but you are getting the blame. State legislatures are on the warpath to make housing better for renters but are punishing rental owners and damaging the rental property business. […]

If you are a landlord in New York State, you need to become aware of recent changes to the state’s landlord-tenant laws that went into effect on June 14, 2019. Background and Credit Checks The new laws place limits on what you may do when screening tenants. Some of the changes affect the fees that […]

By Robert L. Cain By the time the Tucson police pulled her over, Randi Marie Hartjen had severely damaged the credit of six Phoenix-area women using stolen identities to rent or purchase six vehicles. How she did it shows how easy it is for someone to take over the credit of another person. Since the […]

Kids are moving back home with mom and dad more than at any time in recent history. The Census Bureau reports “More young people today live in their parents’ home than in any other arrangement: 1 in 3 young people, or about 24 million 18- to 34-year-olds, lived in their parents’ home in 2015.” And […]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is going after Facebook for running ads that violate the Fair Housing Act. Facebook and the government have already worked out agreements for ads that might illegally discriminate against people in the hiring process. Don’t count on any fines or other assessments against Facebook. Facebook has an army […]

By Robert L. Cain My old friend John Clark drove a Toyota Camry. Nothing unusual about that except that John owned one of the biggest real estate companies in Portland, Oregon, and could have paid cash for just about any car he wanted. But John saw no reason to buy a Mercedes, BMW, or Lincoln […]

Kelvin Lyles had been busy. When police raided his home in Atlanta in December 2015, they found “information for over 300 synthetic identities, fake driver’s licenses, a fake social security card, and numerous credit cards held in the names of individuals other than Lyles,” reported the US Attorney’s office. Police said that “Lyles attempted $435,862.10 […]