News

2011

September

08

• MoneyWi$e train-the-trainer event for DC-based CBOs (Consumer Action and Capital One help 55 organizations boost their financial literacy training skills). Washington, DC — Consumer Action and Capital One Bank today announced that their joint MoneyWi$e financial literacy partnership is providing a free financial education training seminar for community-based groups in the Greater Washington, DC region.…

• Social Security pays millions to dead people. While many Americans worry that the Social Security Administration won't have enough money left to pay their benefits when they retire, the agency is doling out millions of dollars to people who aren't even alive.…

• Healthcare costs rose while insurance coverage fell. U.S. workers whose wages stagnated over the last decade also saw their health insurance degrade, even as medical costs gobbled up a growing share of their income, two new studies show. An estimated 29 million…

06

• Consumer protection nominee promises cooperation. President Barack Obama's nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is promising to be accountable to Congress and is playing down the lawsuits his agency will be able to file against banks and…

• Insurers' rate quote practice unfair. Let's say your barber is increasing the cost of haircuts. Is it fair for other barbers to require that you disclose how much you were being asked to pay before they say how much they'll…

02

• Putting a price on prolonging a doomed life. Bob Iritano died Thursday morning. He was 51. Iritano wasn't a celebrity. He wasn't a captain of industry or a mover and shaker. Iritano was just a guy who worked his job as an insurance…

01

• Reverse mortgages: Do the benefits outweigh the risks?. The reverse mortgage was invented decades ago to help seniors facing economic hardship access the equity in their homes. Between 1990 and 2010, more than 660,000 reverse mortgages were issued, according to the AARP. Today,…

• Tougher rules for credit bureaus could be on the way. Borrowers may soon have more weapons to fight back against erroneous credit reports and credit scores. This includes uncovering discrepancies when a report or score obtained by a consumer differs from the data that land…

• Rebuilding after Irene? Watch for contractor scams. Homeowners who found themselves in the sights of Hurricane Irene may soon be targeted by scammers looking to profit from their pain. As attention turns to repair and rebuilding, residents in affected areas should be…

August

31

• What’s worse for credit score — foreclosure, short sale, deed in lieu?. You can’t really say that credit scores don’t matter. They do. People can just let the home go to foreclosure, and this will affect their scores for seven years. Or they can do a deed…

30

• After Irene, what will insurance cover?. Thousands of East Coast residents whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Irene could find themselves stuck with bills that aren't covered by their homeowners insurance policies.

26

• Hurricane Irene could wreak havoc on insurance premiums. East Coast homeowners in the path of Hurricane Irene could be on the hook for thousands of dollars in damages that aren't covered by their insurance policies, experts say. The storm could also lead to…

• Is travel insurance a smart bet for your vacation?. Hurricane Irene's swath through the Caribbean this week probably left many of the no-longer paradise-bound wondering: Should I have taken out travel insurance? Gabe Saglie, senior editor for the deal publishing site Travelzoo, doesn't often…

25

• Consumer Action offers guide to foreclosure assistance programs. Consumer Action today released a free resource guide to help struggling homeowners at all stages in the foreclosure process. Housing Help: Consumer Action’s Foreclosure Prevention Guide lists the variety of government and private programs and…

• U.S. may back mortgage refinance plan. The Obama administration is considering further actions to strengthen the housing market, but the bar is high: plans must help a broad swath of homeowners, stimulate the economy and cost next to nothing. One proposal…

23

• Foreclosure talks stall. An effort by state attorneys general to take big mortgage servicers to task over faulty foreclosure practices has stalled as financial institutions demand broad legal immunity from other mortgage-related probes. The nationwide effort looking into…

19

• Medical debt cited more often in bankruptcies. Medical debt is increasingly a factor in personal bankruptcy filings, an analysis of data at a large credit-counseling agency finds. Roughly 20 percent of those seeking financial counseling this year and last cited medical debt…

18

• Forgiving debt may be the answer. n America’s unenlightened past, men who couldn’t pay their debts were imprisoned. Languishing behind bars deprived them of any chance to repay their creditors, so the practice was stupid as well as cruel. During college,…

• New rules would let consumers compare health insurance plans. What would your health insurance cover if you got pregnant? How much could you expect to pay out of pocket if you needed treatment for diabetes? How do your plan’s benefits compare with another company’s?…

16

• Inflated medical bills mask true cost. It's bad enough that her son has a chronic disease that can send him to the emergency room when the pain becomes unbearable. But Susan Kenyon is also grappling with wildly inflated medical prices that…