Colleges and alumni associations throughout Texas are making money from banks and credit card companies by selling them the names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of alumni, faculty, ticket holders, donors and students, according to reporting by KENS Channel 5 in San Antonio.
No, really. Via Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that more and more people are being picked up and tossed in jail to satisfy their debts. Here’s one of many stories:
As a sheriff’s deputy dumped the contents of Joy Uhlmeyer’s purse into a
In a letter to the chief executives of Visa and MasterCard, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) lambasted the companies for misconstruing his reforms of credit card interchange fees to small banks and small businesses. He also threatened that he might consider some card issuers’ practices anti-competitive, and requested a reply More…
Pallavi Gogoi at Daily Finance, who watched payday lender regulations die in the Senate, asked payday lenders how they liked the rules under which they are forced to operate for military personnel. Under those rules, members of the military cannot be charged more than 36 percent interest on any loan. More…
With the advent of new credit card regulations designed to keep credit card companies from engaging in the most predatory practices, the companies are very, very busy trying to find legal ways to keep making money in the exact same ways they always have: with confusing rules, crazy More…
Recent media reports that Citigroup had discovered a potential way around regulations forbidding it from abusive rate hikes sparked more than a public outcry; it convinced Citi’s competitors to follow suit. Since the regulations are set to take effect Monday, card companies are scrambling to inform customers about More…
When Congress passed rules to reign in the most usurious of credit card practices, many Americans cheered. When Congress moved up the deadline for companies to comply with the rules because credit card issuers began raising rates in an effort to squeeze as much cash out of strapped Americans before More…
Moments ago, Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic proposal to freeze credit card rates on existing balances through the holiday season. The bill, sponsored by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), would prevent credit card companies from hiking rates and fees on existing balances until the industry reforms More…
The subprime crisis certainly highlighted the need for American consumers to become more financially literate. But who defines financial literacy? And what makes someone an expert? Mike Konczal at Rortybomb asks these and other questions regarding financial literacy education — a subject TWI has also been looking into More…
President Obama called on Wall Street today to stop fighting financial regulation and to instead embrace reform, Bloomberg reported. Speaking at Federal Hall in New York City on the first anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers, Obama used plain language to explain to all the financial wizards More…
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