Credit Card Now

We all know what a pain in the keister it is to deal with a stolen credit card, or at least we can guess. If you’ve never experienced it yourself, you probably know someone who has. Yours truly once had a whole wallet full of cards stolen, and I can assure you, it’s no picnic.

But that’s not the worst thing that can happen with a credit card theft. Someone might go hog-wild with a credit card you even never knew you had.

Now wait a minute here!

Everybody knows you’re supposed to keep a close eye on your credit card statements. This simple step saved the bacon for a friend of mine, who used to work as an archaeologist for a company in New Orleans.

One day, the CFO called him in and asked, “Why did you spend $500 on your company MasterCard at this gas station across town?” And my friend, confused, said, “I don’t have a company MasterCard.

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Tags: Credit Card, Know, Stolen Credit, Stolen Credit Card

I’ve never been to Germany, but living in Central Texas can make you feel culturally close to the beer and wurst of Deutschland. And now, one of my blog posts has made a carnival celebrating the country’s annual Oktoberfest event.

For the latest Carnival of Personal Finance, host Alpha Consumer has chosen an Oktoberfest theme for her collection of blog posts from “the best of the web’s money writers.” The carnival includes my recent blog post, “The South: We’re poor, overweight — and we’ve got low credit scores,” which discusses how those scores appear to sink once you head below the Mason-Dixon line.

As a resident of Texas — which is part of the South, the Southwest or its own country, depending on who you ask — you don’t have to look far to find culinary and cultural connections with Germany (including links of the sausage variety, barbecued brisket, bock beers and accordion music, for example). Read more…

Tags: Blog Post, Post

As someone who’s lived in Texas for nearly five years, it’s bad enough to see studies that say the South is more impoverished and fatter than the rest of the country. Now data suggests we Southerners have the nation’s worst credit, too.

Click the image to enlarge

Recent data shows those U.S. cities with the highest average credit scores are all in the Midwest or North, according a map of the country’s highest and lowest VantageScores created by credit bureau Experian. Those cities the with lowest average credit scores, meanwhile, can often be found in the South, with five of the six lowest-scoring cities in two particular states: Texas and Louisiana.

Why is that? Read more…

Tags: South, South Were

Dear Creditnet: I’m a cosigner on my son’s credit card. I know, that may have been a mistake in the first place.

Recently, I pulled my credit report and found out that the account was maxed out, closed in March of last year, and then reported late for six months before he started making payments again. The account status is currently listed as “Pays As Agreed.”

I called the credit card company asking why this is listed as closed if my son is still paying on it every month? They said it was closed because they did not want him to use the account anymore.

Is this the correct way to report the credit card on my credit reports, or should it show as an open account with a zero credit limit?

Answer: Your credit card account appears to be reported correctly based upon the information you’ve provided. Since the

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Tags: Card, Credit Card

Ever have a pang of regret when you notice that shiny new toy you just bought dropped in price right after you purchased it? Back in the days when Amex’s Best Value Guarantee program still lived, that wasn’t such a worry. All you needed to do was call them up, provide evidence of the price drop and get refunded the difference.

The good news is that such programs still do exist. Many credit cards will reimburse you the difference if you find the same item at a lower price, either at the same retailer or elsewhere. For instance, under Citi’s current price protection program, if you find a printed advertisement within 60 days of your purchase for the exact same item, they will refund you the price difference, up to $250 per item (and up to a maximum of $1,000 per cardmember per year) if you placed the entire purchase on your Citi credit card. The m

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Tags: Price, Price Rewind