As the Christmas shopping season approaches, it’s a good idea to do what you can to reduce your risk of identity fraud when you shop online. Read the full article

Today the House Financial Services Committee approved a bill establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). Read the full article

The Credit Card Accountability and Disclosure Act of 2009 Act, signed last month, was supposed to drastically improve protections for consumers. While the new law eliminates some problems, banks are good at finding loopholes. Read the full article

College graduation season, which lasts for several weeks, is upon us here in the Boston area. According to the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), graduating seniors with educational debts carry an average debt load on the order of $20,000. More and more, college students are beginning their working lives with fairly heavy debt loads. It's more important than ever for newly-minted grads to hit the ground running with a plan for their finances. Read the full article

Since this week is National Protect Your Identity Week, I’ve decided to post a couple of articles that are largely drawn from a newsletter that I wrote a while ago. The threat of identity theft is real, although as I have noted before, ID theft rates don’t seem to be increasing. Even so, if you aren’t taking precautions to avoid identity theft, you make yourself an easy target. Fraud-related theft tends to increase in times of economic crisis, so it’s wise to be cautious.

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling is spearheading National Protect Your Identity Week; you may want to check out their Protect Your ID site, which has a number of useful resources on this topic. Read the full article

As a result of a class-action suit against the Transunion credit bureau, consumers can obtain six to nine months of free credit report and credit score access if they qualify for inclusion in the class. Read the full article

Credit card network facilitator Visa, Inc. announced today that it’s piloting a new system that can provide real-time e-mail or text message notification to a cardholder whenever a card transaction is made. Users will be able to define the minimum transaction amounts required to trigger a message. The system can also send a message whenever other triggering events take place: an internet credit card purchase, an overseas card use, or a telephone transaction, for example. Read the full article

Many homeowners struggling to keep up with mortgage payments are probably using their credit cards to make ends meet. Now, apparently, people who can't pay their mortgages have a new alternative: they can charge their monthly mortgage payments to a credit card directly. I wish I were making this up, but I'm not. Read the full article

Identity theft seems to get a lot more attention than it used to. I’ve given it my share by writing two client newsletters offering advice on how to avoid ID theft. But this is a topic that holds considerable personal interest for me, as I’ve been the victim of a series of thefts of credit card numbers over the years. Read the full article

What does it actually cost if you don’t pay off your credit card balances each month? What does a credit card purchase cost if you just make the minimum payments? Read the full article

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