Credit Card Listings

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…

MasterCard Worldwide and Cardtronics have partnered to give you the convenience of a prepaid MasterCard. Now you can use the new MasterCard prepaid card in all ATM footprints through Cardtronics “Allpoint” surcharge-free ATM Network of more than 32,000 across the United States. Through its presence in all 50 states, with one out of 12 ATMs in the United States participating in its network, the “Allpoint” surcharge-free ATMs are located in highly trafficked retail locations like Target, 7-Eleven, and Costco for your banking convenience.

If you have ever missed a payment / bill in the past, you have probably noticed  that it shows up on your credit report relatively fast.

Now, the question is how long does this debt stay on your credit report?

For starters, if you don’t owe those payments, or there are some errors, you will want to contact the credit bureaus immediately to solve the issues.  You will want to make sure that you have as much evidence as possible.

If you did owe those bills and never decided to pay, you will find that on average, your debt is going to stay on your credit report for around 7 years.

Federal law will state that an account can appear on a credit report for 7.5 years.  After the first delinquency on the account, the clock will start after 180 days.  When you add 7.5 years to the first delinquency, this is when you will find out when your overpaid bill will disappear.

Now, for a bankruptcy, this can show up for up to 10 years from your final order.  Other loans such as student loans and more will stay on there until they are paid off.   These type of loans are immune to bankruptcies and you will owe until the balance reaches $0.

What happens if I challenge?

When you contact the credit bureaus, you’re going to want to send a dispute letter.  Once the bureaus receive a dispute letter, the credit bureau will forward that dispute to the actual creditor.  From there, they will be able to fight it, or agree to it.

Depending on the outcome, you will find that if they dispute it, it will be on hold.  If the creditor agrees to it, your debt will be wiped from your credit report.  This is why it’s important that you dispute all errors that show up on your report.  People don’t realize how much it can come back to haunt you.

To read more consumer laws and how you can dispute credit report errors, you will find that this FTC guide is a very valuable resource.

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…

Travelocity, American Express and Barclaycard US have announced the five lucky consumers who were awarded once-in-a-lifetime trips to Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland and Orlando in the “Travelocity Rewards American Express Card Sweepstakes,” via Webcast. Wrapping up the summer promotion, which was designed to celebrate the launch of the “Travelocity Rewards American Express Card” by Barclaycard US, the announcement disclosed the randomly drawn contestant winners. The winners included Sandy from Benicia, Ca, traveling to Santiago, Chile; Cheryl from Lumberton, Tx, Traveling to Auckland, New Zealand; Mike from Sherman, Tx, traveling to Cape Town, South Africa; Maria from Durham, N.C., traveling to Zurich, Switzerland; and Judy from Wyoming, Pa, traveling to Orlando, Fl. To hear the winnersâ??

Read more…

The rapid development of digital technology has meant that every “cashless transaction” is now recorded in databases for use by banks and advertisers, it has been observed.

Tech writer Mark Pesce suggested that every time a consumer spends on their credit card, it adds to a “data shadow” that steadily grows and follows them around.

Writing for ABC.net.au, he noted that such data can then be exploited by banks to calculate the creditworthiness of customers, minute-by-minute, or by retailers aiming to make their advertisements more effective.

“For years we’ve been warned that with every database transaction, the place for ourselves, which allows us to exist unmolested and unconstrained, grows ever smaller,” commented Mr Pesce. “Our opportunity to move, unseen and invisible, in the digital world, has become tiny.”

Aussies looking for greater spending privacy and security may wish to compare credit cards and switch provider. Read more…

Awkwardly, the free payment option varies from one retailer to another and so there is no substitute for reading the terms and conditions carefully before making a substantial purchase with plastic.

There is no legal requirement for retailers or anyone else to offer a free way to pay with plastic, according to the UK Cards Association, although other countries – including France, Italy and Sweden – ban credit card surcharges altogether.

Britain’s new financial watchdog, which is set to replace the Financial Services Authority next year, should get its teeth into inflated processing fees and force them back into line with the real cost of providing credit.

Credit card users in Australia could be tempted to compare the market following an announcement by a leading financial institution.

National Australia Bank (NAB) has announced that it is to reform the way payments and balance transfers are managed on its credit card accounts.

The move, which NAB said is the first of its kind by a major bank, is set to lead to lower interest payments for credit card users.

More than 1.5 million customers will benefit from the moves, which come after pressure from consumer advocacy groups and are in line with proposals made by the Federal Government during the recent election campaign.

Lisa Gray, NAB’s personal banking group executive, said: “Consumers may be unaware that typically across the finance industry their credit card repayments are used to pay off balances attracting the lowest interest rate first, leaving the higher interest balance to attract interest charges.

“This will no longer be the case for NAB customers. Read more…

Welcome to the first edition of the Carnival of Credit Cards and Saving Money.  A lot of great bloggers sent in submissions and I’ve chosen what I consider to be some very good articles that focus on saving money.

Here are my favorites, including a few from Smart Balance Transfers:

Mike Piper wrote an interesting discussion of The Best Places to Retire at The Oblivious Investor.  Its a great starting point for baby boomers thinking about retiring abroad.

Ryan @ MFN wrote a good article on the Benefits of Consolidating Financial Accounts at The Military Wallet. While it may take a little time in the short term to move money around and close accounts out, Ryan makes some very good points on the longer term benefits.

At Smart Balance Transfers, I put together some ideas to consider when tring to find the The Best 0% Balance Transfer Credit Card for You. The

Read more…