Recent Blog Posts

It’s a moment that can be terrifying: you collect your mail and see a certified letter from a law firm. You open it and learn you’re being sued for the money you owe on your credit card. Now what? You’ve never been sued before. You can’t even remember going into a courthouse. Can you handle…

In February, Wells Fargo & Co., the world’s largest bank, agreed to settle a mortgage-lending lawsuit for $1.2 billion. That, however, isn’t even the largest penalty the bank has paid: in 2013, it paid more than $5 billion in settlements and nearly $2 billion in violations. Wells Fargo is just one of many banks fined…

Illinois law states the repossession of a car or truck is illegal if the consumer is not actually in default on the loan or if the creditor doesn’t have a valid security interest in the vehicle. But a valid repossession can become illegal if the repossessor used tactics that “breach the peace” when seizing the…

The business blog of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently noted that both foreclosure rates and mortgage delinquencies in the Atlanta area have dropped in the past year. Atlanta’s foreclosure rate matched Georgia’s statewide, but the delinquency rate for the city was slightly lower than the state rate of 3.29 percent. These statistics serve up good news…

Determination is an admirable quality, but when a debtor decides to hold onto a sports car by any means necessary, it can lead to disaster. That was the case in Jefferson County, Alabama, where 48-year-old Sean Monroe stopped a repossession of his Chevrolet Camaro by blocking the path of the tow truck with another car…

Most people get a good feeling when they know they’ll be receiving a fat refund on their taxes. But is that really the best financial strategy? If you’re paying off credit cards or a high-interest loan, the answer is probably no. Imagine your tax refund is $3,200, which is about the average amount a U.S….

The Big Short, the Oscar-nominated film about the 2008 housing crisis, is an instructive, sometimes funny, and intense human drama about fraud and greed in the financial world. The film exposes the corruption that led to the near collapse of our banking system, but offers little comfort to the millions of Americans who lost their…

Donald Trump, the New York billionaire, real estate mogul and television celebrity, has been making headlines for months as a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. That has prompted his many challengers to insinuate that his business record is not what it appears to be. Opponent Carly Fiorina, a former CEO whose business record…

If you have defaulted on your car loan, the lender has the right to repossess it provided he does not “breach the peace.” This can put you in a terrible bind if you rely on your car to get to work or to run errands for your household. Sure, you can keep your car in…

Last year, CNN Money reported that the big three banks in the United States – JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo – had made $1.1 billion on overdraft fees in the first three months of that year alone. Obviously, overdraft fees are a big money-maker for the banks, but who is most likely…