Filed under: College, Extracurriculars, Health, Relationships, School
Remember how seriously you took the test to get your driver’s license? What if the same hoops and hurdles to putting 16-year-olds behind the wheel was applied to letting 18-year-olds drink alcohol? This is th
e solution to the abysmal failure of the 21-and-over drinking law discussed on CBS’s 60 Minutes.
There was a time when carrying an American Express card gave one a sense of elevated self-importance. So how do you suppose those customers feel today when the company offers them $300 if they will pay off their balance and get lost?
The new program, offered to selected customers via a direct mail campaign, offers a prepaid American Express card with $300 on it if the customer enrolls in the program and pays off his account within two months. At that point, his existing American Express account is automatically canceled. Ouch!
This is an example of the impact of new database marketing techniques that allow merchants to identify and fire ‘bad’ customers; i.e., those whose business is not profitable to the merchant. Included in this bucket are those who pay off their balance each month and don’t take advantage of ancillary services. In other words, what the frugal person would think of as good customers.
Filed under: Banks, Borrowing, Real Estate, Simplification, Technology
Sometimes a picture speaks a thousand words.
Filed under: Banks, Budgets, Ripoffs and Scams, Recession, Consumer Complaints
As if being unemployed isn’t enough of a headache, the Associated Press is reporting that Bank of America and other banks are charging the unemployed small fees to withdraw their unemployment benefits with a debit card set up between the bank and the state that administers the money.
Filed under: Borrowing, Debt, Home
Ken and Daria Dolan, America’s First Family of Personal Finance, answer your money questions every Friday.
Filed under: Retire, Simplification, Career, Health, Relationships
Justin, a 35-year-old executive at a high-pressure investment firm works 60-70 hours per week. Even on vacation, he often slips away from the rest of the family to go on-line, check messages and answer phone calls. Until recently, he saw nothing abnormal about his behavior; in fact, everyone at his job works like that.
Looking to capitalize on the weak economy, Wal-Mart is slashing the fees on its reloadable pre-paid debit cards. The Wal-Mart Visa cards allow consumers to deposit paychecks, check balances, pay bills, and shop without having bank accounts.
The Associated Press reports that “Customers will now pay $3 to purchase and activate the card, $3 to reload it at a Wal-Mart store and $3 a month. The fees used to be $8.94 to buy a card plus $4.64 for every reload and $4.94 for the monthly fee.”
Filed under: Banks, Recession, Investing
Worried that the $787 billion stimulus plan won’t do enough to fix the ailing economy, investors sent stocks plummeting to a three-month low on Tuesday, the first day of trading after the holiday weekend.
Filed under: Debt, Ripoffs and Scams, Recession, Bankruptcy
They said it couldn’t be done.
They were wrong.
As college costs soar beyond the reach of more and more families, there’s one group of people who aren’t feeling the pinch: university presidents.
One-third of presidents at public universities now earn over $500,000 per year and the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the median compensation for public college presidents was $427,400 for the 2007-08 school year. Private college presidents earned about $100,000 more than that. Ohio State University’s president took home more than $1.3 million.