Archive for November, 2006

Shockingly, the average payday borrower spends $793 on a $325 loan. Dear. God.
“Contrary to [the Center for Responsible Lending]’s spin, responsible uses of the payday product provides consumers firm footing to overcome unexpected financial circumstances,” said Ken Compton, chief executive of Advance America, in a press release.” Spin? It is no spin to say that [...]

ACSBlog reports that the University of Minnesota Law School has hired Robert Delahunty on a temprary basis to teach constitutional law at Mondale Hall. Delahunty apparently had a hand in drafting some of the Bush Administration’s controversial “torture memos” (PDF link).
Some students at Mondale Hall are upset, according to the campus paper, The Minnesota [...]

In case you tend towards paranoia (or maybe you have read too much about RFID chips), check out this RFID-blocking wallet from ThinkGeek, setting your fears to rest for the low low price of $19.99. Rather than aluminum foil, it uses a “Faraday cage.” Whatever that is.

Frontline put together (this is old news) an impressive investigation of the credit card industry. You can now watch the entire program online, but there is also more information about credit card usage. Frontline’s “Eight Things a Credit Card User Should Know” after the jump.

In other news, the seven zombies who were jailed for two days have filed a lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County. The Zombie 7 and their attorney, Jordan Kushner, allege that the city and county violated their right to free speech (and presumably, falsely arrested them). They also claim the police wrongfully [...]

Tonight I caught a Fox investigative report on Jim Eischens, owner of Twin Cities Housing & Realty, LLC, who sounds like he may be one of the worst landlords in Minnesota. (Although we have reservations about that, since we are currently suing two landlords who may be far worse.)
Eischens apparently owns about 80 properties in [...]

Along with most of you, we plan to spend tomorrow gorging ourselves on turkey, marshmallow-pecan salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, and all sorts of yummy food. Why is it the Last Great American Holiday, you ask? Because the opportunities to commercialize it are limited to none, and it’s all about family, thanks, and football, three things [...]

I didn’t realize how many people really use payday loans until I stumbled across the Debt Consolidation Care forums. I don’t know much about the affiliated debt counseling service, yesdebtfree.org, but from what I can tell from the internet facade, they are are on the up-and-up. It seems like nearly all the forum members, though, [...]

Credit Slips, and NACA general counsel Ira Rheingold point out that Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota wants to roll back the recent legislation limiting interest rates on loans to service members. This was a landmark piece of legislation, although we would rather see it applied to the entire lending industry. Who really needs more [...]

DRM, or digital rights management, is the term applied to the media industries feeble and damaging attempts to limit your idea to use the music and movies that you buy. I’m sure everyone has heard that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America, or of A-holes, or something) is suing everyone whose address they can [...]

The petitioners’ briefs and amicus briefs on behalf of the petitioners have been filed at the U.S. Supreme Court in two consolidated cases dealing with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, Safeco v. Burr (06-84) and Geico v. Edo (06-100). All the briefs are available at SCOTUSblog.
The petitioners are insurance companies and the case deals with [...]

I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the UCLA student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, who chose to leave the library rather than show his ID. The police apparently stopped him on his way out and started tasering the hell out of him. This is apparently the third in a string of incidents caught on video recently [...]

According to CNN, Detroit is leading the way in the foreclosure trend, with 1.25% of households undergoing foreclosure. Foreclosures are up 43% from the same time last year, showing a frightening trend.
Local events, such as the auto industry slump in Detroit, certainly play a part, but so does the depression of the real estate market [...]

This blog confuses me a bit. It’s a blog about debt settlement and credit restoration, apparently sponsored by a credit repair organization, but that tells readers to avoid credit repair organizations. I don’t get it.
Still, these tips on negotiating settlement terms are very helpful (see them after the jump):

You may have noticed I decided to add some advertising to my page the other day. I just thought it might be nice if my blog would help pay for my hosting. After a day of watching the ads, however, I took them right back down. Apparently the only people advertising with Google are the [...]

Today is mooch-off-Consumerist day, and they have once again clued us in to a great consumer link. Idaho consumer lawyer Curt McKenzie represents the law firm of Greener, Banducci, Shoemaker, which is suing T-Mobile on the grounds that its early termination fee bears no relation to the damages suffered by T-Mobile in the event a [...]

Consumers have been publicizing their complaints with businesses forever. These take many forms, but ever since the Internet went mainstream, there have been web pages devoted to publicizing consumer complaints. When the Consumerist blog started up last year, it quickly became a repository for consumer complaints. And it gets results on occasion.
Most recently, BoingBoing linked [...]

The Consumerist pointed us to an article by BusinessWeek exposing the credit card company’s strategy to get consumers to rack up overlimit and late fees. The article is good reading, but the gist of it is this: rather than give out one card with a reasonable limit, Capital One seeks out first-time credit card users, [...]

I loved the Dead Kennedys. I love Jello Biafra, even when he is speaking on such un-punk things as net neutrality (which actually could be quite punk, if you think about it).
Who am I kidding, youngsters today wouldn’t know punk if it jumped up and smashed a beer bottle over their head.* I’m sure any [...]

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has charged Erie Insurance Goup and five independent insurance agencies with violating the Fair Housing Act. According to the HUD charge, they provide inferior products–or no products–to homeowners in predominantly African-American neighborhoods.
Read the full article after the jump.