Financial Schools Reviews

• Never respond to an email or pop-up message seeking personal or financial information. Legitimate companies don’t make such requests. Never click on links in emails or pop-ups, either.
• Check your credit report at the four leading consumer credit reporting agencies once a year for new accounts, errors or anything else you don’t recognize. Do this at annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228. Fraud victims are entitled to a free credit report.
• Check your bank and card account statements for fraudulent charges and report suspicious ones immediately. “Take a quick look (online) at least a couple times a week,” said Kelly Schrader, senior vice president for marketing at OnPoint Community Credit Union in Portland.

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In September 2004, I was about to leave my first post-college job. My boss at that time – who happens to be one of the people I respect the most in this world, even now after my radical career shift – observed that I had a pile of unused vacation time that was basically going to disappear when I left that job in mid-October. He sat down with me and, once he was sure that the things I was working on were in good shape and that I’d be easily available if anything else needed to be finished up, he suggested that I use that remaining use-it-or-lose-it vacation time in order to transition to my new job.

In other words, I had about two weeks of vacation coming to me. I was

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During March, consumers increased the amount of credit they carry on a year-over-year basis across nearly every lending category, according to the latest National Credit Trends Report from the credit monitoring bureau Equifax. In particular, the amount of consumer installment loans, auto loans and credit cards spiked significantly more than other types of credit.

In all, auto loans rose 23 percent during the month, while consumers opened more than 14 percent more credit cards than they did in the same month in 2010, the report said.

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The revival of Detroit is nearly complete, according to The Wall Street Journal. Chrysler made $166 million in the first quarter, its first profit in five years. Ford (F) made $2.6 billion in the same period, which was its best result since 1998.

But the clearest sign of Detroit’s comeback is that GM (GM) is set to retake the No.1 spot as the world’s largest manufacturer of cars and light trucks, if forecasts for 2011 hold up. Full Article…

Consumers filed 570 federal lawsuits against debt collectors and creditors in just the last two weeks of March, the highest number so far this year, according to a tally by PaymentsSource.com. It was the most lawsuits filed in a two-week period all year.

The vast majority of the suits, 562, alleged violations of the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Another 60 involved companies that allegedly broke the Community Reinvestment Act, and 14 alleged that companies violated the Truth in Lending Act.

Some suits listed more than one violation. The lawsuits were filed by 626 plaintiffs against 515 different companies.

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