Apps that provide access to credit scores may not offer all of the benefits users expect, and they can come with extra costs and risks that people may not foresee, Consumer Reports said. Americans can get access their credit reports for free once a year, but they don’t have a similar right to their credit scores, except in some cases. Read more →

Wells Fargo has been fined $250 million by the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which said the bank didn’t pay back customers who were charged excessive or improper fees. “Wells Fargo has not met the requirements of the OCC’s 2018 action against the bank,” said Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael J. Hsu. Read more →

This Labor Day, I’m sticking pretty close to home. With the delta variant surging, it makes the most sense to me. However, I see on Facebook that people are traveling a lot in their state and throughout the United States. Some are even going to Europe. Read more →

Auto insurance companies reaped windfall profits of at least $29 billion in 2020 as miles driven, vehicle crashes, and auto insurance claims dropped due to the pandemic and related government actions, according to two consumer organizations. Read more →

More than a third of consumers who recently checked their credit reports found mistakes in them, a survey found. Many of the nearly 6,000 consumers who participated also reported having difficulty getting their free credit reports online, while others said they were unfairly charged for services. Read more →

Two Florida companies and their CEO will be barred from offering payment-processing services to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that they aided a criminal student debt relief scam that bilked $62 million from thousands of students and their families. Read more →

About one million sellers and buyers in home sales with a single agent are charged excessive commissions totaling several billion dollars annually, a report from the Consumer Federation of America shows. The report also examines the conflicts of interest of these double-dipping agents. Read more →

Corporations escaped punishment at record levels during President Trump’s last year in office, when federal prosecutions of corporate criminals fell to just 94 – the lowest on record since the government started tracking corporate prosecution statistics in 1996, a Public Citizen report found. Read more →

This week, I wrote the 100th issue of my newsletter Helpful Money Tips for You. To celebrate, instead of offering my usual 10 tips, I offered 100. To sign up to get my free newsletter, go to http://eepurl.com/gkZ6JH. You'll get it in your email. Read more →

Facebook and Amazon are now the two biggest corporate lobbying spenders in the country. Big Tech has bypassed Big Oil and Big Tobacco, two historically big federal lobbying spenders, with Amazon and Facebook having spent nearly twice as much as Exxon and Philip Morris on lobbying in 2020. Read more →