Get 5% Cash Back On Your Gas Purchases This Summer

24 Jun 2011 | by Porfirio Hillman | No Comments »

This summer Chase will be offering 5% Cash Back on Gas from 7/1/11 – 9/30/11 when you use your Chase Freedom Card. There are four different Chase cards participating in this offer. In addition, to earning 5% Cash Back on your gas purchases, the 5% also includes Hotel and Airline purchases. This could come in handy for your summer travels by saving you some money. The 5% Cash Back offer is up to $1,500 spent on your Chase Freedom Card. Here are the details of the participating cards:

The Chase Freedom Visa $50 Bonus Cash Back card gives you a $50 bonus after your first purchase. In addition, the card offers 0% on balance transfers for 12 months and 0% on purchases for 6 months. If you are traveling this summer the card can help you earn some cash back on your gasoline purchases, hotel stays or airline purcahses. H

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Visa Signature Cardholders: Free Gold Hilton HHonors Status + 5000 Points

23 Jun 2011 | by Porfirio Hillman | No Comments »

For a limited time, Visa Signature cardholders can get Gold Hilton HHonors status instantly by registering their card at www.hhonors.com/visasignature by August 31, 2011. If you’re not already an HHonors member, you’ll need to first join the program by visiting www.hhonors.com or calling 1-800-HHonors. If you also have 3 Hilton stays by August 31, 2011, you’ll extend your Gold membership through March 2013. After that time, you’ll need to fulfill the standard requirements to maintain your status.

If you already have Gold or Diamond Elite status, you’ll receive 5,000 free Hilton HHonors points just for registering your card. In addition, a glitch in the system currently allows you to register twice. You can enroll the first time to get Gold status, then re-enter your card info to get the 5,000 points. Even without double dipping, however, this is a very nice deal. See this

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Breaking Down the Credit Card Act’s Clarifications

23 Jun 2011 | by Billy Miller | No Comments »

A few weeks back, the Federal Reserve issued a series of clarifications regarding the Credit CARD Act of 2009. While the last of the regulations were implemented about a year ago, issuers have tried to sidestep the intent of the regulation.

“There are some issues that simply were not provided for in the legislation, or that the legislation resolved in a way that is now raising concerns,” spokesman Dean DeBuck said. “Where we find violations of new or existing requirements we will insist on immediate correction and will take formal enforcement action where appropriate to the circumstances.”

The Fed’s new guidelines should offer clarity, but some have also provoked new controversy.

Individual Income Vs. Household Income

The Back story: In the free-flowing credit days, lenders would give high credit ceilings to people who simply couldn’t afford to pay back what they borrowed. The legisla

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The FTC’s Annual Report on Consumer Complaints

23 Jun 2011 | by Billy Miller | No Comments »

In March 2011, the Federal Trademission (FTC) issued their annual report, which included consumerplaints about 3rd party debt collectors, called “The FTC Annual Report 2011: Fair Debt Collection Practices Act”.  The FTC enforces the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and receives hundreds of thousands of consumerplaints about debt collections.  Behind identity theft, debt collections received the second mostplaints.

Third party debt collectionplaints from consumers or “FDCPAplaints” were 21% or 108,997 of all theplaints received by the FTC in 2010pared to 16.8% or 88,326 in 2009.  This is an increase of 23.4% over 2009. Third party debt collectors include contingency fee collectors and attorneys who regularly collect directly or indirectly on debt asserted to be owed or due.

*Source – Federal Trademission

The category that increased the most from 2009 was “falsely threatens arrest or property seizure”.  The top threepl

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