Banking & Credit Cards
How banks, credit cards, and payment systems work. Covers products, rates, fees, regulations, and what consumers need to know to navigate the banking system.
Latest in Banking & Credit Cards
Billions in scam-refund checks the FTC mailed out were never cashed — see if your name is on the unclaimed list at ftc.gov/refunds
Somewhere in a landfill, a shredder bin, or a junk-mail pile, there is almost certainly a government check with someone’s name on it. According to...
Ask your bank to add a verbal password to your account — it stops a scammer who has your details from talking their way past phone support
Picture this: someone calls your bank, recites your full name, your address, and the last four digits of your Social Security number. The customer service...
Fake debt collectors are pressuring people to pay debts they don’t owe — demand written validation, which real collectors must send within five days
The call comes out of nowhere. Someone on the line says you owe $1,200 on an old account, rattles off a case number, and warns...
A 78-year-old Texas retiree was told his bank was hacked — so he turned $2 million in savings into gold bars and handed them to a courier at his door
The caller told him his bank had been breached. Hackers, the voice on the line explained, had already accessed his accounts. If he wanted to...
Big banks still pay about 0.4% on savings while online banks pay near 4% — leaving the same $10,000 earning $360 less every year
Big banks still pay about 0.4% on savings while online banks pay near 4% — leaving the same $10,000 earning $360 less every year Put...
See every piece of mail before it arrives with free USPS Informed Delivery — it flags stolen checks and new-card envelopes before a thief beats you to them
In late 2023, a Cincinnati letter carrier was walking her route when 19-year-old Lamarion Gray put a gun to her and stole her master mailbox...
Never pay a “finder” a cut to recover money the government already holds for you — every official unclaimed-property search is free
A retired teacher in Sacramento discovers $4,200 from a forgotten pension rollover. A Brooklyn family finds a $900 insurance payout their late father never cashed....
Freeze your child’s credit before a thief does — a minor’s clean Social Security number is a scammer’s favorite, and the freeze is free
A 19-year-old sits down to apply for her first student loan and discovers $14,000 in collections she never opened. A father, acting on a hunch,...
Scammers drain gift cards before you spend them by copying the codes on store racks — buy from behind the counter and check the packaging
A Michigan couple allegedly walked into Meijer stores across Metro Detroit, pulled gift cards off the racks, peeled back the protective stickers, copied the PINs,...
You can stop the preapproved credit offers scammers steal from mailboxes — opting out at OptOutPrescreen is free and cuts your identity-theft risk
A preapproved credit card offer sitting in an unlocked mailbox looks like junk mail to the person who lives there. To a thief walking the...
Most cardholders who simply call and ask get their interest rate lowered — yet almost no one with a 21% APR ever picks up the phone
Imagine knocking $300 or more off your annual credit card interest bill with a single phone call. That is not a hypothetical. Multiple LendingTree surveys...
Your credit card’s annual fee is often negotiable — a quick call asking to waive it or match a retention offer frequently works
Chase charges $550 a year for the Sapphire Reserve. American Express asks $695 for the Platinum Card. Capital One’s Venture X comes in at $395....
A SIM-swap scam can drain your bank account in minutes by hijacking your phone number — a free carrier “port-out PIN” shuts the door
One morning in early 2023, a cryptocurrency investor in the Washington, D.C., area watched their phone signal vanish. Within minutes, a criminal ring had convinced...
A retiree moved her life savings to a “safe account” on a caller’s orders — and lost all $740,000 to scammers posing as her bank and a federal agent
The first call came with a simple warning: your bank account has been compromised. A recently retired woman did what most people would do. She...
A free fraud alert at the three credit bureaus forces lenders to verify your identity before opening anything — and it’s easier than a full freeze
Someone applies for a store credit card using your name, your Social Security number, and an address you have never lived at. Under normal circumstances,...
Companies charging hundreds to “lower” your student loans are selling what the government does free — real help lives at studentaid.gov
A borrower gets a call, a text, or a social-media ad promising lower monthly payments on their federal student loans. The pitch sounds official. The...
Comcast is paying $117.5 million to customers caught in a 2023 data breach — claim $50 with no proof, or up to $10,000 with receipts, by August 14
Nearly 36 million Xfinity customers had their personal data stolen over four days in October 2023, and Comcast is now writing checks to settle the...
AI can clone a relative’s voice from seconds of audio for a fake emergency call — agree on a family code word so you can verify it’s real
The call comes at 11 p.m. A panicked voice on the line sounds exactly like your daughter, down to the slight rasp she gets when...
Switch on real-time transaction alerts and a card lock in your bank’s app — you’ll catch fraud in seconds instead of on next month’s statement
In late May 2026, fraud investigators continue to see the same pattern play out: a thief tests a stolen debit card with a small charge,...
Anyone who got a Fidelity data-breach notice in 2024 can claim up to $5,000 from a settlement — the deadline to file is July 27
Roughly 120,000 Fidelity Investments customers learned in late 2024 that their personal data had been stolen. If you were one of them, a class action...