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
Check washing is surging — thieves fish envelopes out of USPS mailboxes and rewrite the payee, so pay digitally or use gel-ink pens
In one case that illustrates the human cost, a Rhode Island man stood in federal court earlier this year and admitted he had used a...
Most major card issuers now generate a one-time virtual card number for online checkout — so a breached retailer never sees your real account
In May 2024, Ticketmaster confirmed that hackers had siphoned personal and payment data tied to roughly 560 million customer records. The breach followed a depressingly...
Carrying a $6,000 balance at 21% costs about $1,260 a year in interest — but a 0% balance-transfer card can freeze that interest for up to 21 months
Carrying a $6,000 balance at 21% costs about $1,260 a year in interest – but a 0% balance-transfer card can freeze that interest for up...
You can switch off overdraft coverage so a too-big charge is simply declined — sparing you the $35 fee banks still collect billions on each year
A $7 coffee costs $42 when your checking account is $3 short and your bank decides to cover the difference. That “courtesy” comes with an...
Freezing your credit at all three bureaus is free and stops scammers from opening loans in your name — yet most Americans have never set one up
The Federal Trade Commission received more than one million identity theft reports in 2023 alone, according to its Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book. A significant...
Your bank deposits are insured only up to $250,000 — yet a record amount of Americans’ savings now sits above that line, uninsured if the bank fails
In March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed so fast that customers tried to yank $42 billion in just two days. Roughly 94% of the bank’s...
Anyone whose mortgage was serviced by Lakeview Loan could claim up to $5,000 from a data-breach settlement — the deadline to file is June 22
If Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC handled your mortgage between late October and early December 2021, your personal and financial data may have been exposed in...
The average credit card rate finally slipped to 21% from a three-decade high — but on a typical $6,000 balance that still drains about $1,260 a year in interest
A $6,000 credit card balance is not unusual. Credit bureau data from TransUnion and Experian have placed the average balance per borrower in the $6,000...
The two most popular premium credit cards just raised their annual fees again — Amex Platinum to $895 and Chase Sapphire Reserve to $795, even as more cardholders carry debt
The American Express Platinum Card now costs $895 a year. The Chase Sapphire Reserve costs $795. Both fees took effect in early 2026, and both...
Fake QR codes slapped on parking meters are quietly draining drivers’ bank accounts — police in dozens of cities now warn to pay only through the official app
You walk up to a parking meter, spot a QR code on the housing, and scan it. The page that loads looks like a city...
Credit card rewards hit a record $47.5 billion last year — but they’re largely bankrolled by the interest paid by the half of cardholders who can’t clear their balance
Picture two neighbors, both swiping the same credit card at the same grocery store. One pays her bill in full when the statement arrives and...
A fake “online task” job is now America’s fastest-growing scam — it pays small sums for rating products, then demands a deposit to release the money you “earned”
The text message shows up on a Tuesday afternoon, from a number you don’t recognize. A recruiter, supposedly from a well-known company, is offering easy...
Panda Express, GrubHub, Google, and Discover are all paying class-action claims this spring — some up to $5,000 with proof of loss, about $100 with none
Four class-action settlements tied to Panda Express, GrubHub, Google, and Discover are paying out claims in spring 2026, and millions of Americans may be eligible...
Crypto scammers stole a record $11.3 billion last year — and most victims were reeled in by a single “wrong number” text that slowly turned into a fake romance
The text that cost one Massachusetts resident their life savings arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. “Hey, are we still on for dinner tonight?” it read,...
A con man got 18 years for stealing $6.6 million from elderly victims — in cash and gold bars they were tricked into handing couriers at their own front door
Atharva Shailesh Sathawane knocked on elderly Americans’ doors at least 33 times over a span of roughly four months. Each time, the person on the...
Americans lost billions to scams last year — but banks reimbursed only a fraction of Zelle and wire-transfer fraud, leaving most victims to swallow the loss themselves
When the phone rang, the caller ID showed her bank’s name. The voice on the line said he was from the fraud department, that someone...
Scam victims are now getting hit a second time — con artists posing as government agents promise to recover the money you already lost, for an upfront “fee”
The first scam cost you money. The second one starts with a phone call that sounds like the answer to everything: a person claiming to...
Romance scams climbed 22% last year — and the median victim sent a stranger they never met $2,020 before a single bank ever flagged the transfers
Somewhere in the United States right now, someone is wiring a few hundred dollars to a person they have never met, convinced they are helping...
A Trump-era rule rollback just freed banks to bring back the $35 overdraft fee — the one regulators had capped at $5 last year
The next time your checking account dips a few dollars below zero, your bank is legally free to charge you $35 for the privilege. A...
AI voice-cloning scams drained $893 million from Americans last year — the fastest-growing fraud the FBI tracks, and it takes only seconds of audio to fake a relative’s call
The phone rings at 2 a.m. On the other end, your daughter is sobbing. She says she has been in a car accident and needs...