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
Most big banks now cap overdraft fees at $5 to $10 or have dropped them, and turning overdraft off stops them entirely
The overdraft fee that once ran more than $30 a transaction has quietly collapsed at the country’s largest banks. Most now cap it somewhere between...
No $2,000 tariff-dividend check is approved, and scam texts promising the payment are now spreading
A $2,000 “tariff dividend” that President Trump floated on social media has not been approved, funded, or scheduled by anyone in a position to authorize...
Buy-now-pay-later loans now show up on credit reports and can move a retiree’s score
Buy-now-pay-later plans that split a purchase into four interest-free payments spent years invisible to the credit system, appearing on no report and in no score....
Truist account holders in Georgia can claim up to $1,000 from a $240 million overdraft settlement with no proof before September 14
Georgia bank customers who were charged overdraft fees by SunTrust, the bank now known as Truist, can claim a share of a $240 million settlement,...
Doxim data-breach victims can take a no-proof $100 payment, or up to $5,000 for documented losses, before October 13
People whose personal information was exposed in the 2023 Doxim data breach have until October 13 to claim a piece of a $5.5 million settlement,...
A fugitive behind a $650 million real-estate Ponzi that took 2,000 investors was just added to the FBI’s most-wanted fraud list
The FBI has placed a former New Jersey real-estate executive on its newly created Most Wanted Fraudsters list, offering a reward of up to $150,000...
Scammers can reroute your Social Security deposit online, and locking your my Social Security account stops them in about two minutes
A retiree’s Social Security payment can be redirected to a stranger’s bank account without a single forged signature, using nothing more than the agency’s own...
A Georgia CEO got 20 years for a $380 million Ponzi scheme that drained more than 2,000 investors, and prosecutors seized his yacht and cars
Todd Burkhalter, the founder and chief executive of the Georgia advisory firm Drive Planning, was sentenced on August 14 to 20 years in federal prison,...
Comcast customers can claim $50 with no proof from a $117.5 million data-breach settlement before September 14
A $117.5 million fund is now paying out to people caught up in a Comcast data breach, and the simplest route to money asks for...
Port-out scammers hijack your phone number to grab the codes guarding your bank accounts
Thieves have found a way to drain a bank or brokerage account without ever touching the victim’s phone, using the number itself as the key....
Federal prosecutors won a conviction against a Georgia man who laundered $2.7 million stolen from fraud victims
Federal prosecutors in Atlanta have won a conviction against a Georgia man who laundered more than $2.7 million stolen from victims of romance schemes and...
A Florida healthcare executive was sentenced for a $35 million scheme that preyed on elderly Medicare patients
A South Florida healthcare executive and the telemarketing operator he paid to funnel him patients are headed to federal prison for a scheme that billed...
Federal prosecutors say elder-fraud losses keep climbing, and a credit freeze is the free step that blocks new-account theft
Federal authorities keep warning that the money older Americans lose to fraud is climbing, and one of the few defenses against a large slice of...
Seniors reporting six-figure losses to government and business impostors lost about $445 million in a single year
The size of the checks older Americans are losing to scammers has grown far faster than the number of victims, and the clearest measure sits...
A Pennsylvania man was indicted for draining over $1 million from one elderly victim
A York County, Pennsylvania man now faces federal fraud charges after prosecutors said he talked a woman in her late 80s and her family out...
Federal prosecutors charged 19 people in a $4 million scheme that billed Medicare and Medicaid for home care never given
Federal prosecutors unveiled charges on August 4, 2026 against 19 defendants accused of billing Medicare and Medicaid for home care that was never delivered, a...
Another data-breach settlement pays a no-proof $80, or up to $5,500 for losses, before September 5
A data-breach settlement involving the health-benefits administrator Lucent Health Solutions is paying eligible people a flat $80 with no paperwork, or reimbursing documented losses of...
A China-based ring stole $2.2 million from 28 older victims across 17 states using fake Apple Pay alerts
Federal prosecutors say a fraud operation run partly out of China drained about $2.2 million from at least 28 older Americans, using a fake warning...
One data-breach settlement pays up to $7,500, or a no-proof cash payment, before September 10
A single class-action settlement now on the table pays as much as $7,500 to people who can document their losses, or a smaller no-proof cash...
Federal prosecutors charged 30 people in a $65 million scheme that drained older Americans’ savings
Federal prosecutors have charged more than 30 people in a $65 million fraud and money-laundering operation that emptied the bank accounts of thousands of older...