It happens every year: As soon as consumers begin gathering their tax information, tax preparation companies begin trying to talk them into taking out costly loans against any refunds they might...

Consider this the next time you see a teenager take a drag on a cigarette: Your state government likely has a financial stake in that kid continuing to smoke. And quite possibly, so does your...

It's the empty houses, stupid. In case anyone has forgotten the core of the current economic crisis, here's a reminder: empty homes, both present and future. Empty homes are behind all the supposedly worthless mortgage-backed securities that no one w...

Hate hidden fees and other “gotchas” from credit cards and banks? You have until Aug. 4 to sound off about it. In May, the Federal Reserve proposed a sweeping set of rule changes that would ban a wide set of consumer-unfriendly bank practices.

I call them Dear John data letters, because of the bad news they bring and their decidedly warm and fuzzy tone. "Dear Consumer.  We've lost your personal information. It's fallen off a truck/was on a laptop that was lost/was stolen by a hacker....

What if there were a way to have your credit card debt erased if you lost your job or became disabled? That's the pitch behind debt cancellation, a service offered by many credit card issuers and retailers. Debt cancellation doesn’t come cheap: it...

If you only have time to visit one new Web site this week, make it the new Google dashboard. Last week, the search engine behemoth announced the new feature, which helps Web users keep track of all the ways Google keeps track of them. Visiting this...

  This blog-like service is really an ad for a Web sales company.   Click on a weight-loss, work-at-home or acai berry ad and you’re likely to land on what looks like a blog or discussion board. Regular folks appear to be debating the merits...

Criminals are stealing the Federal Trade Commission's identity and using it to scam consumers around the country, the agency warned on Thursday.  Scam artists are even impersonating individual FTC employees -- in one case, a criminal posed as a...