Posts Tagged With ‘ Services ’

I’m upset. I was due to have my teeth cleaned in January. Since I’ve been busy taking the Dean Ornish heart health program and working on my writing, I just called a couple of weeks ago to get an appointment. What did I learn? My dentist, Dr. Attila Talaber, was in Europe and the other staff were just in the office now and then. After a week, someone finally called. The next available appointment is in October. I asked to be put on the waiting list, in hopes that I could get in when a cancelation occurs. The answer? There are 100 people on the waiting list. This kind of customer service is... Continue Reading

Graduations are coming up and many parents and students are thinking about student debt, which totals $1.63 trillion in the United States. Student loan debt is about $37,600 per borrower. “In the short term, students are not overly optimistic about their financial situation, as 88 percent are concerned about the economy and 80 percent are worried about inflation,” said Jill Gonzalez, an analyst for WalletHub, a personal finance website. “Inflation has taken a heavy financial toll on the country, and has made higher education less affordable.” However, students do think that going to college... Continue Reading

Paying off student loans is a big job, especially since it usually takes most people years to achieve it. Consumers need to beware of debt relief companies that promise quick loan forgiveness. Scammers claim they’ll help you, for a fee, but their schemes often leave you deeper in debt. The Federal Trade Commission has stopped two student loan debt relief schemes that it said bilked students out of about $12 million by using deceptive claims about repayment programs and loan forgiveness that didn’t exist. “As Americans struggle with massive student loan debt and uncertainty around the... Continue Reading

It’s helpful for consumers to take a look at complaints that are received by agencies and organization to know what to watch out for in their financial lives. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau monitors consumer complaints to determine risks in consumer financial markets and to prioritize agency action. In 2022, the CFPB found: During 2022, the CFPB received about 1,287,000 consumer complaints and sent more than 820,000 complaints to about 3,200 companies for review and response. Complaints about credit or consumer reporting increased, accounting for more than 75 percent of all consumer... Continue Reading

Photo: Hudconja A settlement shows that another huge, well-known corporation has engaged in deceptive practices in how it treats its customers. Prudential Financial denied more than 200 life insurance claims although the company collected life insurance premiums from participants for extended periods, the U.S. Department of Labor said Wednesday. Prudential offered group life insurance policies to businesses that allowed plan participants to opt for payroll deductions to pay for additional, supplemental coverage. For this type of insurance, the insured is required to fill out a form indicating... Continue Reading

In 2016, I had H&R Block prepare my taxes. It was upsetting because neither the receptionist nor the tax preparer would give me an estimate of what it would cost to prepare my taxes. The tax preparer said he’d do my taxes, then, at the end, if I thought it was too expensive, I could reject the work. I paid $472, which I thought was too high. However, I paid it and left because I was tired of dealing with my taxes. I wrote in an article on my blog that said I thought H&R Block was using a form of bait and switch advertising; it wanted to get you in the door, then it would spring the... Continue Reading

Photo: Minh Nguyen Republicans doing the bidding of Wall Street for years led to the current banking crisis. In 2018, Republicans led an effort, lobbied heavily by the financial industry, that resulted in a law, signed by former President Donald Trump, that gutted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s risk assessment safeguards for midsize banks. The effort, led by House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry, gave federal agencies discretion in regulation, which paved the way for banks such as Silicon Valley Bank to take huge risks beyond their means without... Continue Reading

When you take two consumer problems, telemarketing and extended warranties, and put them together, it can result in disaster. The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement Friday in its case against American Vehicle Protection – who it charged last year with running a telemarketing extended auto warranty scheme that cheated people out of more than $6 million. “AVP misled consumers about who they were and what they were selling and called a large number of consumers who were on the FTC’s Do Not Call List,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.... Continue Reading

One of the best consumer actions in recent years is the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011. Established after the Great Recession of 2007-08 to set up one federal agency to help consumers with their financial issues, the CFPB has made great strides in improving the position of consumers in the marketplace. Previously, seven different federal agencies were responsible for consumer financial protection, but none viewed consumer financial protection as their top priority. Examples of how the CFPB has benefitted consumers are it recouped about $16 billion for consumers,... Continue Reading

In 2022, Americans paid more than $120 billion in interest and fees on credit cards. With interest rates going up, that amount is continuing to increase. For consumers to get the best offers on credit cards to keep their costs down, their repayment records need to be reported to credit bureaus. In 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or CFPB found that the largest credit card companies started to deliberately suppress their customers’ actual payment amounts from the nationwide consumer reporting system. Last May, the CFPB sent letters to the CEOs of the nation’s biggest credit... Continue Reading