Consumer Affairs

How to Do What Identity Theft Protection Companies Do...for FREE

Protecting and monitoring identity theft has become a big business. Simply Google "identity theft protection" and you'll find dozens of business outfits offering to protect your all too important identity for a measly $10, $12, or $20 per month.

Video on How to Spot Counterfeits

As part of introducing the new $100 bill that'll come out in February, the US Treasury is producing a video podcast. The current episode is on spotting counterfeit notes.

The Ethics of Free: Is it Wrong to Get Free Stuff?

I love to get free stuff. Don't you?
The problem with free is that it doesn't mean something is really free. It just means that someone else has paid for the product or service instead of you.

How to Get What You Want On Customer Service Calls

Bad customer service experiences have become part of our collective narrative about modern life. Unmotivated CS reps, enraged callers, outsourced call centers on the other side of the globe are all part of our consumer assumptions the moment we pick up that phone with a sigh and mutter under our breath, "Once more into the breach."

Getting Your Credit Limit Raised

You know the old joke about how it's easy to get a bank loan as long as you don't need one? Well, the same logic applies to getting your credit limit raised. In fact, it's almost automatic.
Want a higher credit limit on some particular credit card? It's easy:

Selling Your Groupon Coupons

Social shopping sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are all the rage these days.

Attempts to Escape the Clutches of Online Data Aggregators

ShareThisThere's a new crowd of web sharks on the prowl: they are effective, they are legal, and they want your data.

Paying for Packaging: It's Time to Stop

Next time you take a walk through the grocery store, take a look at the packaging — especially on relatively expensive items. Any item with a lot of packaging always costs more than its counterpart without. Hamburger Helper offers a great example: not only does it come in a box, but there are packets within the box.

Travel and Money: Using your Credit Card on the Road

Your next vacation won’t happen without money…both prior to and during your trip. But with currency conversion discrepancies, high surcharges, and the risk of theft or loss, managing your money on the road isn’t as simple as you may think.

Is "Health Food" Worse for You than Junk Food?

I've written about the evils of junk food in the past. I have jumped on that bandwagon that is happy to demonize the fast food industry. But after watching a 30-minute TV show on Showtime last week, I'm having something of a paradigm shift. Maybe I've been too hasty.

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