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Avoid Debt This Holiday Season

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MoneyTips By Andrea Woroch The upcoming holiday season may have you feeling joyous and anxious at the same time thanks to all the seasonal expenses, gift purchases and travel costs you will take on in several short weeks. Those who don't prepare ahead may find themselves relying heavily on credit cards and, ultimately, be in debt come January. In fact, a survey shows Americans racked up an average of $1,230 of debt over the holidays in 2018, which they expected to takeat least three months to pay off. Some consumers only planned to make minimum payments, which means they'd be paying off that holiday debt for years to come. Given today's high interest rates, taking on credit card debt over the holidays can become increasingly hard to manage and add up in fees. Luckily, you still have time to prepare ahead and line up your finances in time for the holiday. Just follow these seven money moves to avoid debt this jolly season. 1. Book travel now. Typic... from MoneyTi...

Angler Phishing 101

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MoneyTips Gone are the days of having to call a 1-800 number to interact with customer service teams. With the rise of social media, support is often available around the clock. If you've ever called out a company on social media for bad service, you know they can be quick to respond. Don't be in a rush to dive in and hand over your details – a relatively new scam called “angler phishing” targets social media users by impersonating legitimate support accounts. You could be at risk. What Exactly is Angler Phishing? Picture this: your bank just bounced a check they shouldn't have, and now your insurance company is claiming you missed a payment . Understandably, you're steamed. You tag your bank in a scathing social media post about the terrible service. Next thing you know, the bank's support account responds inviting you to click a link to chat with them directly to resolve the... from MoneyTips https://ift.tt/2EOH17d

Get Smart About Credit Day is October 17

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MoneyTips You learned a lot at school. But did your teachers or professors educate you on how to use credit, protect your identity, or maintain a good credit score? Sadly, personal finance education does not rank up there with reading, writing, and 'rithmetic. According to research from the credit bureau Experian, more than one in three Generation Zers (those born roughly between 1997 and 2012) are interested in personal finance topics. Among recent high school graduates, more than three in four agree that a financial management class should be compulsory in schools. Give your kids a better start than you had by signing them up for educational resources from the Get Smart About Credit campaign, an annual initiative sponsored by the American Bankers Association (ABA) Community Engagement Foundation. About 6,000 bankers participated last year. They delivered educational presentations to almost 156,000 teenagers in schools nationwide, covering topics like credit cards, budget... ...

Checking Account Scams

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MoneyTips Your checking account is a tempting target for thieves. You must stay alert for the many varieties of checking account scams – but first, you must be able to recognize a scam when you see one. Have you ever been targeted by any of the scams below? Free Prizes – This scam usually starts with a postcard or a telephone call notifying you of a prize that you have won. If you respond positively, the telemarketer will ask you for your checking account number, either for verification or to use for direct deposit. Once they have your account number, scammers will be able to apply a "demand draft", allowing them to withdraw funds directly from your account without your signature. Variations of this theme exist, such as a special credit card offer that applies even if your credit history is suspect. In all cases, the end result is the same – the telemarketer will ask for your checking account information. Don't give it to them. Compromise... from MoneyTips http...

13 Ways To Prevent Credit Card Fraud

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MoneyTips You've taken steps to avoid identity theft, and maybe even applied a credit freeze to your credit report. You can sit back and relax, right? Wrong. You may have prevented identity thieves from opening new accounts in your name, but have you kept your existing credit accounts secure? As opposed to identity theft where your information is used to create unauthorized accounts in your name, credit card fraud refers to a single existing account. A thief has stolen your card or has the necessary card information to make unauthorized purchases on that account. How do you prevent credit card fraud? Here, we offer thirteen possible precautions: 1. Avoid P... from MoneyTips https://ift.tt/2upmX5x

13 Ways To Prevent Credit Card Fraud

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MoneyTips You've taken steps to avoid identity theft, and maybe even applied a credit freeze to your credit report. You can sit back and relax, right? Wrong. You may have prevented identity thieves from opening new accounts in your name, but have you kept your existing credit accounts secure? As opposed to identity theft where your information is used to create unauthorized accounts in your name, credit card fraud refers to a single existing account. A thief has stolen your card or has the necessary card information to make unauthorized purchases on that account. How do you prevent credit card fraud? Here, we offer thirteen possible precautions: 1. Avoid P... from MoneyTips https://ift.tt/2upmX5x

What We Don't Know About Identity Theft CAN Hurt Us

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MoneyTips Equifax... Uber... Target... Under Armour.... The list of data hacks keeps growing and growing, increasing the odds that someone will steal your identity. Last year, this digital epidemic affected 14.4 million Americans. But the more you know, the better you can protect yourself. We conducted an exclusive MoneyTips Google survey in 2018 to see how much people knew about identity theft and the credit bureaus. Do you know all the answers? We asked people if they knew which data hack was the largest. A whopping 9 out of 10 didn't know or chose incorrectly. Reader, care to guess, before we reveal the answer? Using weighted averages, more than half of us (50.9%) admitted that they had no idea which hack was the worst of the century. More than 1 in 3 (34.4%) guessed the from MoneyTips https://www.moneytips.com/what-we-do-not-know-about-identity-theft-can-hurt-us/786