Banking

10 Tips To Protect Against Identity Theft

November 13, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

"Identity theft leads the Federal Trade Commission's list of top consumer complaints, accounting for 14 percent of all complaints recorded by the government body in 2013." FTC — “Identity theft leads the Federal Trade Commission’s list of top consumer complaints, accounting for 14 percent of all complaints recorded by the government body in 2013.” FTC

Forget the bogey man, dragons and things that go bump in the night. Save the fear factor for the unscrupulous among us who steal our identities and leave us floundering, financially fractured and caught in a web of never-ending effort to prove who we are.

The stories are rampant. Every year, more than 16 million Americans are victimized by computer hackers, mailbox thieves and others who have made a science of cheating their fellowmen. The number probably is higher, because not all incidents are reported. The ill-gotten loot adds up to some $24.7 billion, topping all other property crime losses combined by $10 million.

It seems that everyone you talk to knows someone in their circle of family and friends that has suffered from the ill effects of this crime.

The crooks prefer older persons as targets. They have better credit and more accounts and they tend to be somewhat less tech savvy than today’s perpetrators. They are not as apt to monitor their financial resources as those who have grown up in a digital world.

The AARP conducted a poll among 2,250 older Americans and found that more than 12 percent had had unauthorized items purchased in their name in the past year. Law enforcement is overwhelmed, and few of the fraudulent cases are resolved. Among police agencies, the saying goes that “only the dumb ones get caught.”

How to protect yourself? Here are 10 hints:

1. Locking Mailbox

Get a locking mailbox or use a post office box. Almost 60 percent of Americans report they do not have a locked box, making them prime for the snoops who are looking for identify information.

2. Online Accounts

Get online accounts for all bank and credit cards so information does not go
by post. If you haven’t already gone online, you are part of the 50 percent of Americans who are vulnerable through this route.

3. Clean Car

Never leave personal information in your car. Some 20 percent of Americans in the age group 18 to 49 say they have left a wallet or purse in a locked car over the past week. Those over that age are more prone to be careful, with only 8 percent reporting having left personal items in a car.

4. Shred Documents

Shred documents that contain personal information, such as bank and credit card statements, tax forms and medical bills. Forty-one percent of those over age 50 shred at least once a week.

5. Lock Electronics

Lock devices such as smartphones, laptops and tablets with pass codes to prevent unauthorized use. Some 44 percent of those over 50 say they haven’t set up pass codes on their smartphones.

6. Close Old Credit Accounts

Close out old credit card accounts if you no longer use them. They are tempting come-ons for thieves.

7. Leave Your Social Security Card At Home

Don’t carry your Social Security card. Even the last four digits can give a fraudster enough information to damage your security.

8. Check On Your Bank Account Activity

Regularly check bank account and credit card statements. About 75 percent of Americans who bank online take this precaution.

9. Open Online Accounts With Credit Bureaus

Establish online accounts with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, the three credit reporting agencies. They may help you spot any irregularities in your accounts early. Sixty percent of the country’s citizens haven’t taken this precaution.

10. Set Fraud Alerts

Put fraud alerts on your accounts with the credit agencies and consider a credit freeze. Too many who receive a fraud alert, 84 percent, failed to follow through with fraud alerts on their credit files; fewer than 6 percent considered freezing credit.

Walmart Offers new GoBank Accounts Without Overdraft Fees

October 31, 2014 by Twila Van Leer

WalMart New Accounts — Shopping giant Wal-Mart has opted to provide a card-based program for customers who may overspend their accounts while purchasing in their stores

Joining other large retailers that engage in semi-banking practices, shopping giant Wal-Mart has opted to provide a card-based program for customers who may overspend their accounts while purchasing in their stores.

The world’s largest retailer had teamed with Green Dot Corp., a leader in creating reloadable prepaid cards. New mobile checking accounts issued by Wal-Mart under the cooperative effort will not require fees for overdrafts and bounced checks. An $8.95 monthly fee will be charged for these GoBank accounts. The fee is waived if there is a deposit of $500 or more each month.

Accounts can be opened by purchasing a $2.95 starter kit at any Wal-Mart Store. A smartphone is a necessity, since most of the banking transactions are done through an app. Credit Bureau ratings commonly used to determine eligibility are not part of the application requirements. The idea behind GoBank is to provide options for people who don’t have a lot of money and may have poor credit scores.

The kit includes a MasterCard debit card that can be used to withdraw money or make purchases. No fee is charged for ATM withdrawal services at the 42,000 locations around the country. If money is withdrawn from ATMs outside the system, a $2.50 charge is levied. A 3 percent fee is added to withdrawals outside the United States.

The new arrangement is one of several moves being made to help Americans who are still feeling the effects of the recent recession. Both Bank of America and Citibank have begun offering fee-free accounts this year.

Regulators have been looking more closely at overdraft fees, which in some instances can go up to $35 per incident. The regulators have responded to concerns by requiring banks to get written approval from a customer to provide overdraft protection, which allows a customer’s account to dip below zero. Those who choose to have the overdraft protection still pay high fees. Some customers at large banks regularly rack up fees in the neighborhood of $260 a year, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Walmart’s Daniel Eckert, senior vice president for services, said GoBank was the retailer’s response to customer concerns that regular banking fees are too high.

Wealth Gap Lasts Into Retirement

August 15, 2014 by Twila Van Leer

It just seems to make sense that if you keep plugging along at a your job, by the time you retire you should have come closer to the level of wealth some others enjoy.

Not so, experts in the field say. Thousands of Americans struggle to set aside enough money to enjoy retirement, particularly those who are self-employed. They are having little success at building an adequate post-employment reserve.

The challenge is so overwhelming that many refuse even to look it square in the eye, which becomes a serious part of the problem. Pensions that used to provide the safety net for many workers are becoming rarer in the private sector and workers at the low end of the totem pole often have no access to such programs.

All of this contributes to the widening gap between the average worker and the wealthy. With more than 70 million Baby Boomers preparing to leave active employment and settle into retirement, that is not good news. The net result may be government services stretched more thinly and more elderly people staying in the working ranks for longer, increasing the challenges for younger workers looking for jobs.

Who Fares The Best In Retirement?

Predictably, next to the really wealthy, those who fare best in the retirement picture are highly educated couples. They are likely to have more resources such as 401k plans, savings and home equity that are a boon when their jobs end. Those with less education, health issues and/or lower income and fewer resources can only watch in frustration as their prospects for a financially secure retirement fade into the distance.

The old saying that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer is literally true in today’s economy. Incomes for the top 1 percent of earners rose 31 percent from 2009 to 2012, according to an economist at the University of California/Berkeley. For the remaining 99 percent, the rise averaged 0.4 percent.

In households with annual income under $25,000, nine of 10 had savings under $10,000, according to the Employment Benefit Research Institute. For households in which earnings topped six figures, 42 percent had savings of at least $250,000, the institute reported. Five years ago, that percentage was 34 percent, another indication that the retirement prospects for those in the low-earnings categories are making no headway toward any kind of parity.

Check-Users Are Hoarding More

July 23, 2014 by Sherry Tingley

Echoes of the Great Recession are still resounding in the minds of many Americans. They are holding more cash in their checking accounts and for longer than at any time in the past 25 years.

The recession has had a different impact than expected, experts say. In earlier periods of low inflation and a slowly improving economy, there was less attention to becoming debt-free and solvent, they say.

Among the pertinent factors is a lack of inviting investment alternatives. Savings accounts pay next to nothing and the stock market already is at lofty heights, according to a report recently released by the bank consulting firm Moebs Services Inc. The report looked at average balances in U.S. checking accounts and compared them with the same data from 25 years ago. The current average was $4,436, more than double the $2,100 posted 25 years ago.

The average balance in checking accounts during good economic times, with unemployment and inflation low, is about $1,400, the report said. With less cheery economic times, consumers tend to be more wary of spending and checking balances rise to the neighborhood of $3,000 or more. In 2007, for instance, the average balance was $788. That was just before the Recession caused a near-meltdown of the country’s economy, the report noted.

On the downside, the reluctance to spend has slowed the recovery. Spending usually accounts for about two-thirds of economic growth, said Moebs economist G. Michael Moebs, who heads the company. The firm’s report on bank balances was based on data from Federal Reserve figures for 2,800 banks and credit unions.

The hoarding trend also affects financial institutions, who lose income from overdrafts. Financial gurus are advising those institutions to expect big funds withdrawals when consumers are convinced that the fallout from the recession is over and they are safe to take out their money for mortgage-reduction, vacations or big item purchasing.

An article on the Moebs report in the Los Angeles Times quotes UCLA economist Lee Ohanian as saying the country may still be plagued by troublesome leftovers from the recession. He notes that even though employment is up by some 200,000 jobs in each of the past five months, growth in production is at less than half its usual rate. He relates the figures to the fact that the employment-to-population ratio still is low.

The recession caused a lot of serious reflection about personal finances, Ohanian said. People who had racked up too much debt pre-recession and suffered the consequences now are being much more cautious about what they do with their money.

Even now, with a return to near-normal employment and better incomes for many Americans, it likely will take awhile before full confidence in the economy is restored. Most experts see this as a good thing over time. Adjustments for both consumers and financial institutions will take time, they say.

Investment Advice? It’s As Old As The Hills

July 17, 2014 by Twila Van Leer

It probably began right after the Garden of Eden deal fell through. Swapping success stories has been part of the human condition since there were two entrepreneurs to swap tales. And some very good advice has survived for generations.

Forbes Magazine winnowed down the list to share with readers. Their pool of gurus includes five billionaires, a miser, a Nobel laureate, a founding father and assorted and sundry people whose names rise to the top whenever success is the topic.

Examples include:

Warren Buffet, whose $65 billion empire was built on buying businesses that he was certain were worth more than the sellers envisioned: “Whether socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.”

Sir John Templeton, founder of Templeton Funds, who made a killing by defying the conventional wisdom about the stock market, buying when others were selling: “If you buy the same securities everyone else is buying, you will have the same results as everyone else. . . Buy at the point of maximum pessimism, sell at the point of maximum optimism.”

Nathan Mayer Rothschild, 1776-1836, founder of N. M. Rothschild & Sons. “Information is money.” Thanks to his extensive network of carrier pigeons, and the careful placing of his sons in strategic European cities, Rothschild knew that England had defeated France in the Battle of Waterloo before anyone else in London. As other traders on the stock exchange braced for a British loss, he capitalized on his early information to build a fortune.

Peter Lynch, manager, Fidelity Magellan Fund. “Buy what you know.” He applied his knowledge of wise money management to generate an annual return of 29 percent. His secret to profitable investing: Don’t buy Twitter or Amazon, but do buy those suggested by A.All .com and Validea.com, NetApp, Barrett Business Services, Honda, Publis and Alliance Fiber Optic.

Alexander Hamilton, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, who earned the nickname Little Lion. His bestseller: the $10 bill. During the country’s formative years, he tirelessly advocated for responsible federal finances. His lesson: Don’t buy securities in developing countries with dodgy rulers. “A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.”

David Tepper, founder Appaloosa Management. During the panic of early 2009, he bet heavily on Bank of America, Citigroup and AIG. Quit Goldman Sachs in 1992 to build his own hedge fund. Reputation for clearheaded moves in environments of fear and misinformation. His quote: “I am the animal at the head of the pack. I either get eaten or I get the good grass.” He advises paying careful heed to central bankers and fiscal policymakers.

Hetty Green, 1834-1916: Description, miser; nicknamed “The Witch of Wall Street.” She inherited $5 million at age 30 and had multiplied it into $100 million by the time she died in 1916 by ferreting out investments that would earn her 6 percent annually, doubling her fortune every 12 years. The richest woman in the United States, she saved pennies by refusing to use hot water, wash her clothes or provide her son with decent medical care. “All you have to do is buy cheap and sell dear, act with thrift and shrewdness and be persistent.”