Discover (DFS) posted higher than expected earnings this week on the strength of their third-party payment processing network. Interestingly, while the lending business is struggling, customers are increasingly turning toward plastic (either credit or debit) when it comes to making payments. This translates directly into profits for Discover (and other card issuers) as they take [...]
Back in November of 2004, American Express (AXP) filed an anti-trust lawsuit accusing Visa (V) and MasterCard (MA) of illegally blocking them from the bank-issued credit card business in the US market. More specifically, AmEx alleged that Visa and MasterCard had colluded to keep their member banks from issuing cards branded by American Express or [...]
This is just a quick note to say that Credit Addict is in vacation mode. As such, updates may will be sporadic through the end of the week. In the mean time, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed — you can also subscribe via e-mail. There’s no better way to stay abreast of the [...]
Late last week, I received an envelope from Citi, but I didn’t get around to opening it until just this morning. In it, I found two new Citi Dividend Platinum Select cards along with a note saying that our old cards would stop working on June 30, 2008. Here’s the text of the insert:
IMPORTANT SECURITY [...]
This past weekend, I spent some time making holiday travel arrangements. Yes, that’s six months away, but both my wife and I had quite a few Delta SkyMiles, we found decent airfares, and the airline industry isn’t going to be slashing fares anytime soon given the pain that they’ve been feeling. As such, we bit [...]
Here’s a quick rundown of things that merchants cannot require when it comes to credit cards:
They cannot require you to provide personal information (phone number, driver’s license number, etc.)
They cannot require you to present an ID.
They cannot require a minimum charge (though many do).
They cannot charge extra for using a credit card. Credit card companies [...]
Credit Addict participated in two carnivals this week. Here they are along with links to our articles that were included in each.
The Carnival of Personal Finance included “Do RFID Credit Cards Encrypt Data Before Sending?” Also included was “The Future of Retirement?” from fivecentnickel.com.
The Carnival of Money Hacks included “Three Blink Transactions Completed.”
I recently ran across an interesting article about reward credit cards over on CNN/Money. In it, the author argued that reward programs are often a bad deal for consumers because: (1) they encourage you to spend more money, (2) reward cards often have higher interest rates, and (3) it can be difficult to actually access [...]
Yesterday I wrote about the recent TransUnion class action settlement. In short, if you had a credit card, loan, or credit account in the last 21 years, you qualify and can get free credit monitoring, credit scores, or money. Well, guess what? There’s another settlement out there kicking around. As a result of Townes v. [...]
If you, like most everyone else, had a credit card, loan, or credit account anytime between January 1987 and this past Wednesday (May 28th, 2008), then you’re eligible to file a claim in a preliminary settlement of a class-action lawsuit against TransUnion.
This lawsuit, which dates back eight years, stems from allegations that TransUnion violated federal [...]
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