Author: Brian Lund
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The FTC shut down a credit-repair operation that took nearly $200 million by posing as debt collectors
A federal court in Arizona has temporarily shut down a sprawling credit-repair network the Federal Trade Commission accuses of taking in nearly $200 million by posing as debt collectors and creditors. The FTC alleges the operation, doing business as Credit Glory since at least 2016, bought paid search ads that intercepted people already looking up…
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The SEC says 38 firms used phony filings and fake auditors to pass as registered advisers
An investor searching for a financial adviser online has no easy way to spot a name built purely on paper. That gap is what the Securities and Exchange Commission says 38 entities exploited, filing paperwork with the agency designed to look like proof of legitimacy without a licensed adviser, a real office, or a working…
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American Airlines will pay $200,000 after firing an employee who lost her sight
American Airlines will pay $200,000 to settle a federal lawsuit accusing the carrier of refusing to help a Fort Worth reservations employee keep working after she lost her sight. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the airline kept the worker on unpaid, involuntary leave for almost four years after she developed cortical blindness…
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The salary line for guaranteed overtime pay is back down to $35,568
A federal salary line that determines whether a company can legally treat an executive, administrative, or professional employee as exempt from overtime pay is back at $684 a week, or $35,568 a year, after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division restored that figure on May 15, 2026. The move ends an 18-month…
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The IRS proposed letting employers put $2,500 a year into a worker’s Trump Account tax-free
An employer that wants to help a worker save for a child’s future could soon have a straightforward, tax-free way to do it — at least on paper. The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service floated proposed regulations on Aug. 11, 2026, spelling out how a company could contribute up to $2,500 a year…
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The IRS is warning about fake calculators built around the new tax law
Millions of taxpayers spent this year’s filing season trying to figure out exactly what the Working Families Tax Cuts law was worth to their own return, and the Internal Revenue Service says some of the online calculators built to answer that question are not run by anyone the agency trusts. The fake versions promise a…
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Household debt fell $13 billion last quarter, but 10.6 percent of student-loan balances are now 90 days late
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s newest household debt report tells two stories about the same set of borrowers, and only one of them is reassuring. Total household debt fell by $13 billion in the second quarter of 2026, a 0.1 percent dip to $18.8 trillion, according to the New York Fed’s Center for…
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The consumer bureau stopped publishing what people say about their banks
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said on August 14, 2026, that it would stop posting the written descriptions people submit about their banks, credit card companies, and debt collectors, along with the charts built from that text. The change ends a practice that dates back more than a decade, when the bureau first let consumers…
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Capital One’s $425 million savings settlement pays out automatically, but an appeal has stalled the checks
More than five million people who held a Capital One 360 Savings account between September 2019 and June 2025 are due money from a $425 million class-action settlement, and Capital One says every eligible customer is included without filing anything. The checks and electronic payments were supposed to start moving around July 21, 2026. They…
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One power auction added $16.1 billion to electricity costs across 13 states
A power auction most households never hear about just set a $16.1 billion price tag for keeping the lights on across a stretch of the country that runs from Chicago’s suburbs to the Virginia coast. PJM Interconnection, the grid operator that runs the wholesale electricity market for 13 states and the District of Columbia, finalized…