Category: Credit & Debt
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American Express Business Platinum cardholders will earn double points on U.S. shipping only with UPS, FedEx, USPS and a few named carriers from February 17
Starting February 17, 2027, American Express Business Platinum cardholders will earn double points on U.S. shipping only when they buy directly from a short list of named providers. The list covers UPS, FedEx, the United States Postal Service and four others. Shipping bought from anyone else would fall outside the bonus. Doctor of Credit, which…
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Eligible military borrowers of FirstCash pawn loans will get CFPB redress checks without filing claims
Servicemembers and family members who are eligible for redress in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Military Lending Act case against FirstCash will receive checks without filing a claim. The settlement administrator says that anyone who does nothing will be sent a payment by paper check in the mail. The one time limit in the process…
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Trump’s housing order tells regulators to consider cutting or scrapping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loan-level fees on some refinances, though no cut has been set
A presidential order signed October 22, 2026 puts fees on some home refinances up for review, but it does not cut a single one. The order, titled Decreasing Housing Costs for the American People, says the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency “shall consider” reducing or eliminating loan-level price adjustments and other fees that…
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Social Security says it has collected $645 million in overdue debts through Treasury offsets since March 2025, as its disability claims backlog fell to 911,000
The Social Security Administration says it has returned $645 million in delinquent debt to the Social Security trust funds through the Treasury Offset Program since March 2025. In the same announcement, the agency said its backlog of initial disability claims has fallen to 911,000, down from nearly 1.2 million at the end of fiscal 2024.…
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Social Security’s watchdog found 17,979 beneficiaries died owing about $240 million in overpayments, and staff did not follow recovery policy in 59 of 125 sampled cases
Social Security’s inspector general says the agency left money uncollected from people who had died. An audit dated August 5, 2026 identified 17,979 adult beneficiaries who died between December 2022 and December 2024 with about $240 million in outstanding overpayments. In a random sample of 125 of those cases, staff did not follow recovery policy…
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Trump’s October 22 housing order calls for a pilot that would cancel borrowers’ mortgage insurance premiums proactively, without waiting for homeowners to ask
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on October 22, 2026, that tells the Federal Housing Finance Agency to create a pilot program to cancel borrowers’ mortgage insurance premiums proactively. Under the order, homeowners would not have to ask for the premium to end. The pilot is an instruction to the agency, though, and nothing…
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Most negative credit report items, like late payments, generally drop off after seven years
A missed payment from years ago does not follow a borrower around for life. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says a credit reporting company generally can report most negative information for seven years, and that includes the late payments that sit on so many older borrowers’ reports. The rule comes with a short list of…
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Credit card holders whose card number is stolen but whose card is not owe nothing for charges they did not authorize, the FTC says
A credit card holder whose card number is stolen, while the physical card stays in the wallet, owes nothing for charges they did not authorize. The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer site puts it in one sentence: “You aren’t responsible for any charges you didn’t authorize.” That rule covers the most common kind of card theft,…
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Debt collectors cannot sue over debts past the statute of limitations under CFPB rules
A debt collector cannot take a person to court over a debt once the time limit for suing has passed. That is the rule in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Regulation F, which says a debt collector “must not bring or threaten to bring a legal action against a consumer to collect a time-barred debt.”…
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Equifax, Experian and TransUnion permanently let consumers check credit reports free every week at AnnualCreditReport.com
The three nationwide credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, have made weekly free credit reports a permanent feature. The Federal Trade Commission says the bureaus “have permanently extended a program that lets you check your credit report from each once a week for free.” That is a big change from the old rule of one…