A New Kind of Lender Secretly Tracks Your Car to Make Sure You Pay Up

Debt collection on steroids.  Now in China.  Where next? So-called auto-backed lenders—which charge annualized interest rates as high as 36%—install tracking devices in cars by hiding them inside bumpers, under seats or behind mirrors to prevent them from being removed by borrowers. When people fail to repay their debts, collectors act quickly to repossess […]

On the Mend: Bill Requiring Delayed Reporting of Veterans’ Medical Debts Seeks to Correct Department of Veterans Affairs Payments Errors

As proposed, the Act requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish a database – not later than one year after enactment – to allow consumer reporting agencies to verify whether a debt furnished to a consumer reporting agency is veteran’s medical debt.  https://www.natlawreview.com/article/mend-bill-requiring-delayed-reporting-veterans-medical-debts-seeks-to-correct

Rubio, Kennedy Introduce Bill To Protect Small Businesses From Security Breaches

Today, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced the Small Business Credit Protection Act, legislation that would require credit bureaus to inform small businesses, within 30 days, of a nonpublic personal data breach. The bill would also prohibit credit bureaus from charging small businesses for a credit report within 180 days following a breach. In […]

Uber Settles Data Breach Investigation for $148 Million

Uber will pay $148 million to settle a nationwide investigation into a 2016 data breach, in which a hacker managed to gain access to information belonging to 57 million riders and drivers. The breach included names and driver’s license numbers for 600,000 drivers. The investigation, led by state attorneys general across the United States, […]

Report: ID thieves are exploiting USPS mail-scanning service, Secret Service warns

Tech watchdog Krebs on Security reports that the U.S. Secret Service sent an internal alert on November 6 warning that scammers are using the Informed Delivery feature “to identify and intercept mail, and to further their identity theft fraud schemes.” They also want to use the service to “surveil potential identity theft victims” on criminal forums, Krebs reports.    […]

How More Americans Are Getting a Perfect Credit Score

Members of the 850 Club can be broken into two groups. There are the super-knowledgeable tacticians trying to crack scoring algorithms, and the naturally prudent. Some are prepping for a loan. Others are just credit-score hobbyists. Paul Chua, 40, who works at San Carlos, Calif.-based Helix, a startup focused on personal genomics, is one of […]