Consumer Blog

We have blogged here and here about how consumers are winning battles against wireless companies and their fees for early termination of contracts. Now a California judge has added what looks like a massive defeat to Sprint, which has a couple of weeks to respond.

Here is a blog post on a cool way to get out of those fees for early cancellation.

In Missouri we've had the ability to freeze our credit for almost a year now, but all three credit bureaus required it be done by certified mail - not phone or Internet. Now that's changing. TransUnion, Experian and Equifax are now offering this service online. Furthermore, for the time being TransUnion is offering the service for free. Freezing your credit is an excellent way to prevent identity theft.

The price was $10, but Missouri law as of August 28th will cap that fee at $5.

You can read about changes made to Missouri law here.

This blog post has links to the security freeze pages at all three credit bureaus.

PS: TransUnion also deserved credit last fall for being the first to offer the security freeze nationwide, even though some states like Missouri didn't require them to offer it.

Missouri consumer writes:

Help!! I have paid my wedding photographer in full and she has not delivered my order after 5 long months. She said she has filed bankruptcy and there is nothing I can do to recover my order or money. Is there anything I can do to recover the $1700+ dollars I have already paid to her?

You can file a consumer complaint with our office. This is a widespread problem. We settled a similar case against a photography studio earlier this year. And a check of our consumer complaint database for the word "wedding" shows 700 complaints - and about half of them are on this very topic.

One of our consumer rules to live by is not paying in advance for things you haven't received yet.

It's important to note that when you're giving money to a charity or non-profit group, you can't necessarily deduct that contribution from your income taxes. The biggest category of tax deductible charities are ones designated 501(c)(3) by the IRS. There are some deductible charities that don't fall into that category, and your tax professional can help you make that determination.

You can use the Better Business Bureau's site, give.org, to look up a charity and determine if it's 501(c)(3). Enter the charity's name in the search box, hit Search, then scroll down to the section that says Tax Status.

You can also look at a charity's finances using our Check a Charity site - this tells you how much of your donation goes to the actual programs versus administrative costs like salaries, fundraising, office costs, etc.

Finally, be sure to check out our best advice on how to give wisely to a charity.

Con artists running phishing scams will use just about any ploy to get people to give up their personal information over the Internet or the phone. Often times they take advantage of a story in the news, like the IRS rebate checks.

It stands to reason that we might see these scams disguised as voter registration drives. In Missouri, you have until October 7th to register to vote, and consumers should not give their personal information to anyone who calls or e-mails offering to get them registered. This could lead to identity theft.

Also, the Missouri voter registration form only requires the last four digits of your Social Security number. So our advice is to go to your county clerk's office and register on site.

AG Nixon today announced a lawsuit against JK Harris, a company that offers to help consumers with debt and tax problems. Consumers complaining to our office paid in some cases $4500 to the company to help them with their IRS obligations. In many cases, the customers found them self off in worse financial shape after dealing with JK Harris.

We are also suing a lending company that does business with Harris - Professional Fee Financing Associates.

Two tips on this:

1. If you are in debt, work with a good credit counselor. You can find one here.
2. Before doing business with a company, check with our office to see if there are complaints against it. Use our KnowMO link.

The IRS put out a consumer alert warning of these kinds of companies four years ago.

Have you noticed fewer pre-approved credit card offers arriving in the mail? You're not imagining it. A nationwide study says these offers are down almost 20% in the last year because of the trouble with the banking economy. Banks are raising their lending standards, so credit is less available than it used to be.

And according to this study, the population seeing the biggest decrease in credit offers are those with low income and / or bad credit.

By the way, if you haven't opted out of these offers altogether, we recommend you do. Here's the link. Do it to reduce the nuisance, but also to reduce risk of identity theft.

BTW, you'll notice a couple of interesting points in the press release:

1. Even with the decrease, the industry still sent out a billion credit offers in the 2nd quarter of 2008.
2. Direct mail is the #1 way credit card companies attract new customers. So you wonder why they send out so many? Because it works.

You may have seen signs in a store that say you have to spend at least a certain amount of money (say $10 or $15) to use your credit card. There's no law against that, but it does violate Visa and Mastercard rules. They forbid stores from doing that.

Visa and Mastercard also forbid stores from charging a higher price to customers who use credit cards instead of cash. So how can gas stations get away with charging more for credit than cash? It's a technicality: Visa and Mastercard both allow a discount for cash. (See the Mastercard link above.) In other words, you can lower your price for cash transactions, you just can't raise it for credit transactions. Clever, eh?

Another interesting tidbit: Despite the prevalence of identity theft, these credit card companies also forbid stores from requiring a customer to show photo I.D. (see page 29 of this link for Visa, section 5-7 of this link for Mastercard)

So for those of you who write "ask for ID" on the back of your card, this technically should not protect you. If a thief gets your card and uses it, that "ask for ID" won't do any good because the store can't insist on it. Also, as we've written before, Visa and Mastercard both say a card is not valid if the back is not signed.

If you're wondering about American Express, it basically says merchants need to treat it the same way as other cards. So if a store accepts Visa and Mastercard, they can't require minimum purchases or fees for using AMEX, because that would discourage customers from using that card.

The Federal Reserve Bank has some nice online resources that could help anyone facing foreclosure. Advice about talking to your lender, links to registered debt counselors, managing your credit, etc.

We've had lots of comments after our post about AG Nixon's lawsuit against those companies that send you urgent notices that your car warranty is about to expire. Our action was called Operation Taken for a Ride. Good news: we have settled one of those lawsuits, and the company has agreed to make a lot of changes to the way it does business. Hopefully this will be the first of many changes in this industry.

In our agreement, National Dealers Warranty Inc. will:

• Stop implying that their factory warranty has expired unless that's true (often it's not true)
• Stop implying that they are associated with the car manufacturer
• Comply with the Missouri No Call list and the federal Do Not Call Registry

We still want consumers getting these mailings or phone calls to file complaints if they think they're misleading.

BTW, the word warranty is in quotes because these should actually be called extended service contracts. This blog post explains the difference.

Although we've been able to freeze our credit for almost a year, Missouri now has a law that makes it official. Until now, credit bureaus had voluntarily allowed us to do this. With the new law, they are required to provide this service.

Here is some background on the security freeze and why it's the most powerful tool for preventing identity theft. It costs $5 per credit bureau to freeze your credit.

AG Nixon has long been an advocate of making end-of-life decisions now while you're able, and a new Missouri law gives you more power to do that. You now have control over what happens to your organs and tissues after your death. In the past, your survivors had the final say. Even if you marked the back of your driver's license or joined the Missouri Organ and Tissue Donor Registry, your survivors could still overrule your wishes. No more.

Under the law, if you indicate your wishes to donate (or not to donate) body parts, those wishes must be honored. You can do this through your advance directive or by enrolling in the Donor Registry, maintained by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

To get started with all this, check out our publication Life Choices (see image).  This will walk you through all the end-of-life decisions you need to make - including wills, funeral plans and naming a durable power of attorney.