A data-trading criminal apparently sucked up some bad data recently in an online chatroom devoted to selling identities. Among the identities available.... Herman Munster's personal info, including his address at 1313 Mockingbird Lane and 1960s-era birthdate. Of course Herman was a fictional TV character on the Munsters and not a big spender at that.

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Experian credit bureau is offering a new service which was covered on National Public Radio the other day. It's called Collection Triggers and it gives collection agencies a new lease on their older debts by forwarding information from individual credit reports - positive information such as paying off debt, or a rising credit score. Collection agencies are very glad to hear that things are going better and immediately demand payment on older debts. So a barrage of phone calls usually accompanies any gain in credit status. Some consumer groups are crying foul.

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Behind that top heavy exterior lurks an insatiable lust for real estate, finery and baubles for her “boyfriend.” Now the note just kicked up on the beach house and Barbie is juggling madly trying to keep Ken in tasteful earrings.

A just released survey by the Identity Theft Assistance Center finds that the main way to know when your identity is stolen is through a contact from your financial services company - as in, credit card or bank. Almost 62% of people polled learned of ID theft this way, and another 23% were notified by another financial services company (presumably not their own). The lesson here appears to be with a little proactive effort (like checking your credit report) in addition to standard notifications, you can likely reduce your time-to-discovery to a bare minimum.

Other ways people found out included:

     credit purchase denied, stolen purse/wallet,
     during loan application process, checked online
     account, reviewed credit report, burglary,
     contacted bank for general information and was
     informed of activity...

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In an absolutely fascinating article Michelle Singletary of NPR looks at an ugly reality most parents don't even realize: their kids are living in financial dreamland. A survey by Charles Schwab & Co. and the Boys & Girls Clubs of Americ reveals that teens are totally delusional about what sort of money they'll be making as adults. The teens on average expected to make $145,500 with boys figuring they'd rack up $173,000 while girls sadly expected less but still a healthy $114,200.

Hmmm...considering the median U.S. household income is under $50k that's a lot of disappointed youngsters who are expecting Santa to leave a higher salary under the money tree.

Btw, only 14% of Americans make between $100k - $200k

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Found a good article on raising credit scores that goes into great detail about debt to credit ratio, or the amount of debt you have relative to your credit card limits. It offers many creative ways to get around this critical percentage which represents how much of your available credit you are using. Maybe a few ideas are a bit too creative but they may represent the insider secrets of credit repair outfits. Read more