The Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) is probably one of the three top bank products/accounts ever invented. People love them. Up until about the early 1980s, the equity homeowners had in their homes technically could be accessed via a second mortgage, but in those days, second mortgages were frowned upon. That was unfair. A […]
This past May, I wrote a Smart About Money column about the failure of “banking-as-a-startup” fin-tech Synapse and how Synapse customers who thought their money was FDIC-insured learned that was not the case. A reader asked, “What’s a fin-tech?” The words are short for financial technology and, according to IBM, a fin-tech company’s “core capability […]
Buying a house in a super-hot sellers’ market (meaning most of eastern Mass.) favors buyers who are prepared as much as possible before they start seriously looking. Yes, there are exceptions, and everyone’s heard about buyers who found their unicorn house with a unicorn seller and it all happened like magic. But it’s best to […]
A 24-year-old young man recently called a radio program to explain how he’d been scammed out of his savings. This is the important part — it started with a text. He got a text apparently from his bank asking if he’d approved a transaction of $8,930. “Reply Y for Yes and N for No,” the […]
According to The Wall Street Journal, a man named Sankaet Pathak felt banking in America was “stuck in the analog era” when he moved to the U.S. from India. In 2014, Pathak started a company named Synapse from his apartment and began working with start-ups that were looking to offer software-enabled savings products. Banking stuck […]
Rick Steves started traveling in 1978 when he was 23. Millions and millions of people have been enjoying his show on public television since 1991. Some have been armchair travelers with him, and many have actually visited the places he talks about on his show or in his guidebooks. According to Wikipedia, Steves is a […]
According to a new FBI report, there was a “devastating spike” in scams last year, with the impact of the scams often being catastrophic for the victims. Many think it’s “just” older people who get scammed. That’s not true. Victims are of all ages, and some believe that younger people are particularly likely to become […]
CGA Solutions, a Georgia investigation firm, recently wrote about a “dangerous myth” being spread in a series of viral TikTok videos. The videos, according to CGA Solutions, had some users believing they had found a “loophole, a secret trick” that would enable them to withdraw ‘free’ cash from Chase Bank’s ATMs. “No, this isn’t some […]
First, if you’re hoping to buy a home for the first time, or you know someone who is, the plain fact is that it never seems like a good moment to be buying a house. Ask any homeowner and they’ll tell you there were always things that made it seem “risky” at the time. Often […]
Researching scams and scam prevention, I came across the concept of the “initial bait.” Specifically, it is the lure (like the offer of a refund) or the threat that gets someone to respond to a scammer’s approach email, text or phone call. There’s a reason it’s called “phishing.” The scammers make initial approaches all day […]
