No Credit History Credit Card

And it's certainly not for anyone who has a weakness when it comes to credit cards. The providers aren't stupid and will try to exploit that weakness by casually offering more debt when you call to activate your new card, or by sending credit cheques in the post. A tempting offer if you're weak. Beware. If you have a history of credit card problems, cut the cards up. Certainly don't take out more. You could save yourself Potentially £1,000s and avoid a lifetime of financial misery.
Sort out all your finances in eight steps

11. Dump First Direct
Chris Pilling, the new chief executive of the once-respected bank, First Direct, issued an alarming edict last year. Anyone earning less than £24,000 a year was not welcome at his bank - a big kick in the teeth to pensioners, women on maternity leave, nurses and the like.

Nice income but not much credit history

Dear Liz: My husband and I decided to start using a second airline frequent-flier program and applied for its credit card. I was turned down on the grounds of "few revolving accounts opened long enough to establish credit history" and "not enough accounts opened long enough to establish a credit history." My husband then applied for the same card, with the same response.

We have an annual income above $170,000, we own a $750,000 home outright and have investments of $1.5 million. We have no debts and we've had the one credit card we use (a MasterCard) for 15 years. We always pay the bill in full every month, and we have never been anywhere near the $25,000 credit limit. Our FICO scores are about 750.

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Ruling: TJX No Longer a Federal Case

The largest credit card data breach in history is now a matter for a Massachussetts court.The worst credit card data breach in history is a federal case no more.

A federal judge overseeing the TJX cases in effect fired himself as TJX judge on Tuesday, and ordered the case out of federal court and into Massachusetts state court.

U.S. District Court Judge William Young also praised Visa as a "hero" because it conducted its own investigation and worked out a settlement with a class of plaintiffs.

"I find this very significant, [that] theyve worked out a settlement with an opt-in class. Opt-in classes are very desirable," the judge said from the bench.

The judge was referring to an agreement that Visa worked out with TJX where TJX would directly pay some of the plaintiffs banks.

YOUR MONEY: Charities sometime prey on the elderly, too

My mother-in-law is in her 80s, a "Rockefeller Republican" who is still politically and civically active whenever her health allows it. Recently, however, she spent eight days in the hospital.While she was away, the phone rang almost every night with calls from telemarketers hoping she’d help out some political or charitable cause. While my in-laws are on the national do-not-call registry, political and charitable groups are exempted; a long history of being active donors has made them targets for every group that has a copy of the mooch list.My mother-in-law still picks her causes carefully; she’s socially liberal but fiscally conservative — the definition of a Rockefeller Republican — and wants to continue making a difference.So imagine the surprise when her mail included a letter from Fidelis — a national organization that is the antithesis of her politics — saying that her December donation had failed to go through because the credit-card information was incorrect.The note sparked my curiosity because so many things about it seemed out of place.

Update: Library Has 10 Copies of "Water for Elephants"

Debit or credit? You can swipe your card now. No, the other way. No, the other way. I'll just punch it in over here. Do you have another card? My computer screen is frozen, can you wait? I need to start over. What's your phone number? What's your ZIP code?" Then after you've run the gantlet of questions, they tell you how much money you've saved. Of course, they don't add back the time you've spent being debriefed or watching them fumble around because they weren't properly trained or their computers were outdated or upgraded. None of this is the fault of clerks. They're just doing their jobs. The fault lies with managers who've decided to do inventory and marketing on your time -- Gary Crooks/Smart Bombs.

The case of the dubious diamond dildo.

L.A. Times--Scooped again? ... 10:15 P.M.

Army of Shrums Update: On reflection, homemade YouTube ads seem more potentially subversive than I originally thought. I try to explain here. ... Not only do these amateur ads seem to evade the campaign finance laws, they seem to undermine the whole assumption of those laws, which is that candidates with more money enjoy a proportional advantage. No they won't--at least if they're typically undone by whichever catchy,15-second spot cooked up by a teenager on blogspot gains the most viral exposure (by being re-shown on the TV news in addition to being viewed on the Web). The outcome of a true YouTube election will be more random--but, arguably, more substance-related. ... To Be Sure: I'm not saying we're already past the time when races get determined by what Bob Shrum and Roger Ailes, or their successors, spend donors' millions to tell voters.