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Over the past few years, many consumers across the country may have found that credit card debt can pile up in a hurry if they’re not careful with their finances and don’t pay attention to their spending. Fortunately for those consumers, there is a new credit card, which is offered jointly by MasterCard and Citi, which may be able to help them keep track of their finances.

The new inControl credit card allows for increased flexibility in credit card debt management. It not only allows consumers to establish personal monthly spending limits, it also alerts them when they approach those balance totals. This card will be available to consumers by the end of the year.

Those limits are able to be set up not just for the total account, but even for spending in particular categories. This way, consumers are able to ensure that they aren’t spending more than they want to for specific items or services in a given month. Similarly, the alerts consumers can set up will allow them to know when they’re approaching these monthly totals, and can be received via text message, email or both. In this way, they are able to stay on top of their finances in real time.

"Through the MasterCard inControl service, we are focused on leveraging the latest technology and consumer trends and our global network to provide card functionality that gives power to the people as they navigate today’s new financial realities," said Ed McLaughlin, the chief emerging payments officer for MasterCard Worldwide. "We are excited to be working with Citi to bring these cardholder alerts and controls to life, offering them better information and greater control over their spending activity."

A MasterCard study found that 49 percent of consumers surveyed felt the inControl card offered them the kind of budgeting tools that would help them to better manage their spending. It also found that 51 percent of consumers would feel safer and more secure in using this card over others.
Many consumers that may be concerned about how safe their credit card accounts are should be aware that the best way for them to protect themselves from a potential threat is to stay vigilant and constantly monitor their finances.

Many consumers may have been frustrated by a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles in the past, but the state of Mississippi has a new way for them to avoid that hassle.

According to a report in the Pascagoula newspaper the Mississippi Press, every DMV in the state – as well as two county courthouses – now has at least one kiosk that allows consumers to renew their driver’s license in minutes. All the consumer needs to do is swipe their credit card and old license, get their picture taken, and wait for the machine to print out the temporary license. The process takes about two minutes.

"I promised efficiency and convenience when I introduced the first kiosk in December," Stephen Simpson, commissioner of the state’s Department of Public Safety, told the paper. He added that there will be kiosks in more public buildings in the near future.

By adding machines that allow consumers to make payments by taking on credit card debt, Mississippi not only makes the lives of its residents easier, but also generates new revenues.

Over the next few weeks, more than 1.75 million homeowners in South Florida will get their property tax notices in the mail, and many could be disappointed by what they find inside.

According to a report in the Miami Herald, property values in the state have declined for the third straight year. This year alone, they fell an additional 13.4 percent from the already-down numbers seen last year. That drop signals a loss of $29 billion in values, just in Miami-Dade County.
"This is the biggest drop we have seen in value in Dade County in I’m not sure how long – definitely more than 35 years,” Pedro Garcia, a local property appraiser, told the paper.

The drop in values has been largely attributed to the increasing numbers of both foreclosures and short sales, as homeowners sought relief from their underwater mortgages. However, many that have stayed in their homes will find that property taxes haven’t fallen at the same rate as the value of their property.

The reason for this is that many counties have huge budget shortfalls which they are scrambling to make up, the report said. In most cases, counties added an extra $1,000 to property taxes to fill these gaps.

In many cases, consumers may feel that they have no option but to abandon their underwater homes, which will only lead to more foreclosures, and in doing so drive down property values even more.

Despite many consumers logging onto various websites and complaining about the large fees they used to be hit with when they accidentally overdrew their checking accounts, experts say a surprising number have decided to enroll in similar programs.

According to a new report from Consumer Affairs, a "surprising number" of Americans either have opted in to the new overdraft protection plans, or will do so in the near future. One study on the subject found that 26 percent of consumers have already told their bank they would like to continue receiving this protection, and the same number said they will do so in the near future. This has come as a bit of a shock to many experts, who expected to see many consumers say good riddance to any additional bank fees they could be hit with.

However, the report said, there are some potentially good reasons for consumers to opt into these new programs after complaining so fervently about the old ones, which included fees as high as $40. For one thing, the new financial laws now regulate how much banks can charge if a consumer overdraws his or her checking account. But perhaps more importantly, many lenders have given consumers more options for dealing with overdrafts because they know it is now a voluntary program and they need to give their customers a good reason to enroll.

The report said that many banks are now offering a new way for consumers to handle a payment that makes their checking account sink into the red. For example, many will now allow consumers to attach their checking to a credit card account. This means that any purchases that would result in an overdraft can either be transferred in full or in part into their credit card account. Many banks also allow customers to link other accounts to checking, drawing funds – from savings, for example – as needed to cover purchases. Of course, these transactions will also cost consumers a fee, which can be either annual or on a per-transaction basis, but they will be less egregious than the old cost of an overdraft.

Federal law now requires all banks to ask consumers whether or not they want to enroll in these overdraft protection programs beginning on August 15. Institutions can no longer make participation compulsory.

Though the number of consumers who take on credit card debt to make online purchases is still significant, another payment system is gaining popularity.

According to a new survey from market research firm Cardbeat, PayPal has grown in both market penetration – over three-quarters of respondents said they had an account – and popularity as a payment method. While 70 percent of respondents said they still use their credit card to make online purchases, a growing number – 39 percent – said they use PayPal as well.

The report said that consumers are also using the service more often, though they’re spending the same amount per transaction. While the average purchase is still about $60, the same amount consumers reported when Cardbeat last conducted such a study in 2008, the number of transactions has nearly doubled from 10.8 two years ago to 21.2 now.

In the past, many consumers used PayPal primarily as a means of paying for their eBay purchases, but the system has grown over the last few years, and is now accepted by a large number of online shopping sites.

Consumers who use technology to take on credit card debt at their favorite vending machine can now do so without getting out their wallet.

According to a report from New York City television station WNYW, a company in Massachusetts has begun testing futuristic new "biometric vending machines," which allow consumers to tie their retinal scans or thumbprint to their credit card accounts. Consumers can then use these scanners to make payments for the bag of chips or candy bar from their office vending machine.

The report said that the company, Next Generation Vending and Food Service, has about 60 of these machines in the field across the Northeastern U.S. currently. Other machines they’ve tested recently include one with a 46-inch touchscreen display. The company is also connecting all its current machines to the internet so they can monitor them in real time, not only to see when they’re running low on products, but also to see if the coinslot is jammed.

As technology advances, consumers will be able to make more secure payments through their credit accounts without actually using their physical credit card.

Because many college students run the risk of piling up lots of credit card debt while they’re away from home, one state has passed new laws that will help young adults avoid some of the pitfalls that come with a new card.

According to a report in the Bergen Record, the state of New Jersey recently added restrictions on how credit card companies can market their products to college students, and how they can pursue their debt. These restrictions are in addition to the provisions of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act that limit how lenders can deal with consumers under the age of 21.

The report said that the laws not only restrict the way credit card issuers can market their products on college campuses, but they also prohibit lenders from pursuing delinquent debt from a student’s parent or guardian. In addition, lenders that do market on campuses must provide students with education about the responsibilities of opening an account.

In recent years, student credit card debt has grown into a serious problem. The average new college graduate has thousands of dollars in credit card debt.

In the next few months, many consumers could find that their local businesses have imposed minimum purchase amounts when they choose to pay with their credit card.

According to a report from Cleveland television station WEWS, the latest credit card reform laws included a provision that will stop credit card lenders from preventing businesses setting minimum purchase amounts. In the past, issuers didn’t allow these minimums so they could continue to make money from interchange fees, which could climb as high as 5 percent of the purchase price.

The report said that by establishing these minimums, businesses are able to offset the cost of these interchange fees. To make up for minimums, and to keep customers who prefer to take on credit card debt, businesses may also start offering discounts to customers who make their payments using cash or their debit cards.

If small businesses were not allowed to offset the cost of these interchange fees with minimums, or by raising prices, many say they would lose tens of thousands of dollars a year.

As consumers approach and then pass middle age, they are less likely to know how to deal with credit card debt, a study has found.

According to a new study from Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research,consumers make the best decisions when it comes to paying off their credit card debt with a balance transfer from one card to another when they are between the ages of 35 and 44.

The study surveyed consumers in five age groups – 18 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 64 and over 65 – and asked them how they would reduce credit card debt that they had just transferred from one credit card to another with a low introductory rate. About a third of all respondents immediately provided the best answer, which was to make new purchases on the old card while paying off the debt on the new card.

The age group with the most "immediate eureka moments" was that of the 35- to 44-year-olds, who responded correctly over 40 percent of the time. The next-best group was 25 to 34, who were barely under 40 percent. The group with the fewest immediate correct responses was "over 65," which came in just over 20 percent.

The report said that the corresponding data for those who had "no eureka" exhibited the opposite pattern, with the youngest and oldest age groups exhibiting higher percentages, and troughing with the 35- to 44-year-olds. This, the report said, indicates "that the greatest frequency of confusion occurs among younger and older adults." In all, a little more than a third of all respondents never arrived at the correct conclusion.

The study found that the remaining one-third of respondents come to the correct decision after one or more billing cycles, when they discover they are paying "surprisingly high" interest rates. After these consumers had their "eureka moment," they always changed strategies to the correct one rather than continue on making purchases with their new card.

Consumers should also be aware that credit card issuers often charge a fee for a balance transfer, meaning that consumers should do some number crunching before making such a transaction. Occasionally, the amount they pay for their fee outweighs any subsequent payments toward interest they would have made.

The number of Americans who were forced to file for bankruptcy protection rose in July for the first time in months, which kicked off the second half of the year on a down note.

According to the National BankruptcyResearch Center, there were 137,698 filings across the country in the July. That number is a nine percent increase from the total posted in June, as well as over the same month last year. Further, if the number of consumers who seek protection from their creditors continues on its current pace, the nationwide total of filings will top 1.6 million, a significant increase from the 1.4 million last year. At the time, that was the most bankruptcy petitions filed since the country revamped its laws in 2005, which made it more difficult for consumers to do away with their debt.

The Wall Street Journal’s report on the figures said that one of the largest contributing factors to the increase in bankruptcies is that credit issuers have tightened restrictions on the type of consumers they will lend to, and as a result more consumers had trouble paying debts.

"They can no longer borrow to stave off the day of reckoning," Robert Lawless, a University of Illinois law professor, told the newspaper.

The report said that this renewed vigor with which consumers are filing for bankruptcy has cast serious doubt on whether the 2005 law changes have been effective, as filings are once again returning to the levels seen in the early and mid-2000s. However, it mentions that the number of filings could decline slightly in the next few years if consumers who are shut off from additional lines of credit can’t amass more debt.

The report also noted that many states in the Southern U.S. have unusually high rates of filing. Ronald Mann, a Columbia University law professor, found that six of the 10 counties across the country with the highest bankruptcy rates are located in suburban Atlanta. Filings in Hawaii, California, Arizona and Utah have all climbed more than 30 percent over the rates seen a year ago.

The NRBC report also said that 75 percent of all bankruptcy filings in July were under Chapter 7, which allows for liquidation, rather than Chapter 13, which requires consumers to pay back a portion of their debt over a period of three to five years.