It’s happened to all of us. You buy something in a store, and when you get it home, find out that it just doesn’t work. Maybe you’ve made a purchase online and it arrives damaged or isn’t the item you thought you were getting. Perhaps you’ve stayed in a hotel or flown on a plane and found out after the fact that they’ve added charges and fees that you weren’t expecting. Or maybe the cashier just swiped your card too many times and you were charged twice for the same purchase.

Are you out of luck? Is your only choice to take the hit and pay the bill? Not necessarily. Thanks to the Fair Credit Billing Act, you may be able to file a dispute and have the charges removed from your bill. While it’ll take a little bit of work on your part, it’s a fairly straightforward process and one that has a good chance of being successful. Bear in mind, we’re not talking here about cases of fraudulent activity, in which case you should cancel the card and notify the bank and other authorities. These are legitimate charges that you made, that you’d now like reversed for some reason.

Go Right to the Source

Just like your parents always told you, if you have a problem with someone, you should talk to them directly. Go right to the merchant, explain your dissatisfaction, and ask them to remove the charges. Chances are they’ll be happy to comply, in the interest of good customer services. The larger the organization, the more likely they are to have a policy in place to cover these instances.

If talking to them doesn’t work, put your complaint in writing. Send a letter to the merchant with details of the dispute. Make it as detailed as possible and send it by certified mail, so you’ll know it was received. Make a couple of copies of the letter—you’ll need them later.

Call For Backup

If you get nowhere with the merchant, it’s time to get help in removing the charges. Write a dispute letter to your credit card company. You have to do this within 60 days of the date that the bill with the charge you’re disputing was mailed to you. Again, be detailed—include your name, account number, amount disputed, date of the charge, and any other specific information that may be relevant. Include a copy of the letter you sent to the merchant to prove you’ve been working to resolve the matter. Again, send the letter by certified mail, and send it to the address for billing inquiries, not the address where you send your payment, as this may delay the process.

Now you’ll wait while your card company investigates your claim. They’ll contact the merchant and then decide who’s right. If it’s you, the charge is removed from your card. If not, you’ll have to pay the charge, along with any interest or penalties that may have accrued. One point to remember—the Fair Credit Billing Act specifies that the amount disputed must be over $50, and the merchant must be in your home state or within 100 miles of your billing address (not necessarily helpful with online orders). Many card companies will ignore these restrictions when investigating claims, but it’s important to know that your dispute could be rejected for these reasons.

Don’t Neglect Your Responsibilities

The fact that you’re disputing a particular charge doesn’t mean that you don’t have to keep current on your bill. You should continue to make payments to the card when due until your case is resolved. The last thing you want is for interest charges and late fees to pile up while waiting for an answer. Send your payments to the same address you normally do—don’t include them with your dispute letter, to avoid confusion.

Hopefully you’ll never have to go through this process. And if you do, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be successful. But knowing that the option is available to you, combined with the fact that most card companies and merchants have an interest in keeping their customers happy, can offer a great deal of peace of mind when shopping with your credit card.

Photo by B Rosen

Related posts:

1. Four Ways to Get Your Money Back from a Credit Card Purchase
2. Soft Pull vs. Hard Pull: Which is What and Who’s Responsible?
3. Debit Card Disputes and How They Work

Your FICO score is more than just a credit score – it can have a big effect on areas of your life that, at first glance, completely unrelated to it. No, it’s not just your ability to get credit that is affected by your FICO score, but a whole host of life’s other little challenges. Here are some of the ways that your FICO score can impact your life.

# 1 – It can affect your ability to get a job

Employers will often request to look at your credit score before they’ll consider hiring you, especially if it’s for a job that will involve making financial decisions or handling money. It might sound unfair, but employers often want to know that you’re a safe bet who won’t run off with the profits or make poor money-related decisions due to an inability to manage your own credit responsibly. You have to give your permission for them to see what’s on your credit report so you have the opportunity to deny this request, but you run the risk of looking like you’ve got something to hide.

# 2 – It affects the type of house that you can buy

As your FICO score is used by lenders to determine how big a risk you’re likely to be on repayments, a below-average FICO score can result in you being offering less of a mortgage package, meaning that you’ll need to put down a bigger deposit. The reasoning behind this is that you’re more likely to default on your repayments so they don’t want to take the risk with a large mortgage. In addition, you’re less likely to be offered the better mortgage packages, which can tie you into a worse deal than someone who has a good FICO score. Even if your FICO score does qualify you for a specific mortgage, your monthly payments are likely to be much higher than they would be if you had better credit.

# 3 – It can affect the type of accommodation that you can rent

On a similar note to # 2, your FICO score can also impact on the type of house or apartment that you can rent. Landlords may look at your FICO score to assess the type of tenant that you’re likely to be and whether they should be worried about you defaulting on rent payments. If you’ve got a poor credit score, they may still accept you as a tenant but ask for a higher deposit as security against this.

# 4 – Your insurance premiums could be higher or lower

Some insurance companies use your FICO score to decide how high to set your insurance premiums and whether to accept you for a policy in the first place.

# 5 – You may be denied a bank account

If lenders request your credit report, they may examine your banking history as this is one of the most basic indications that you can handle credit responsibly. As well as this, if your FICO score isn’t very good, your bank may choose to reject your application to open a bank account, especially one that has overdraft facilities. For example, Citibank are known to do this as they conduct in-depth credit checks on account applications.

# 6 – You might not get a contract cell phone

Even cell phone companies can look at your FICO score before they decide whether to approve you for a contract cell phone. If your FICO score already indicates that you’re struggling to manage credit, they may well worry about you paying your monthly bills on time or at all.

# 7 – Even your relationships could be affected

However shallow it may sound, your FICO score could even impact on your relationships. At the most basic level, a bad FICO score can suggest that you’re irresponsible or immature and this can be a turn-off for prospective partners. If you get involved in a more long-term relationship, your FICO score could potentially become a deal-breaker. Depending on how bad it is, you could be denied the opportunity to rent or buy your own home or be approved for a loan to counteract this and this could put the curtains on making plans for your future together.

Finding out your credit score

While you can get your credit report for free from Annual Credit Report (which offers a credit report from each of the three major credit reporting agencies of Experian, Equifax and TransUnion once a year), finding out your credit score takes a bit more work.

The easiest way is to sign up for a trial with one of the credit reporting agencies. Provided that you can cancel the trial in the first thirty days, you should be exempt from having to pay the monthly or annual subscription charges (which are around $20 per month or $90 per year, on average). MyFICO offers a free 30-day trial for its Scorewatch package, which offers credit score tracking to alert you of changes to your FICO score. Cancel within the 30 days and you should get your FICO score without being tied into the subscription.

Improving your FICO score

Don’t despair if your FICO score isn’t very good at the moment, as there are things that you can do to turn things around.

• Pay your bills on time. This is likely to be one of the biggest reasons why your FICO score is low as your payment history makes up 35 per cent of your FICO score. Making on-time payments goes a long way towards upping your credit score, and signifies to creditors and lenders that you’re responsible with credit.
• Don’t use too much of your available credit. If the available credit limit on a credit card is $5000, it’s tempting to use it. This is a bad move for your credit score as it indicates that you’re living beyond your means. It’s best to use a maximum of 30 per cent of your available credit limit, so that credit card with the $5000 limit should have a maximum of $1500 as a balance.
• Don’t close your oldest credit lines. Contrary to popular opinion, canceling credit cards won’t necessarily be good for your FICO score – especially if the card(s) in question go back several years. Getting rid of your oldest credit lines means taking a big hit to your FICO score, as the length of your credit history counts for 15 per cent of it. Another effect of canceling credit cards is the fact that it can change your debt-to-credit ratio by reducing your available credit and making it more likely that you will be using up a higher amount than recommended.

Don’t Get Obsessive About It

Ultimately your FICO score is important, and it’s certainly a good idea to keep an eye on it andm if necessary, take steps to imporove it. Having said that, make sure you keep things in perspective, and don’t start to define yourself by how high or low a certain constantly changing three digit number is.

Photo by rachael hubbard

Related posts:

1. Why raise your Fico score?
2. New FICO Score Information
3. Your FICO Score – Understanding “Adverse Public Records”

In the near future, you may no longer be able to blame your debit or credit cards for that gaping hole in your monthly budget. As the New York Times reports, MasterCard and Citigroup have teamed up to present consumers with a new type of credit card that helps monitor your spending. These cards will contain unique security features that will prevent any transaction that is outside of your monthly budget from being processed.

The service, called inControl, will allow users to set a monthly credit and debit card allowance. If you try to use your credit or debit card for any purchase that’s outside of that monthly limit, your card will be automatically declined. InControl customers will also have the ability to tell card companies to decline any purchases that are not made in-person or that are processed overseas.

How InControl Can Benefit Your Wallet

If you happen to have a spouse, employee, or child who has access to one of your credit cards, the inControl system will prevent these people from exceeding a monthly limit. The inControl system will also help you to stay within your monthly budget, since you won’t be able to use your debit or credit card if you can’t afford to purchase an item. When you want to remove or alter a limit, you will be able to phone MasterCard in order to change this amount (inControl cell phone apps are expected to surface soon).

MasterCard and Citigroup benefit from the inControl system by preventing credit card theft. These companies are also banking on the assumption that people will use cards more often if spending with these cards can be monitored. In the end, inControl seems to work out for both credit card companies and consumers, though this service may not be an optimal choice for everyone.

When to Use (and Not to Use) inControl

You may find it easier to use a credit card that has an inControl feature, since this feature will give you a sense of security – after all, what harm could come from using a card that controls your spending? Plenty. Don’t consider a MasterCard with inControl if:

• You carry a balance: you’ll still pay interest fees!
• You don’t have any room in your budget for spending money.
• You don’t have a monthly budget worked out (this has to be in place before you use inControl).

On the other hand, inControl may be a good idea if:

• You want to rack up miles or points.
• You want to keep track of your spending.
• You don’t carry a balance.

As with any other type of credit card, make sure to read the fine print when signing up for an inControl MasterCard. There’s no word yet on the release date of the MasterCard inControl card, though it is speculated that the cards will hit consumer wallets within the next month or so.

Related posts:

1. Using Your Credit Card to Budget
2. How to Make a Budget That You’ll Actually Stick To!
3. Smartphone: The New and Improved Credit Card

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article that discussed the work of Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and James Fowler (London School of Economics and University of California, San Diego, researchers). De Neve and Fowler conducted a study that focused on finding a “debt gene” within certain people. The two researchers discovered that people who have one low MAOA gene and one high MAOA gene tend to have a larger amount of debt (8 to 16 percent more than most people).
The study included 2,000 participants aged 18 to 26. By studying each participant’s genetic information in conjunction with the amount of credit card debt that each individual had, researchers were able to discover that the MAOA gene had a direct impact on each person’s debt ratio. Of course, other factors (environmental, social) impact one’s debt, though the link between debt and genetics is the first of its kind.

For decades, researchers have been linking certain behavioural traits with various genes that people share, though the connection between behaviour and genes is difficult to pinpoint. What scientists have discovered about genes is that many personality traits are linked to genetics. While De Neve and Fowler told the Wall Street Journal that a true “debt gene” does not exit, what does exist in some people is an inherent set of genes that may heavily impact financial decisions.

Controlling Your Debt Gene

Trying to determine whether or not you have the so-called “debt gene” isn’t possible without a DNA analysis, though taking a good look at the spending habits of your parents might be a good idea. If you find that your financial habits are similar to habits that one or both of your parents has, simply recognizing this tendency could prevent you from falling into serious debt.

There’s still a lot for scientists to learn about genetics, but you can take your financial future into your own hands right now. In order to avoid falling prey to possible genetics, follow a few simple steps to avoid debt.

Don’t Carry a Balance: you’ve heard this one before, but carrying a credit card balance is the fastest way to sink into credit card debt.

• Don’t Buy Things You Can’t Afford: no matter how much of an available limit you have on your cards, resist the temptation to spend money that you don’t have.

• Use Cash Instead: while you need a credit card for some things (hotel rooms, airplane tickets), buying everyday items with cash may be a better idea.

• Ask for a Lower Limit: when your credit card company offers to raise your limit, ask for a lower limit instead. Companies love to give certain consumers who pay off debt more money, but you can stop this vicious cycle by refusing a credit increase.

• Start Paying Off Debt: if you’re already in debt (you may be able to blame your parents for this!), start paying off your debt as soon as possible. A small additional credit card payment each month is all it takes to wipe debt away.

Related posts:

1. 7 Zany Ways to Stop Overspending
2. Freezing Your Cards and Other Zany Ways to Stop Overspending
3. The Business of Credit Cards – Part II

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1. 6 Ways to Make Money Work For You
2. 8 Ways to Maximise Credit Card Travel Rewards
3. 5 Ways to Talk Your Way Into Getting Better Credit Card Rates

Waving your phone in front of a cash register in order to pay for an item may seem unimaginable, but phone payments are coming soon to a retail store near you. According to Bloomberg, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon are creating a new partnership that will allow customers of these carriers to pay for purchases using a smartphone. Not only are Visa, American Express, and MasterCard shaking in their boots, but the three mega-companies may also be left in the dust by Discover – the one company that just happens to have a piece of the new phone payment pie.

Even though Visa and MasterCard currently have an 82% share of the credit card market, this percentage may soon begin to decline. Discover is the one credit card company set to team up with T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon in order to become a third party processor, while Visa and MasterCard sit and wait on the sidelines. This new technology will also change the way that consumers handle everyday transactions. Instead of carrying around a wallet bulging with plastic, the only thing that you’ll need in the future is your cell phone (which most people already carry).

The new smartphone system is also a lot easier to use than any credit card. With the help of radio waves, waving a smartphone in front of a special device is the only action that you’ll have to take in order to pay for an item. Atlanta, Georgia, is set to be the first smartphone payment trial city. Three additional U.S. cities will follow suit, though there’s no word yet as to which cities have been chosen. The word on the financial street is that the three phone companies are still searching for a CEO to head up the operation, and when that happens the smartphone project should be put into motion.

Presumably, some security concerns will have to be ironed out before the smartphone service becomes widely available, though similar services already exist in Turkey, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Smartphone payment companies would have to ensure that a person’s private data is not leaked while paying for an item. Further, the trio of companies that are set to start the smartphone service would have to make sure that credit card companies don’t begin to follow suit – seemingly, it’s only a matter of time before Visa, American Express, and MasterCard come out with their own smartphone.

In light of the recent credit card crackdown and general mistrust of credit card companies by the American public, now seems like the perfect time for smartphone companies to introduce a new way to pay for purchases. With the biggest consumer offenders (Visa, American Express, and MasterCard) out of the way, smartphone companies may stand a chance at winning over the masses. This (coupled with the fact that waving a smartphone is simply easier than signing a document or remembering a pin number) could mean the end of credit cards as we know them – and for many fed-up consumers, this would be cause for celebration.

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1. 5 More Credit Card Myths to Watch Out For!
2. Control Your Budget – With A Little Help From Your Credit Card
3. Credit Card Reward Programs: How To Make The Most Of Them

At last, a sign that the credit crunch may be on its way out? The Discover® More(SM) Card now has a 0% interest offer on balance transfers for 12 months! There’s also 0% on purchases for 6 months – not too shabby!

Check it out here.

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2. The Scoop On Balance Transfer or (In)Convenience Checks
3. Balance Transfer Checks: A Breakdown

What with the more conventional investments under-performing over the last couple of years, it may be time to start thinking about putting some of your money towards a few ‘less orthodox’ ventures. This, presumably, is what a group of Somali ‘entrepreneurs’ were thinking when they set up the World’s first pirate stock exchange.

Reuters gets the scoop:

Heavily armed pirates from the lawless Horn of Africa nation have terrorized shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia through the Red Sea.

The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from ransoms and a deployment by foreign navies in the area has only appeared to drive the attackers to hunt further from shore.

It is a lucrative business that has drawn financiers from the Somali diaspora and other nations — and now the gangs in Haradheere have set up an exchange to manage their investments.

“But how can I invest in people who lie, cheat, and steal for a living” you might be asking yourself. Well, if the past 24 months has taught us anything, it’s that this is pretty much how most of the companies on the more ‘legitimate’ markets operate anyway. And hey, at least these guys are honest about their dishonesty!

Indeed, this is such a refreshing approach that we here at Master Your Card believe that 2010 will be the year of the pirate-heavy portfolio.

Just listen to this glowing testimonial from a happy customer:

Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel.

“I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation,” she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony.

“I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the ‘company’.”

When was the last time you heard such a glowing review about a company listed on the NYSE? And with an initial investment of only one rocket propelled grenade, how can you possibly go wrong?

Check out the rest of the article here.

Photo by GucciBear

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3. Holiday Season Expectations

What with rising interest rates, cancelled accounts, and slashed spending limits, it’s looking like many credit cards won’t see the light of day this Christmas, shunned in favor of the trusty (and ever more popular) debit card. A recent piece of research conducted by the National Retail Foundation found that an estimated 28.8% of people will be using credit to pay for their gifts this year, down from 31.5% last year.

Am I crazy for thinking that percentage is 28.8 points too high? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I cringe at the thought of a friend or family member putting themselves deeper in debt to buy me some frivolous gift that I’ll probably tire of before January has come to an end.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Consumer credit has deteriorated since the last holiday season, when interest rates were lower and spending limits higher, says Mr. Arnold. “Even if you got good credit, no one is immune from having their account closed.”

Last holiday season “we charged into it thinking things would end a lot quicker,” says Brian Riley, research director at TowerGroup, a financial-research consultant. Unemployment is still high and consumers are skittish about adding debt. Also, credit-card companies are under pressure from upcoming regulations concerning the credit industry, which go into effect early next year.

Plus, “there has been a practical change in people’s buying habits,” Mr. Riley says. That change has been on display this entire year. In the third quarter of 2009, credit transactions for Visa and MasterCard reached $313 billion, an 11.58% decline over the same quarter in 2008, according to TowerGroup. Debit transaction volume for Visa and MasterCard was $303 billion, a 5.21% increase over the third quarter in 2008.

While these statistics are encouraging, they’re not necessarily indicative of the country finally coming to its senses, but could simply be due to the fact that easy credit is just that much harder to come by these days. Indeed, data from Mail Monitor, a market research firm, indicates that the average credit card balance actually went up in the third quarter of 2009, indicating that the slump in holiday credit spending may simply be due to most holiday shoppers being totally maxed out.

Whatever the cause is, a couple less presents under the tree this year isn’t going to wreck anyone’s holidays, and might actually remind us all what this break is all about – spending quality time with our friends and family.

So whether you’re doing it out of necessity or choice, have a merry credit-free Christmas.

Check out the full Wall Street Journal article here.

Photo by allerleirau

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Thanks to a new 5-day Free Trial offer, you can now get a free credit report from SmartCredit.com. In addition to a rundown on your credit history, SmartCredit.com offers you tools for monitoring your credit, such as SMART Credit Report Lock, SMART Alerts and SMART Action Button, which helps you dispute inaccurate items on your report. Your free trial gives you access to these features for 5 days – after that, you’ll be charged $19.95 a month. But if all you want to do is view your credit report, you can cancel within the first 5 days without paying a penny. Here’s how:

1. Visit SmartCredit.com

Click here to sign up for the free trial at SmartCredit.com. You will be prompted to enter your name and e-mail address, as well as your zip code. Click “Start Free Trial” after you have done so.

2. Enter Your Information

Next, you’ll be asked to enter some additional basic personal information. Do so and click “CONTINUE WITH FREE TRIAL.”

3. Enter Your Billing Information

After you click through, you will be presented with additional fields to set up your login information. Enter your desired username and password and click “CONTINUE WITH FREE TRIAL.” Finally, you’ll also be asked to enter your credit card information, but don’t worry. This will only be charged if you fail to cancel within 5 days. They will, however, send a $1.00 authorization through just to make sure that the card information is correct. Before clicking “ACTIVATE FREE TRIAL” make sure you check that you agree to the terms. IMPORTANT: Leave “upgrade to enhanced membership” unchecked. Checking this box will immediately sign you up for the premium membership, thus skipping your free trial.

4. Click “ACTIVATE”

On the next screen, you’ll be given your registration confirmation. Click “ACTIVATE” to activate your membership. Note that you’ll also be asked to add do-not-reply@SmartCredit.com to you spam exceptions. Do so – most e-mail services, such as Gmail, will place messages from SmartCredit.com in your spam filter.

5. Enter your Social Security Number

You’ll next be asked to confirm your personal details again and enter your Social Security number and date of birth. Don’t worry – this information is necessary to retrieve your report and verify your identity. Take comfort in the McAfee Secure and GeoTrust logos at the bottom of the screen. Click “CONTINUE” to go on.

6. Verify Your Identity

Next you’ll be given a little quiz about your credit history. They will ask you questions about previous addresses and accounts you’ve opened. Oftentimes, the answer is “none of the above,” so don’t be thrown when none of the options look familiar. Click “SUBMIT” when you are done.

7. Click “CONTINUE”

The next screen merely tells you that you’ve activated your account. It will also tell you about Credit Report Lock, which alerts you whenever new credit is opened in your account. Sign up for it if you like, but it is not free.

8. Click “VIEW YOUR SMART CREDIT REPORT”

The next screen gives you a tutorial on how to navigate your SMART credit report. The navigation is pretty self explanatory, but if you’d like a rundown, feel free to peruse it here. If you are ready to go on, click “VIEW YOUR SMART CREDIT REPORT.”

9.  View Your SMART Credit Report

Congratulations! You are now viewing your SMART credit report. The first screen is your summary, which gives you an overview of your credit report. You can filter the view using the buttons on top. Or you can simply cycle through the pages in order by clicking the arrow on the right.

10. View Your Credit Score

One feature that isn’t included on most free reports is the Credit Score view. By clicking “Credit Scores” you can see a breakdown of your credit score, your auto score, your insurance score and your employment score.

11. View your Credit Accounts

You can view specific information on your accounts by clicking the name of the creditor at the top. This shows you information such as account status, creditor remarks and your payment history.

12. View Inquiries

This section is also of particular interest. Inquiries show you when companies or lenders pull your credit report. These credit inquiries can affect your score and may be indicative of identity theft, if you do not recognize them.

There you have it – a free credit report and credit score! Don’t forget to cancel your account within the 5 day period or you’ll be charged.

Instant Free SMART Credit Report

Photo by me and the sysop

Related posts:

1. Guide to Getting Your Free Credit Report from GoFreeCredit.com
2. A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Your (Actually) Free Credit Report without Accidentally Signing Up For Extras: Part Three Equifax
3. A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Your (Actually) Free Credit Report without Accidentally Signing Up For Extras: Part Two – Experian