The biggest news in the financial world this week was the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s enforcement action with American Express.
AmEx to Refund $85 Million to Consumers
The CFPB announced this week that American Express would follow in the footsteps of Discover and be required to refund customers who purchased credit card products due to deceptive marketing products.
“The majority of those refunds are related to debt collection practices and late fee charges,” according to a press release from American Express. “Impacted customers will be notified as soon as possible.”
Bad Credit? A Boss’s Advice for Getting a Job
Mitchell Weiss, a credit expert and contributor to Credit.com, wrote a great piece this week from the perspective of a boss on how job applicants can make employers feel OK about major credit problems.
He offers some great tips. First, he tells job seekers to confront the issues head-on, before the prospective employer even conducts a credit check. This makes the employer feel like you know your credit issues and are being proactive about fixing the situation. For more tips, check out the rest of the article.
@mitchelldweiss @CreditExperts
Credit Card Debt Payoff: I Shed $32,000 in 22 Months
It’s always great to hear stories about consumers tackling a major debt load, which is why Simone Griffin’s tale is so compelling.
Griffin was counseling homeowners who were behind on their own mortgage payments while battling her $32,000 in credit card debt (split between two credit cards). What’s really interesting about Griffin’s story is that she used other credit cards to tackle her debt load. Because she had continued to make minimum payments on the two cards containing all of her debt, she was able to qualify for other credit cards to help make her debt manageable.
Image: NS Newsflash, via Flickr