The financial news that actually matters
For years, anyone weighing a bank, credit card, mortgage servicer, or debt collector could read what other customers had said about it, free of charge, on a public federal website. That window is closing. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced it will stop publishing the consumer complaint narratives and data visualizations that had let…
For a retiree living on a tight fixed income, the standard Medicare Part B premium of about $202.90 a month is a meaningful chunk of a Social Security check. What many do not realize is that the government runs programs designed to pay that premium for people who qualify, and a large share of those…
Utility bills have quietly become one of the fastest-growing costs for American households, and the reach of the current wave of increases is striking. A running tally of electric and natural gas rate changes shows that the great majority of the country is now facing higher bills, with a large share of customers already paying…
Americans change jobs often, and a retirement account left behind at a former employer is easy to lose track of. A 401(k) started at a job held two decades ago, a small pension from a company that was later bought or shut down, a rollover that never got completed: any of these can sit unclaimed…
A quieter change to food assistance is set to shrink the monthly benefit for hundreds of thousands of households, and it has nothing to do with the widely reported work requirements. Instead, it changes the accounting behind how much help a family receives, by altering how utility costs are factored into a SNAP calculation. The…
A home that has been paid off is supposed to be the safest asset an older household owns, but a growing fraud is turning that security into a target. Criminals are forging deeds to record fake transfers of property ownership, then selling, mortgaging, or renting out homes that still belong to someone else. The cruelest…
For a homeowner who has paid premiums faithfully for 20 or 30 years, the assumption is simple: if a storm wrecks the roof, insurance buys a new one. That assumption is quietly breaking down. Many carriers are shifting older roofs onto a settlement method that pays only the depreciated value of the aging shingles, not…
A data breach at a behind-the-scenes financial software vendor has produced a $5.5 million settlement, and the people whose personal information was exposed have until October 13, 2026, to claim a cash payment. Many of those affected are credit union members who never dealt with the company directly and may not realize their names, account…
Federal prosecutors in Hawaii say a single arrest in Honolulu has exposed the mechanics of a scam that has been quietly draining the life savings of older Americans across the country. According to the Justice Department, a 25-year-old man working as a courier picked up more than $137,000 in gold bars from an elderly woman…
Many retirees keep the bulk of their savings at a single trusted bank, and a common worry is whether balances above $250,000 are exposed if that bank ever fails. The answer is more encouraging than the headline number suggests. Federal deposit insurance is not a flat cap of $250,000 per person. It is $250,000 per…