The financial news that actually matters
A data breach at a Chicago nonprofit that serves people with disabilities has produced a class-action settlement, and the people whose information was exposed have a narrow window to recover their losses. Anixter Center breach victims can claim up to $5,000 for documented out-of-pocket costs traceable to the incident, but the money is only available…
The paperwork arrived like clockwork. Every week or two, investors received a “Statement Report” listing their portfolio’s value and the stock trades supposedly made on their behalf. The numbers looked healthy, and the promise attached to them was reassuring: the principal was protected from loss no matter what the market did. Federal prosecutors say every…
A tax preparer sits in a position of unusual trust. Clients hand over their income, their Social Security numbers, and their bank details, then sign whatever return is put in front of them, often without reading the fine print. Federal prosecutors say a Las Vegas preparer abused that trust to seek more than $5 million…
When a Medicare Advantage plan is discontinued, the coverage does not vanish the moment the notice arrives — and that gap between the announcement and the actual switch is where costly mistakes happen. A member who assumes the plan is already gone, and seeks care outside its network before enrolling in something new, can be…
The victims in this case were, on average, 82 years old, and they were told they had won a prize that never existed. Over nearly seven years, at least 50 elderly Americans wired money, mailed checks, and shipped cash to men who claimed a Publishers Clearing House windfall was waiting, if only the taxes and…
A convenience-store data breach that leaked names and Social Security numbers has turned into a class-action settlement that pays out cash, and the window to claim is closing fast. People whose information was exposed in a 2024 breach tied to a Circle K franchisee can collect a flat $50 with no paperwork at all, and…
The scam that empties a retiree’s savings and the machinery that hides the money afterward are two different operations, and prosecutors have now put a price on the second one: at least $43 million, allegedly washed through roughly 45 shell companies and about 140 bank accounts. Two people arrested in New York this summer stand…
The money did not disappear into thin air. When more than 200 people who thought they had found love online, and others who thought they had found a can’t-miss cryptocurrency, watched their savings vanish, the digital coins those savings had been converted into left a trail. On July 21, 2026, federal prosecutors moved to seize…
The list of insurers walking away from Medicare Advantage keeps getting longer, and the 2027 plan year is shaping up as one of the largest pullbacks yet. Molina Healthcare is exiting the business entirely, Providence Health Plan is winding most of its coverage down, and other carriers are shrinking their footprints — leaving tens of…
Every summer estimate of the next Social Security increase is built before the formula has all of its inputs. The official 2027 adjustment will emerge from a defined inflation comparison, and Social Security has not announced the result. SSA has set the announcement month, not the percentage The Social Security Administration’s current COLA page says…