The financial news that actually matters
This category focuses on bank fees, hidden charges, service costs, and updates in banking policies. It explains how fee structures work and how policy changes may impact customers’ accounts and financial behavior.
A Washington dentist whose practice treated many elderly and disabled patients was sentenced September 17 to two years in federal prison for a scheme that took more than $3.4 million from D.C. Medicaid. Steven A. Price, 70, who operated the Washington Smile Center in Northwest Washington, was also ordered to repay $3.4 million to the…
A registered nurse from Bowie, Maryland, pleaded guilty September 17 to a health care fraud conspiracy tied to a $14 million scheme that billed D.C. Medicaid for youth mental health services that were never provided or were grossly inflated. Vera Nyiawung, 34, entered the plea in federal court in Washington to one count of conspiracy…
Methodist Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, received at least $12.4 million in Medicare overpayments during 2020 and 2021, federal auditors said in a report posted September 17. The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) found that 27 of 100 sampled inpatient and outpatient claims did not fully meet Medicare billing…
A Fort Washington, Maryland, man will spend eight months in federal prison for collecting more than $270,000 in Social Security disability benefits while he ran two cleaning companies, federal prosecutors said. U.S. District Judge Lydia K. Griggsby sentenced Andrew Langford, 50, in Greenbelt on September 1, 2026, and ordered three years of supervised release to…
A federal grand jury in North Texas has charged three members of a family that ran unlicensed boarding homes with lying to mortgage lenders after allegedly taking control of a 79-year-old resident’s longtime Garland home, selling it to two of themselves and funneling more than $156,000 of the proceeds through several accounts. The indictment, returned…
Five men have been indicted in federal court in Seattle on charges that they laundered more than $7.4 million taken from at least 77 victims across the country through tech-support scams and schemes in which callers impersonated government or bank officials. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington announced the indictment on…
A former Schererville, Indiana, insurance agent who wrote more than 2,000 fraudulent life insurance policies in the names of hundreds of people, most of them retirees and elderly residents of Northwest Indiana, has been sentenced to 70 months in federal prison. Thomas J. Lemmen, 51, was sentenced on September 2, 2026, after pleading guilty to…
A 37-year-old Indian citizen in the United States on a student visa was sentenced in Tulsa federal court on September 10, 2026, to 30 months in prison for his role in a scheme that scared a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran into converting his savings into gold and handing it to a stranger. The U.S. Attorney’s Office…
A Science Hill, Kentucky, man was convicted by a federal jury in London, Kentucky, on September 14, 2026, of using an elderly relative’s bank accounts and credit cards as his own and cashing out the victim’s certificate of deposit worth more than $35,000. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky said Samuel…
A 33-year-old man living illegally in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, has pleaded guilty in Pittsburgh federal court to laundering money from a grandparent scam in which rideshare drivers picked up cash from elderly victims’ homes. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania said Elvys Nicanor Nunez Valerio, a Dominican Republic national, pleaded…