May 2010 Archives

It used to be easy to manage your privacy settings to prevent things from going public, but in the last few years, Facebook has made it harder and harder to control who sees what information. Some parts of your profile were set to be publicly viewed by default, so if you didn't know to go in and change it, you were unknowingly broadcasting your party pictures to your boss. At one point I just gave up trying to figure it out, and didn't know if some of my information was publicly visible or not. I'm not crazy--CNN says the site currently has more than 170 privacy options. No wonder I was lost!

The site received major backlash after several major privacy changes; many users created and joined Facebook groups protesting the changes, and many news outlets and blogs spoke out against them. Facebook received enough heat to amend their terms and conditions. Unfortunately, things didn't get better; their privacy controls kept becoming more and more confusing, and people refused to stay quiet. According to CNN, on Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his company has made many mistakes with user privacy. He also revealed that starting this week, they are (finally!) simplifying privacy controls. It will be rolled out to all users in the next few weeks and will let you easily block all information from with just one click. Just like it used to be in the beginning, you can easily select whether you want your data shared with just friends, with friends of friends or with everyone.

Online privacy is a huge concern of many Americans. Learn about 10 of my favorite personal finance blog posts from the past week. One of the posts discusses how to create safe online passwords to protect your personal finance data.

I've traveled from Bosnia to Bali to Boston, and many points in between, and this month's trip to Egypt was the first time I've ever had my bank card eaten by an automatic teller machine.

It was a stifling hot night in Luxor, and all I wanted to do was grab some cash at the ATM across the street, run back to the coolness of the hotel, and pick up some souvenirs in the gift shop.

I inserted my ATM card, and watched it disappear into the bowels of the machine -- never to be seen again. Thus began my adventure with Egypt's tomb of the lost ATM cards.

Longtime readers know that I travel often and have encountered many issues with credit cards and problems with money abroad. I've even seen a different type of plastic: the chip-and-PIN card. Most European countries now use chip-and-PIN credit cards, which involve an extra layer of security. They are processed differently and use different card readers.

While many institutions in Europe are still set up to accept payments from both old-school magnetic swipe cards and new chip-and-PIN cards, an increasing number are not. U.S. travelers carrying old-school mag stripe cards are increasingly confronted with mass transit ticket dispensers and parking meters that don't take the cards and puzzled looks or outright suspicion from store clerks unfamiliar with them.

So when CreditCards.com learned that United Nations Federal Credit Union is going to soon be the first U.S. financial institution to issue a chip-and-PIN credit card, I it was interested, and I was ecstatic! UNFCU has told us that they will launch the Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) toward the end of 2010.

I wanted to learn more about this major development, so I contacted Elisabeth Philippe, Business Development/PR Manager for UNFCU. She answered several questions for me via email. Read on to learn more about this exciting new product that will make it even easier for Americans traveling abroad!

Armed with online access and a credit card, I discovered that I've been married twice in Texas and accumulated 31 criminal records nationwide and one federal criminal record. The trouble is, I've never done any of those things -- those are different Jeremy Simons.

That information was revealed courtesy of a personal background report. As a reporter who covers the credit industry, and having recently downloaded a copy of my credit report, I decided to see what other consumer information is easily accessible. Using myself as the test subject, I ordered a complete background check on my own name (first name, middle initial and last name) plus nationwide and federal criminal checks at a cost of $69.90 through Bellevue, Wash.-based information company Intelius.

For the past few weeks, many Americans have watched in horror as massive amounts of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico. An oil rig about 50 miles southeast of Louisiana's coast exploded on April 20 and killed 11 workers, and sank two days later to 5,000 feet below the surface, according to CNN. The well has been spewing an estimated 210,000 gallons of crude oil in the ocean each day.

The owner of the well, energy company BP, is getting plenty of flack. They have taken responsibility, but they haven't been able to stop the leak. Since April 20, they have tried various types of caps and domes to plug the leak, and they have even discussed shooting garbage into the well to plug it. Nothing has done the trick. There are growing concerns about how the spreading oil will affect wildlife, especially as it reaches shores.

According to CNN, BP is required by federal law to foot the bill for all cleanup costs, and it has already spent more than $350 million to do so. However, the company may only be liable for the first $75 million in claims under law, but it's expected that the losses will be in the billions. BP says it will pay all "legitimate claims" for those who have suffered an economic loss, but it will be interesting to see how this unfolds and what they deem "legitimate."

You see them all around. I was warned at a very young age to avoid them at all costs. I was cautioned never to get too close to the promoters behind ... the credit card booths (insert old horror movie scream here).

You know which ones I'm talking about:

"Free Phoenix Suns T-shirt! Just sign here!"

"Trip to Bora Bora? Just sign on the X ..."

"Cool hat! But first, I need your address."

I wanted to see if the passage of the credit card reform law had made a difference on campus. Here's what I found.

Sunday is Mother's Day. Did that catch any of you stragglers off guard?

Our mothers and our fathers are pivotal in how we learn about money and finance. We observe our parents' spending habits, attitudes and values about money, and we often carry that to adulthood with us. Some of us are gifted with very financially savvy parents, while others aren't as lucky. One of the many joys of life is becoming financially independent and discovering exactly how you and your parents differ on issues like budgeting, saving and investing.

But regardless of your parent's spending habits, mothers deserve to be cherished this Sunday. Don't feel like you have to break the bank to please Mom; there are plenty of inexpensive ways to celebrate her. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Faisal Shahzad's alleged terrorist plot -- which involved detonating a homemade bomb in New York City and then fleeing to Dubai -- was apparently paid for in cash.

Based on news reports, Shahzad used hard currency to both buy a truck (which would eventually house the bomb) and pay for his Dubai-bound flight out of the country. Cash might seem an odd payment choice, considering the popularity of debit and credit cards: The most recent Federal Reserve data shows that noncash payments (including debit and credit cards) in the United States totaled $75.8 trillion on 2006, increasing at a rate of 3.9 percent per year since 2003.

However, experts say some terrorists have good reasons to prefer cash to payment cards. "I'm not surprised to the extent he chose to use cash, as that is the most anonymous and ubiquitous payment method out there," payments expert Judith Rinearson, a partner with the international law firm of Bryan Cave, tells me. "It's certainly more anonymous than prepaid cards," for example, she says.