How many times have you said this to yourself: “I swore I had $50 in my wallet before I left the house…” If this has happened to you before, then you are not alone. More of more US consumers are admitting to the fact that they cannot keep track of their expenditure. As a result up to $1000 is unaccounted for annually. This phenomenon is even more worrying in younger Americans whereby as much as $2500 is lost each year.
These findings were made public by Visa recently. Although an increasing …

Prepaid gifts cards – Some love ‘em, and some hate ‘em. They make versatile gifts during the holiday season especially when one does not know what to present to a loved one. Others are not so fond of prepaid gift cards because they seem too impersonal. Whether you love or loathe prepaid gift cards, such as the ever popular Visa prepaid gift cards, you must agree knowing how to utilize them optimally will be advantageous to you in the long run. With the rising popularity of prepaid cards, you may …

Blippy – Inspired by Twitter?
Twitter CEO Evan Williams made it clear through his tweet when he said “Many of the great businesses of the next decade will be about making information about our behaviors more visible.” Transparency is the catchword of the decade, and hot on Twitter’s heels is Blippy. And nope, Blippy isn’t Twitter’s competitor. In fact, what it does is it allows you to share your everyday online transactions with other people.
Just like Twitter, once the Blippy stream is updated with your transactions done in real time, your …

Year after year, more and more consumers are embracing the online shopping trend but there is one major downside affecting the e-Commerce economy: FRAUD. Authorities reported that such frauds are likely to occur around the holiday season. Seeing that Christmas is almost upon us, we’d like to alert both consumers and merchants alike on how to avoid being victims of scams so prevalent on the World Wide Web today.
Hints and pointers for consumers:
1. Avoid being victims of phishing websites. You can do so by logging into your account at websites …

Out of Twitter came forth Square…
Twitter has been heralded as one of the most groundbreaking thing to happen to social media and now things are going to get more interesting. How would you like to possess the ability to pay for things via Twitter? For years consumers have been looking forward to being a part of a cashless society but aside from credit cards, there is still a lack of a really versatile tool that allows people to purchase items they wanted, be it online or offline.
All that is going …

The carrot on the stick
Imagine this scenario: You’ve stumbled upon a spiffy looking website online offering a free trial pack of colon cleansing products together with an impressive looking e-Book. All you need to do is submit your name, address, credit or debit card details (for a nominal “shipping and handling fees”), as well as other personal details, and you’ll enjoy a month’s supply of colon cleansing product, JUST the thing you need to lose some weight in time for Christmas… RIGHT?
A nasty shock
WRONG! Yes, you will receive your trial …

The scam Recently, it has been reported that merchants are facing a new threat in the form of unethical credit card processing salespeople. These salespeople resort to unethical methods in order to garner more sales. It is believed that this is a rampant occurrence in Springfield where a company hires people to “force” merchants into switching their credit processing companies. Banks and credit card issuers who found out about this claim that these acts are not illegal but merchants are crying foul over the lack of ethics displayed by the …

Rewarding Cash-paying Customers
It cannot be denied that credit card processing fees are a necessary evil in the world of economy but just how much can consumers and merchants take? More and more merchants are getting irritated by the exorbitant costs of card fees that they have taken initiatives to fight back by awarding cash-paying customers with attractive discounts.
Take one Diane Chung for example. The Boston Globe reported that this enterprising lass has started to wage a silent war against MasterCard and Visa to protest against burgeoning credit card processing …

We already know how convenient and enriching merchant accounts are but most of us do not know is that some unscrupulous merchant account service providers are taking advantage of naive business owners by tempting them with misleading advertisements. What you should do when shopping for a merchant account is to watch out for such ads, and stay far, far away from them whatever the cost. Here are the top 5 misleading merchant account ads you should avoid.
1. “We Reward You With $500 If You Can Show Us a Better Deal”
This …

Safe to use credit cards again?
You know the economy is recovering when more and more people are spending with their credit cards again. Last October, AMEX reported that spending on its cards increased to a healthy level for the first time in 2009. Figures have been on the decline for the past few months, but after suffering from a 10 percent decline in August and a 5 percent decline in September, the guys from AMEX are heaving a huge sigh of relief as consumers are now not as conservative in …