dsquared

High deductible/catastrophic plans are a great way to go if you also sign-up for a Health Savings Account. The idea is to contribute enough to your HSA to cover your entire deductible--that way you actually are fully insured. I think to qualify for HSA your deductible needs to be at least $1200 individual/$2400 family coverage. There's also a max your deductible can be. There are some tax benefits. Here's a link to government info on the HSAs HSA GOVERNMENT INFO

Someone recently wrote in another thread that credit repair/credit health has to include "not being your own worst enemy." There are many reasons that credit scores and credit health can go south, but I would say most often it's our own poor choices. Good for you learning the lesson. And the good news is. . . the second (or third) time around, you know that there is light at the end of the credit repair tunnel.

I wanted to add him to my Amex, but that doesn't appear to be an option with the Student Blue card. When I follow the link online, it takes me to the gallery to apply for new cards. Otherwise, I was thinking of adding him to my Citi and Chase because those are my biggest trade lines. He has a thick file but high utilization since most of his accounts are closed. I'm trying to give him enough of a boost to help him qualify for new, better cards. As a side note, I asked my dad about his Amex to see if he could add me as an AU. His card is over 30 years old, but he just filed for bankruptcy. So, no dice there. As they got old enough, I added all six of my kids to my Wells Fargo and my Citibank and my Amex. All three reported and, as I remember, at least one of them (I think it was WF) did not ask for their SS#s. She got the preapproved/no-hp online for it and I am certain it is because she has a rocking high FICO because of those three AUs (around 790). If she manages this new Visa card well (and she'd better), and coupled with the AUs, she's off to a fine start on building a credit history.

Getting the card and activating it may be the only thing that this is about. Tell her not to worry--just wait till she gets the card, call and activate and they'll tell her if there is anything else.

I think you hit the nail on the head--time and don't be your own worst enemy. Sometimes reading this forum I find people that I just know are headed right back into the hole they've dug themselves out of--they don't seem to understand that if you take care of things properly on the front-end you won't have all of those problems that you have to take care of again. Congrats on the score, on the debt-repayment and on the lessons learned.

She does but she doesn't want to involve any police but I just don't see how that's possible if she wants to clear her credit. She's in great health for 92 but my Aunt was saying that if something happened to her, she knows it won't go away, her estate would have to handle it and that would be her and my Mom. With no savings, there won't be anything there to pay this off. Well, that's the good news. If grandma dies and she has no assets then that's the end of it. There is no obligation for anyone else to pay the debts. However, in this case if the bank determines that your mom opened an account fraudulently, they could come after her assets. I am with cashnocredit on this one - if the estate has no assets, then the debt goes away. I would do the following: 1) have a good discussion with your mom - could be some sort of shopping addition, or worse - need to get to the root of it and get help 2) put fraud alerts on your grandma's credit reports....and freeze all 3 reports 3) get credit monitoring services for all involved - yourself, you father, aunt, anybody you mom could take advantage of by knowing their SSN. That's it...the the grandma doesn't have savings or assets, this debt will go away eventually. VK I'm not a betting person, but if I were I'd put a chunk of money down saying that this is not the only thing your mother is involved in. There are more "suprises" out there. I'd be scrambling right now to make certain that everyone who she would have any information on--dob, ss, address, etc.--is checking EVERYTHING in their lives and then taking steps to make certain she cannot use them now or in the future. At the very least, everyone should be freezing the three major CRAs. You need to have a serious discussion with your mother. She needs to know that you know and that you aren't putting up with anything else. Where is this money going to that she's stealing from your grandmother? Your mother should understand that while at this point you don't want to go to the police, it is an option that is going to remain open and depending on what her behavior is and what other "suprises" come up it be the path that you have to take.

I've always gotten those softs from AMEX. The "Account Review" is just that--seems to happen monthly around the same time each month. They're keeping an eye on you. I believe the others are there marketing teams doing pulls. You'll find as an AMEX cardholder that you will be receiving all types of promotional material from them, everything from additional cards, travel, banking, etc. IMO, they can peak all they want as long as they don't do a hard.

I've got two sons and a daughter that I birthed from my fist marriage (widowed) and my husband has three he and his first wife (widower) had. I now have six grown people calling me Mom. It's all good--there is nothing I would do for the ones I brought into this world that I wouldn't do for the ones that came as a package deal with DH. I don't think I've had the bad feelings sent my way that your mother has from her step children, but both DH and I went through the "You're not my Mom/Dad" phases--they worked as well as the "You're not the boss of me" and "I'm going to run away" and the "I'm going to hold my breath till I turn blue and die" phases--Not at all. I can understand you feeling resentful if your step-sisters' behavior and attitude toward your mother has been disrespectful or even hateful. But, I would look at the situation differently. If you had a full-blood sister who was being disrespectful to your mother would you still resent her being listed as a daughter on the FB page? The anger and resentfulness you're feeling--it just hurts you and probably in no way hurts your step-sisters. So, for your own sake, I'd find a way of getting past it. Sometimes small things like listing a person on your FB page can make a big positive difference in a relationship--maybe that's all your Mother is doing, trying to put a little positive energy out there.

Eventually. . . and certainly not in the timeframe I would want my purse back. It's evidence and it can't be let go of until everything has been put to rest.

If the thief is caught and if he is charged with the crime and if he is convicted of it (or pleads to it) the judge during sentencing will often ask the victim if they would like restitution. If the victim wants restitution, then the judge has the option of ordering restitution. If the thief does jail/prison time, a portion of any monies they might earn while incarcerated will go to the victim to satisfy the restitution part of the judgement. In some jurisdictions, a portion of any monies they received from outside sources (family, friends, etc.) would go toward restitution. If the person is not going to do any time, the judge can order meeting payments on a restitution schedule as a condition of the convicted person fulfilling his sentence while not being locked up. In addition, making restitution payments can be part of parole conditions. For the victim to have property/items and monies of the thief's siezed and sold to compensate the victim for losses from the purse snatching, the victim would have to take the thief to civil court and win a judgment. The thief can be taken to civil court whether he is convicted of the crime or not. Even if he is not convicted of the crime (or the police/DA choose not to prosecute) the victim could prevail in civil court because the standard of proof in civil cases is "Preponderance of the Evidence" rather than the much more demanding "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" of criminal cases. The now-classic example of winning in civil court while losing in criminal court is the Goldmans taking OJ Simpson to civil court and winning after Simpson was found not-guilty in criminal court. Yes, far too much time playing in the legal field--and this all from an artist.

I would bet a majority of us have more than one credit card from the same issuer. Each credit card is a separate tradeline and reports as such. Are there drawbacks to having multiple credit cards from the same issuer? On your credit score--no. I think you do run into the possibility of a creditor not willing to increase limits or add to available credit because you've reached the credit exposure with multiple lower-limit cards sooner than you would with one higher-limit credit card. Also, if you were to damage your relationship with that creditor (late payments) then you have damaged more than one trade line. In addition, if the creditor peers into their arbitrary crystal ball and out of the blue decides they don't like you any longer you've got a problem with more than one trade line. All that said, I've got multiple cards with more than one issuer and have not found any problems.

If you are in a public place like a mall or on the street you have no legal expectation of privacy. The mall/security company is free to release the video as they see fit. Ewwww. That just drives me nuts--I know a lot of women who call their husbands/boyfriends "Daddy." The closest I've come is to call mine "Grandpa" as in "don't be so old-fashioned Grandpa." He doesn't consider it an ego-boosting sexy term of endearment.

+1 And, if by any chance it's not your ex-husband but maybe someone he got involved with or someone unknown to either one of you, you've got to do what you can to stop this. Filing a police report and freezing all three CRAs would be the first things I'd do. Don't wait any longer--take these steps now. Good luck.

Maybe a better lesson of this story is to remind us that credit issuers are always peaking at our reports and irregardless of your account performance with an individual creditor, they will take into account your overall credit picture when doing account reviews. I believe a score of 608 is likely to raise flags with most credit issuers, not just GEMB.

Sometimes I think we concentrate too much on the FICO score and we forget that credit/lending decisions take in any number of factors, ONE of which is FICO. Let that BK fall off. Have you thought about a larger limit secured card? Remember, credit repair/rebuilding is a marathon, not a sprint. Keep working on it and things will get better.