Fact: If you apply to lease or rent an apartment, a condo or a home, chances are better than 95% that the owner or landlord will run a “background check” on you Fact: if you apply for insurance of any kind, chances are greater than 99% that the insurance company will run a “background check” on you

In response to the growing scourge of identity theft, California enacted its own Identity Theft Law in 2001 The law provides civil remedies to consumers in addition to the criminal remedies against the actual identity thieves

Shrouded in mystery for years, the Fair Isaac Company has finally let consumers have a slight peek into the vault of their credit scoring model which is responsible for “FICO Scores,” otherwise known as your credit score (FICO, by the way, is a shortened version of “Fair Isaac Company”

Mortgage servicers are middlemen who process the mortgage payments from homeowners and direct the money to the banks or investors who hold the loans With the current problems in the mortgage market, banks and the federal governments have reached consensus to help homeowners, but often the mortgage servicers, having the ultimate power to modify a mortgage, refuse to “play ball”

Forbes Magazine recently published a good article entitled "How to Hold off Debt Collectors" This article is very helpful for consumers

Here’s an email exchange I believe should be helpful to a lot of you out there This is a situation where a debt collector contacts a consumer after serving a summons on the consumer for a very old debt, one likely past the statute of limitations

My firm handles a lot of personal injury litigation, so, at the suggestion of friends and former clients, I am writing this blog on a regular basis to give readers info on how to handle their personal injury cases I will go over several topics

Debt collectors prey on consumers who do not know their rights and who do not know how to handle calls from debt collectors This article gives just a few short and simple tips for handling debt collector calls, since these are becoming ever more common as the market for “junk debt” booms among unscrupulous investors

My firm handles a lot of personal injury litigation, so, at the suggestion of friends and former clients, I am writing this blog on a regular basis to give readers info on how to handle their personal injury cases I will go over several topics

I’m continuing to get calls from people who believe they have had their identities stolen or who may have been the subject of one of the big “data thefts” that have afflicted so many companies These cases likely are not yet ripe for handling through litigation because there are really no serious damages at the point where the consumer learns his or her identity has been stolen

On Yahoo today there was an article providing some tactics for not getting cheated at the car dealer and I thought it was worth passing along Here it is: Our reviews, road tests, and Buying Guide will help you choose a single vehicle from the 430 or so on sale today, but how do you negotiate the often contentious dealer experience

Just today one of my good friends wrote & wanted a consultation with me because he gave out some of his personal information to an unrecognized website He is now concerned about a possible identity theft and wrote to ask me of the best way to prevent this from happening