Personal Finance and Investing

A reader started his own blog about his American Agencies collection experience:

Debt Collector American Agencies Extortion and Threats

The allegations are really unbelievable, but as long-time readers might remember, American Agencies employees refused to delete the TOTALLY BOGUS Pacific Bell collection from my credit reports and to add insult to injury, they even ran my credit after I disputed.

The OLD American Agencies postings at the Fight Back forum.

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Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. If you want to impress your loved one without breaking the bank, shop around for the best price for a dozen red roses. You can get a bouquet couriered to the door for under £20 with a little planning, rather than paying the £46 some firms charge, says MoneySavingExpert.com. The cheapest couriered dozen red roses arriving on Valentine’s day – remember it’s on Sunday and that might affect delivery – is from Marks & Spencer. It costs £19.50. Just make sure you order by 5pm on Friday.

• Unless you are prepared to lock your money away, it is “virtually impossible to find an account that pays a rate to beat both tax and inflation”, says Michelle Slade of Moneyfacts.co.uk in The Daily Telegraph.

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The numbers are quite staggering: credit card fraud flew to the number-one spot in 2009 in terms of identity theft. In particular, credit card fraud accounted for nearly 75 percent of all identity theft cases last year.

This jump in credit card fraud represents an amazing 63 percent increase from 2008.

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You probably feel like you only ever open your purse or wallet in order to spend money, but what if you could actually make cash from the contents? Chances are you carry around a number of things you could make real returns on. In fact, in this article, we look at how you could make more than £600 with what’s in your wallet.

Current account – make £160

Open your wallet and take out your debit card. Look at it, what’s it ever done for you?

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