This past week, I've heard the phrase "I never thought it would happen to me" more than ever before. A rather crafty scam artist took a list of names and phone numbers and started sending multiple phishing texts and phone calls to my clients and others across the nation. Because of the timing and persistence of these points of contact, many people were tricked into entering their card number and pin. Now before you go thinking you would never provide such information to somebody, let me tell you that the methods of this scammer were quite convincing in many instances. Luckily, we are positive the list was not secured via our database, so no sensitive information was compromised, but the growing risk of identity theft has never been more apparent to me.

Like so many others in our country, I’m in debt. Fortunately, it’s more of what some have termed the “good” kind of debt—the kind used for getting educated—but it’s debt nonetheless. So the big question that everyone with student loans, including myself, asks themselves at some point in time is "how fast should I pay these things off?" Some feel the lower interest rates justify a slower approach to tackling them, while others hold a more feverish Dave Ramsey approach.  Which is the right path to take?

While the past few years have been treacherous for the credit card industry, there is one area of the business that has grown dramatically: prepaid debit cards. Consumers have increasingly turned to prepaid debit cards as an easy way to have access to their cash without having to worry about keeping cash on hand.  From parents using it to distribute allowance to their kids, to consumers simply trying to stick to a budget, prepaid debit cards have been a big hit.

A few days ago, a client came to my desk asking, "A Beacon score? What in the world is that!?"

This client has spent the last few years building his credit through responsible use of student loans, no interest credit cards, and a car loan. He now wants to capitalize on record-low interest rates and purchase a home, but he recognized that by ignoring his BEACON Score he might have missed something that could potentially cost him tens of thousands of dollars over the life of the loan.

 The Fed didn't raise interest rates yesterday, but it did announce its next attempt to give our lumbering economy a much-needed kick in the butt. Dubbed "Operation Twist", the Fed aims to lower long-term interest rates by selling about $400 billion in short-term government bonds and then using that money to purchase longer-duration bonds like mortgage-backed securities.  The name stems from a similar Fed effort back in 1961 when Chubby Checker's song "The Twist" was at the top of the charts.  It kind of worked back then, so the Fed is hoping for the best this time around.