130 million sure sounds like a lot, but keep in mind how many individual transactions companies like 7-eleven have in a single day. Besides wondering why the company security was so weak, I'm more interested in why these companies had so many credit card numbers on file in the first place. Once my transaction is complete, they shouldn't possess the data anymore.

This is a great description of a lot of the dirty tricks credit card companies pull. Remember that a credit-free lifestyle is possible.

That bill that everyone's been talking about a while just passed with most of the good protections still in tact (go figure). Essentially, the bill is a shinging example of regulation at its best and industry at its worst as it mandates that credit companies stop doing things that are dishonest and one-sided.

Wow. Who knew that without laws to prevent it, companies would stoop to one-sided and dishonest policies for the sake of money… hmmm.

Some of the major points:

Today I found a link to Best Buy's recycling program on Lifehacker. Not only do they accept some items in-store, they have a trade-in program for "gently used" electronics and contact info for where to dispose of stuff you can't take to them. It's an interesting read.

A while back, I was educated on the various ways that Gamestop is one of the worst businesses in the world (either as a customer or an employee). Now here's more evidence of how rotten they are in the form of how they screw their own employees out of their paychecks using a fee-loaded "pay card" system.

If you're treated badly at a store, it might be worth buying something from the offending employee solely for the reason of getting a receipt with their employee identification. Then take the survey listed on the receipt and explain the situation in the comments. For Best Buy at least, you can click a checkbox to have the management contact you.

Ha!

Regulators have handed down new rules that will curb some of the more abusive practices of the credit card industry.

They also restrict such lender practices as allocating all payments to balances with lower interest rates when a borrower has balances with different rates

Did you know they did that? Think store cards with those various interest rate deals that you have to pay off by a certain time or get slapped with fees. What if the store doesn't apply any of your payment to that PART of your debt? What happens? Yeah… it's not good.

The new rules prohibit:

_Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time, such as 21 days, to pay.

_Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account.

_Unfairly computing balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing.

_Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making it available.

_Making deceptive offers of credit.

Good start. Too bad we have to constantly be watching companies to prevent them from ripping us off, but that's capitalism…

It's that time of year when companies are pushing gift cards again. Safeway is even selling gift cards for other companies (how convenient). Here are the top 5 reasons to reconsider before forking out cash for a tiny plastic card:

Disclaimer

I know that there are SOME cases where buying a gift card is a good thing. This is usually only when someone in your family wants something really expensive that no one can afford and everyone knows it so they pitch in with gift cards. I've never seen that go badly so long as it was under those circumstances.

The other thing I know people will beat me up for in comments if I don't say something first is how hard it is to get someone a good gift sometimes. Here's two tips:

1) Get them something AND a gift card. Make a damned effort you lazy bum.
2) Get you and your family on a gift registry. I made one of my own for my family on my website years back and it's been great! I always know what kinds of gifts my family would like no matter how scattered our time together or phone conversations may be. Even if I don't buy them exactly what they have listed on the site, I at least have an idea of what kinds of things they would like.

So with that said, have a happy and gift card responsible season!

Sometimes when you buy something online or at a major retailer, you'll get it home to find out that it's full of bricks or bathroom tiles instead of the product you expected. Sometimes this is due to shifty warehouse workers and sometimes because a customer buys a product, says it's defective and returns it even though they replaced it with bricks. If the customer service counter doesn't check the box before accepting it, it goes back on the shelf and you get stuck with it.

The store's response to this is generally not going to work in your favor, but there are ways you can make sure you don't end up with the brick.

Read the article for full details, but here are the two main tips they cover that I agree with:

1. Pay with credit card – This will give you many types of buyer protection automatically like the ability to do a chargeback.
2. Check the item before you leave the store – Make sure you know what's actually in that box before you walk out. It's much harder for them to make the claim that you put a brick in it inside the store.
3. Policies aren't laws – Just because a story says "it's policy" doesn't mean you should give up. They often have very bad policies and even some that might be considered illegal. You should fight for what's right regardless of what the store says is "policy".

The Consumerist was taking heat recently for posting articles about how Monster brand cables are no better than any other even though they cost so much more. Now Popular Science is joining the action with their article explaining that all high end cables are a ripoff.

The electronics industry’s dirty little secret is that they have extremely thin margins on gear, so they make up the cost difference by up-selling you on extended warranties and incredibly marked-up cables.

This is completely true. When I worked at a big named retailer, I could buy a 30 dollar cable for about $6 with my employee discount. Things like extended warranties, add on-services, and accessories are all the same.

If just-bought items are stolen out of your car in the parking lot, don't give up hope. The couple in this story went back to the store the items were bought from and warned them that someone would probably try to return them for cash later. That "someone" did and that "someone" was caught and arrested. The couple got their items back too

Ever tried to cancel a service only to be drawn and quartered by the employees who's job it is to prevent you from canceling? It doesn't seem fair really, all you want to do is cancel a service, but if you do so successfully, some shmuck on the other end gets a negative mark on his/her record. Well, that's not really your problem so use the advice in the Consumerists "9 Confessions of a Retentions Representative" to make your way through the process with minimal effort (inlcuding advice about getting out of an early termination fee).