Entries for August 2007

Dear Alpha Consumer,

I am a 49-year-old professional woman with a serious credit problem. I was the owner of a successful business, until my husband filed for divorce and I sank into a depression. I stopped working altogether. Eventually, I was forced to file for bankruptcy. To this day, my credit record is very bad.

How can I recover?

In Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, political theorist and University of Maryland Prof. Benjamin Barber argues that we have shifted from a "work hard" ethic to one that idealizes immediate gratification and selfishness. In the process, he says, we have lost our sense of civic responsibility. He points to high divorce rates, adults who act the way kids do, and the glorification of shopping as Americans' new national pastime. In an E-mail interview, U.S. News asked him why he was so dismayed with consumer culture.

Dear Alpha Consumer,

After finding out I had numerous collection accounts on my credit, I ordered credit reports from the three major credit bureaus, TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax. I discovered that my ex-wife must have used my name to lease equipment, which led to the collection accounts.

I would like to clear the accounts from my credit report. How can I do this?

Phishing, a technique by which scammers try to gain access to personal information, is one of the most common threats to online banking security. Phishers send E-mails, often claiming to be from a bank, and ask the recipient to click on a link and fill out personal information. The scammer then uses that information to empty bank accounts or steal identities.

It's a common trick, and one that banks are getting increasingly savvy to through stepped-up security. RSA, which provides information security for large corporations, is one of the companies behind many of those new security measures, including personalized images and software that sends up red flags when a user is deviating from normal behavior.

When it comes to money, women are different. They usually earn less than men do, are more likely to take job breaks to care for children or parents, and store less for retirement.

That's why Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar, two Harvard Business School grads who work in the financial services industry, teamed up to write On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl ' s Guide to Personal Finance. While some of their tips are useful to both sexes — pay off debt, save a chunk of your income for retirement, and learn how to budget — they tailor their real-life examples to women and make financial success seem plausible, even for someone starting at "Go." Here are some of their tips: