Don’t waste money on futile insurance policies - warns consumer body
Times Online - People are wasting millions of pounds on pointless insurance policies, a consumer group will claim this day. Which? will give warning that consumers could be unnecessarily spending thousands of pounds each for the sake of “peace of mind” on obscure

Health observers anticipate policy battles
USA This day - But Leavitt stated the administration will not support slicing money for Medicare Advantage. “We want to protect it, enhance it Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on

States think about privatizing lotteries
USA This day - states could contract for as restrictive a lottery operation as they wish, though limiting options could also mean less money Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on

Smile! You’re not the only one in a bad mood
Daily Telegraph - Where T equals time since Christmas, D equals debt, W is weather, d is money due in January pay, Q time since failed quit attempt, M general motivational levels and NA is the need to take action, this day, he computes, we are in trouble. Here is the

GM CEO: Step up dealer consolidation
USA This day - Money Sports Life Tech Weather Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on

As U.S. falters, Mexican housing booms
CNN Money - feed://rss.cnn.com/rss/money_news_international.rss The buyer this day is more aware. People buy with more ease. They can plan long term.” Long thrashed by swings in the U.S

LinkedIn founder sees gold in connections
USA This day - good people involved with a potentially good product, I thought I should probably throw in at least a tiny bit of money if Conversation guidelines: USA TODAY welcomes your thoughts, stories and information related to this article. Please stay on

TODAY’S EDITORIAL: Ups and Downs
Times of India - TODAY’S EDITORIAL: Ups and Downs 21 Jan 2008, 0000 hrs IST Market movements depend on the amount of money players have and how they deal with profits and losses. What attracts money

Asian shares open lower on lingering US worries
Straits Times - We’d have to see some strength in Asia today to turn this situationaround.’ All the major US stock indexes fell on Friday Money

Gordon Brown to push for global financial watchdog
Daily Telegraph - Money home Mr Brown will also use his speech in India today to call for a “rapid reaction” force of judges, lawyers, police and

JPMorgan stock could hit $60-Barron’s
Reuters - JPMorgan stated last week its quarterly profit fell a worse-than-expected 24 percent as the No. 3 U.S. bank lost $1.3 billion on risky mortgages and set aside more money for rising losses on home-equity loans. Barron’s said the results add weight to

S&N battle could end this week
Daily Telegraph - given the Europeans until midday on Thursday to bid or walk away, having extended the “put-up or shut-up” deadline from today You’re here: Telegraph > Money > Business

Flamboyance, prosperity end suddenly
Baltimore Sun - The real estate market was booming, and so was the business of lending money to people with bad credit - Fieldstone’s specialty. Few people then were familiar with the term “subprime.” At noon Friday, Evesham Township police found Marcie’s body in the

Davos must deal with the water crisis
Daily Telegraph - And all this sits on top of the morally indefensible situation of this day where 20pc of the world’s population are without You are here: Telegraph > Money > Business

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Filed under: Cards, Debt, Ripoffs and Scams

Low-budget TV ads and promotional websites are full of tricks for boosting your credit score.

A piece in the New York Times took a look at a few of these programs which, according to the Times, the strategies often “include piggy-backing onto a stranger’s credit card and receiving pay stubs from a fake employer. The latest comes from a San Diego company, TradeLine Solutions, which claims it can improve a borrower’s credit score by adding somebody else’s top-notch credit history to the borrower’s history.”

But industry experts warn that many of the tactics for improving credit scores that seem to good to be true are — and often, they border on fraud and could get you into serious trouble. Trying to use other people’s good credit to improve your bad credit is definitely suspect, and the credit bureaus are working hard to crack down on it.

How do you know if a given method of improving your credit score is legit? Basically, anything that doesn’t involve you behaving responsibly with your money is suspect.

And if you’ve a poor credit score, you may not even be doing yourself a favor using shortcuts to a superior score: It’ll just make it easier for you to get overextended again, in the same way that using a Sharpie to change the nutritional facts on the bag of Doritos is unlikely to help you get in shape.

To get in better financial shape by improving your credit score, check out Liz Pullman Weston’s great book Your Credit Score.

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Thomson Financial UK at a glance share guide - weekend
Forbes - Finance director of Tesco launches a surprise attack on City analysts, accusing them of failing to understand properly the supermarket group’s business model and suggesting investors should interpret analysts’ views ‘with a pinch of salt’ - Sunday

The Week in Mexico
San Diego Union-Tribune - Social development minister: Former deputy finance minister Ernesto Cordero was named social development minister to succeed Beatriz Zavala, who resigned to take a post with Calderón’s National Action Celebration. Sprinter retires: Former world 400-meter

Horror comedy ‘Teeth’ based on ‘vagina dentata’ myth
San Francisco Gate - No one was really going to finance” a movie about a killer vagina. And would “Teeth” pass the Friday-night date motion picture test? “Someone asked me recently if it was a date movie,” Lichtenstein states. “At first, I thought, ‘Well, it would be a last-date

Chavez threatens to take control of Venezuelan banks that fail to
International Herald Tribune - Chavez threatens to take control of Venezuelan banks that fail to finance agriculture CARACAS, Venezuela : President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to take control of banks that fail to meet state-imposed

Funding battle developing over stuck bridge
MSNBC - Keeley, D-Bridgeport, the powerful Home chairman of the Finance Committee’s bonding subcommittee, wants to retain $5 million in the current budget to rebuild the long-broken Congress Street Bridge, linking downtown to the East Side. Stressing that

Rock: Branson ‘to make new offer’
MSN UK News - The Government’s financing package - drawn up by investment bank Goldman Sachs - would provide a boost to Virgin and Olivant, which are stated to have struggled to find finance amid the global crisis in credit markets. But Northern Rock’s shareholder

Nadal advances when Mathieu retires
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home Even Rafael Nadal was through the fourth round in two sets at the Australian Open on Sunday, when quick results were the

Being check-free is liberating
Baltimore Sun - For a while, it was just for us geeks who liked [personal finance software] Quicken, but now there’s something for everybody to make it easier.” The massive idea is to eliminate as many paper checks as possible. Here’s how: • Use direct deposit. If you

English winter chills American investors
International Herald Tribune - No one disputes that England’s Premier League has become the world leader in terms of high finance and global marketing. The attraction to foreign investors, from the Russian oligarchs to the deposed prime minister of Thailand, is the guaranteed

Gaza power plant to shut
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, right, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, center, and Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz

Colleges uneasy about Harvard’s deal on tuition
Philadelphia Inquirer - Grassley (R., Iowa), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, pushing for colleges to be required to spend more of their endowments to keep their tax-exempt status. And a House Education and Labor Committee-approved bill would make the public aware

Ways to save money on college
Newsday - Just watch that you don’t go overboard on costly accessories, warns Gregory Karp, the personal finance columnist for the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa. Citing Don Lindich (who gives advice on his sound adviceblog.com), Karp offers some examples:

Those credit card perks aren’t free
Newsday - I charge virtually everything on my credit card - groceries, gas, subscriptions, clothing, gifts, etc. I pay no annual fee. I pay no finance charges because I check my balance online and pay it in full before the due date. I get air miles with no

FDI in retail not very distant: Chidambaram
Hindustan Times - India will open up its $330 billion retail market to foreign investors after convincing mom and pop store owners that their jobs are not at threat from large players, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has stated. “In course of time their fears will be

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Romney, Clinton win in Nevada
Miami Herald - Personal Finance BY DAVID ESPO Associated Press Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Nevada caucuses Saturday, powering past Sen

Save your history, museum urges blacks
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home Mary Ballard, left, a senior textile conservator from the Smithsonian Museum Conservations Institute, teaches Patricia

Hedge-fund managers, lords of lucre
Times On the web - Hedge funds are the adult magazines of finance: perfectly legal, but top shelf. American regulators have just backed down from a plan to cease you investing in one unless you’ve £1.3m in savings, which supposedly means you’re savvy enough to take

Hugo Chávez: Latin America’s money man
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home For two hours, President Evo Morales huddled in this jungle city with a dozen area mayors as they pitched public-works

Mia Farrow confronts Cambodian police
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home American actress Mia Farrow, center, looks on as Theary Seng, second left, Cambodian Executive Director of the Center for

Bangladesh reduces submarine cable tariffs to boost internet usage
Xinhua News Bureau - DHAKA, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) — Bangladesh government has reduced the rentals and tariffs of submarine cable by an average 20 percent to boost usage of the multi-million dollar cable and raise internet connectivity across the country. The Finance Ministry

Chavez threatens to seize Venezuelan banks that don’t finance
International Herald Tribune - CARACAS, Venezuela : President Hugo Chavez threatened on Saturday to take control of banks that fail to meet state-imposed lending stipulations designed to benefit Venezuela’s farmers. Chavez, who states he is leading Venezuela toward “21st century

Is this the end of cheap food?
Observer - Tesco’s finance director, Andrew Higginson, states that tales of rampant inflation, based on one or two products, are complete nonsense. When I asked Sainsbury’s about the reported 26 per cent rise in the cost of a basket of its food, it stated that its

Personal Finance questions: Investors weather ups and downs
St. Petersburg Times - Not at all, because I’m heavy in high-dividend-paying preferred stocks. My portfolio has dropped in total value, but the dividends keep coming in. Bob Lartz, St. Petersburg As a financial planner, uncertain times create more activity for me, so my

Health news report sets off media frenzy, angers gay men
Minneapolis Star Tribune - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which helped finance the study, affirmed last week that the disease wasn’t sexually transmitted or limited to a certain type of person. It is transmitted through skin-to-skin contact, the

FSA in the firing line over orphan assets
Guardian Unlimited - Separately, a full-scale Lords revolt has erupted over plans by Children and Schools minister Ed Balls to appropriate the £500m gathering dust in so-called ‘dormant’ bank account funds to finance youth centres across the country. Balls’s youth centre

Unbeaten Dolphins, Patriots a perfect matchup
Miami Herald - Business Monday | National | International | Personal Finance | Technology | Small Business | Friday Business Report Food | Health | Home New England Patriots linebackeSr Tedy Bruschi (54) and Mike Vrabel (50) stretch before practice begins on the stadium’s

This Time, McCain Defused Conservative Attacks
Washington Post - DeLay resurfaced on Fox News Friday to excoriate McCain for working with “the most liberal Democrats in the Senate,” for passing an overhaul of campaign finance laws that “completely neutered the Republican Party,” and single-handedly thwarted oil

Pinellas Park pulls cold cash from fund
St. Petersburg Times - Caddell, the Pinellas Park spokesman, said there was no intention of keeping the city’s money in the troubled fund. Referring to Ron Miller, city Finance Department head, Caddell said, “I think he stated to me, ‘We’re not team players.’” Now Pinellas

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