In an article titled "Credit Card Companies Go to War Against Losses", Ron Lieber writes for the New York Times about the actions that US credit card issuers are taking in an effort to reign in credit losses on their credit cards. According to Lieber, the steps the credit card issuers are taking include raising interest rates, lowering credit limits, adding new fees, and closing accounts.

Mint.com CEO Aaron Patzer has posted a guest column on TechCrunch in which he shares some of the aggregate data that Mint.com has captured from its users sharing their spending data.

Looking across spending as a whole in 2008, we can see a phase change beginning in the summer. After a bump in the May/June time frame from tax refunds and credits, we see spending declined by $400 / month / household. Spending eroded even further (a $200 drop) in November along with consumer confidence, bouncing back only slightly for the holidays.

APACS, the UK payments association, has issued a press release advising "about the recent rise in popularity of an old-style phone scam that involves fraudsters duping unsuspecting cardholders into revealing their card details by pretending to be from either their bank, card company or one of the international card schemes – Visa and MasterCard." READ MORE »

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