Financial Information for Our Young Volunteers

We are offering the follow financial information for our young volunteers who are just starting out in life. There are many financial choices one has to make at a very young age. Opening a checking account, savings account or other types of bank accounts. You have to protect yourself from financial scams and prepare yourself for a confortable retirement. Give out your account information for transactions only if you are familiar with the company you are dealing with. Especially when applying for loans like a mortgage and with today’s mortgage rates at these levels you should be looking into buying a home or doing a refi because refinancerates are good right now and probably lower than your current mortgage rate, which a mortgage calculator monitorbankrates.com/mortgage-calculator it’s possible in advance to see how much you qualify for regarding a mortgage.

And if you have not done business with a company before, give out account information only if you have initiated the transaction. Criminals may ask you for your bank account number and then withdraw money from your account by creating a demand draft (sometimes called a “remotely created check”) or making an electronic transfer. When opening a certificate of deposit account make sure to search and compare the best CD rates around because CD rates differ from bank to bank and some offering higher CD rates ratesorama.com/cd-rates than others.

They may also ask for your debit or credit card number and other personal information. Don’t fall for these scams and don’t let yourself be pressured into “free trial offers.” To be removed from telemarketing lists, sign up for the National Do Not Call Registry or by calling, toll-free, 1-888-382-1222.

Other ways to save money is by spending less money. The less you spend the more you can save. Take a look at any of the insurance premiums you pay. How much are your auto insurance premiums? You can probably save hundreds of dollars by shopping around for the best auto insurance rates by comparning auto insurance rates from many different insurance companies to get the best rate.

Make sure all the checks, debits, automatic payments, and other withdrawals are ones you authorized. If you see a transaction you did not authorize, notify your bank immediately. If your bank has online banking, you don’t have to wait until your bank statement comes–you can check your transactions at any time.

The sooner you alert your bank to a problem, the sooner they can get it resolved. In some cases, your bank may require you to notify them in writing. Check on mortgage rates current to purchase a home and make sure to keep copies of any documents you give the bank until the problem is resolved. If you think the problem is a result of fraud, you should also contact your state attorney general.

Checks are being processed more quickly these days, which means the money may be debited from your account sooner. Also, many stores and utility, insurance, and credit card companies will convert your check to an electronic payment, which also means the money will be debited from your account sooner. If you don’t have enough money in your account when you write a check or authorize a debit, you could find yourself paying a fee.

Many people use the terms credit card and charge card interchangeably, but there are important differences. In general, a credit card lets you make purchases for which you are billed later. Most credit card accounts allow you to carry a balance from one billing cycle to the next; however, you have to pay interest on that balance. Usually, you have to pay at least a certain amount of your balance each time you receive a bill.

A charge card is a specific kind of credit card. The balance on a charge card account is payable in full when the statement is received and cannot be rolled over from one billing to the next. Because you cannot carry a balance, a charge card doesn’t have a periodic or annual percentage rate, so there is no rate for a charge card issuer to disclose.

To make sure that consumers receive detailed and uniform disclosures of rates and other cost information related to credit and charge card accounts, Congress passed the Fair Credit and Charge Card Disclosure Act in 1988. To implement the law, the Federal Reserve amended its Truth in Lending regulation.

Truth in Lending is designed to help consumers know the cost and terms of credit. The regulation requires credit and charge card issuers to reveal important information in a clear, easy-to-read, and easy-to-compare manner so that consumers can shop for the credit terms that work best for them. This pamphlet summarizes some of the major features of the regulation.

The regulation has always required credit and charge card issuers to tell consumers things such as the interest rate they’ll be charged for credit, but the information wasn’t always easy for some people to find. 

Now, all issuers of credit and charge cards must either provide specific information in an easy-to-read table with headings, or they must alert you of any costs associated with a card and provide a toll-free number and an address so you can find out the details. This information will make it easier for you to find important cost information and compare the terms offered by different card issuers.

Truth in Lending also requires card issuers to provide the information earlier than they had in the past. This lets you find out what credit will cost you before you are charged any fees. If a card issuer calls and takes your card application over the telephone and there is a fee for the card issuance or availability, including any fee based on account activity or inactivity, the card issuer must verbally give you the required information at that time.

If there is no fee for the card or if the fee isn’t required until you actually use the card, the card issuer can mail you the fee information instead of telling you over the phone. You must receive the information within 30 days, but no later than the delivery of the card.

When you apply for a credit or charge card, a card issuer must either disclose directly, in the form of a table with headings, or tell you how to obtain the following information.

The method the issuer uses to compute the balance for purchases against which the finance charge is imposed. Calculating an average daily balance or using the outstanding balance at the beginning of the billing cycle are examples of these methods (credit cards only)

If you have a problem with an electronic debit or electronic fund transfer, you have certain rights under the federal Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), as explained in the Board’s Credit Protection Laws. You also have rights under the EFTA if you have a problem with a check that has been converted, as described