College FinanceWeb Site Map

• Managing 1040 Tax Filing Errors
  Oops! You've discovered an error after your tax return has been filed. What should you do? You may need to amend your return...
• Avoiding Identity Theft
  An identity thief takes some piece of your personal information and uses it without your knowledge. The thief may run up debts or even commit crimes in your name. It may not be possible to completely prevent identity theft. But you can lower your risk of becoming a victim...
• Avoiding Loan Fraud and Fraudulent Loans
  Buying or refinancing your home may be one of the most important and complex financial decisions you'll ever make. Many lenders, appraisers, and real estate professionals stand ready to help you get a nice home and a great loan. However...
• How to Save Money & Avoid Phone Problems
  Telephone Service is Changing: Similar competition may also develop for the local phone service currently offered by one company in your community. How quickly this local competition emerges depends upon several factors -- including the rules laid down by your home state to manage phone service and the decisions made by individual companies on how and where to seek customers. Local competition holds the promise of lower rates and greater choice for consumers....
• How to Choose the Best Prepaid Phone Calling Card
  A telephone calling card provides a convenient way for persons to place calls while away from home. Calling cards eliminate the need for using coins at a payphone or having to bill the telephone account from where you place a call. By using a calling card, you can use your long distance telephone company of choice -- at its calling card rates --- and avoid unexpected charges that might be assessed by a payphone service provider...
• Pre-Paid Phone Calling Card Questions & Answers
  Pre-paid phone cards represent telephone time you buy in advance. You pay from $5 to $15 or more up-front for local or long-distance phone time; the amount of time you buy depends on the rate-per-minute you're charged. For many people, pre-paid phone calls offer the ultimate in convenience...
• Prepaid Phone Calling Cards
  Are you tired of always digging in your pockets for change just to make a phone call? If so, a calling card may be for you. Calling cards are a safe and easy way to make a call from almost any phone, anytime, anywhere...
• Overview of Cellphone Terms
  To learn about cellphones, it's important that you start by gaining an understanding of the sometimes arcane and puzzling terminology used in the industry. Whether you're looking for a phone at the local phone store or just trying to puzzle out all the options and service plans, having a good understanding of what airtime, hands-free, peak, and roaming all mean are critical to you finding and keeping the best service for your needs...
• Cell Phone Coverage
  There are essentially two types of cell phone coverage: analog and digital. Calls made on digital networks are clearer, more secure, and more feature-rich than calls made on analog networks. Because analog technology has been in use since the 1980s, virtually every part of the country where people live has analog coverage. Carriers have deployed digital technology more recently and, therefore, digital service plans and coverage tend to be available in the more populated and highly-traveled areas of the country...
• Cell Phone Fraud & Scams
  Cellular fraud (cell fraud) is defined as the unauthorized use, tampering, or manipulation of a cellular phone or service. At one time, cloning of cellular phones accounted for a large portion of cell fraud. As a result, the Wireless Telephone Protection Act of 1998 expanded prior law to criminalize the use, possession, manufacture or sale of cloning hardware or software...
• Choosing the Best Cellphone Plan
  It seems that everyone has a cell phone. When moving away from home, many young adults will contemplate whether or not to buy a long-distance plan from a local phone company or purchase a cell phone plan with long-distance minutes. If you decide to purchase a cell phone, here are some helpful tips when choosing a plan that is right for you...
• Cell Phone Plan Pricing
  Most wireless pricing plans include a certain number of minutes per month (often called a basket or bucket of minutes) for a certain price; any minutes over that specified amount are charged on a per-minute basis. Any unused minutes at the end of the month usually expire. Carriers generally offer several variations of these types of plans...
• Cell Phone Health & Safety Issues
  Since 1996, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has required that all cellular and PCS telephones sold in the United States meet minimum guidelines regarding safe human exposure to radio frequency (RF) energy emitted from these phones. In the U.S., the FCC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) share regulatory responsibilities for wireless phones...
• Cellphone Wireless Priority Service
  Wireless Priority Service is a method of improving connection capabilities for a limited number of authorized national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) cell phone users. In the event of congestion in the wireless network, an emergency call using WPS will wait in queue for the next available channel. WPS calls do not preempt calls in progress or deny the general public’s use of the radio spectrum...
• Tax Scams to Avoid
  n an update of an annual consumer alert, the Internal Revenue Service urged taxpayers to avoid falling victim to one of the Dirty Dozen tax scams and a variety of other schemes. In the new 2004 ranking, several new scams have reached the top of the consumer watch list, including abusive trusts and the claim of right doctrine...
• Federal Direct Consolidation Loans
  Everyone who has more than one student loan gets here sooner or later, asking the question "does consolidating my loans into one larger loan make sense?" and that's what this Web page will help you ascertain...
• Dealing with Credit Card Debt
  Are you having trouble paying your bills? Are you getting dunning notices from creditors? Are your accounts being turned over to debt collectors? Are you worried about losing your home or your car?
• Student Credit Card Overview
  A credit card is a great financial tool. It can be more convenient to use and carry than cash and it offers valuable consumer protections under federal law. At the same time, it's a big responsibility. If you don't use it carefully, you may owe more than you can repay, damage your credit rating, and create credit problems for yourself that can be difficult to undo...
• All About Debit Cards
  Are you riding the so-called debit card wave? If so, you're one of a growing number of consumers who like the ease and convenience of debit cards. But do you understand debit cards, what they can and can't do, and how to protect yourself if your card is lost, stolen or misused? Here's what savvy debit cardholders need to know about their cards...
• Debt Counseling and Budgeting
  f you're not disciplined enough to create a workable budget and stick to it, can't work out a repayment plan with your creditors, or can't keep track of mounting bills, consider contacting a credit counseling organization. Many credit counseling organizations are nonprofit and work with you to solve your financial problems. But be aware that, just because an organization says...
• Debt Counseling and Debt Management Plans
  f you're not disciplined enough to create a workable budget and stick to it, can't work out a repayment plan with your creditors, or can't keep track of mounting bills, consider contacting a credit counseling organization. Many credit counseling organizations are nonprofit and work with you to solve your financial problems. But be aware that, just because an organization says...
• Online Debt, Credit Card and Bankruptcy Resources
  Various Web sites and other resources worth exploring as you learn more about how to take control of your personal finances.
• Repaying a Defaulted Student Loan
  After you graduate, leave school, or drop below half-time enrollment, you have anywhere from six to nine months before you begin repayment. You will receive information about repayment and will be notified by your loan provider of the date loan repayment begins...
• Debt Collection / Collection Agency Practices
  The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is a federal statute that curtails unfair, abusive, or outrageous practices and tactics by collection agencies. Personal, family, and household debts are covered under the Act. This includes money owed for the purchase of an automobile, for medical care, or for charge accounts...
• Federal Student Loan Overview
  There are a wide variety of different places that you can obtain student loans, grants, and other student aid, but none are so common as federal student loans. There are many different options, however, so it's worth spending time understanding the differences, the qualifications, and trying to identify your best fit, in terms of amount available, eligibility and speed of payment...
• Fixing Your Credit Report
  You see the advertisements in newspapers, on TV, and on the Internet. You hear them on the radio. You get fliers in the mail. You may even get calls from telemarketers offering credit repair services. They all make the same claims...
• General and Online Privacy
  You benefit when information that has been collected about you speeds approval of a credit application or medical care. On the other hand, if the information collected is inaccurate or misused, you could be treated unfairly, or even become a victim of crime. You also may not want to be on lists for unsolicited telemarketing calls and mail...
• Instant Credit Cards / Instant Decision Cards
  While most credit card companies like to have some time to evaluate your application, more and more rely on credit reporting formulas and online information access and can in almost all cases get you an instant credit card within just a few minutes of your application online. Beware, though, that these aren't always the cards with the best rates, and that sometimes...
• Internet Phone Service
  It has been suggested that "Internet calling" may provide consumers with a cheaper long distance service alternative to calls billed to consumers through their local telephone company by traditional long distance service companies. What follows are a series of questions...
• Military Prepaid Phone Calling Cards
  When you or a loved one is stationed far away from home, keeping in touch isn't always as easy as simply picking up the phone. Access to telecommunication services and the high cost of communicating to/from the United States are common concerns of servicemembers, Department of Defense civilians, their families and friends...
• Payday Loans, Cash Advances, Fast Money
  The ads are on the radio, television, the Internet, even in the mail. They refer to payday loans - which come at a very high price. Check cashers, finance companies and others are making small, short-term, high-rate loans that go by a variety of names: payday loans, cash advance loans, check advance loans, post-dated check loans or deferred deposit check loans...
• Cramming & Mystery Phone Charges and Fees
  "Cramming." No, we're not talking about studying for an exam, although you may want to study your monthly phone bill more closely in the future. This type of cramming refers to unexplained charges on your phone bill for services you never ordered, authorized, received, or used. Sometimes a one-time charge for entertainment services will be crammed onto your phone bill. Other times, monthly recurring charges are crammed onto your phone bill...
• Tips on Students Sharing Phone Lines
  Sharing a telephone can be a great way to economize while attending college. However, problems can develop when roommates share a telephone and then can't or don't pay their portion of the bill. Here is some information from the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to help ensure a good credit rating with the telephone company...
• Selecting a Mobile Cell Phone Handset
  There are a number of different factors to consider when you're consider what cellphone (cell phone) will best meet your needs and lifestyle. This page will get you started, but most importantly remember that it's more than just a fashion statement: it's a communications tool and as such it needs to be comfortable and functional too...
• Student Loan: Direct Loans
  One of the most common types of student loan / student aid is a direct student loan from the U. S. Federal Government, as offered through the Department of Education's Direct Loan Program. There are four different types of loans available through the Direct Loan Program...
• Student Loan & Student Aid Eligibility
  To receive Aid from any of the federal student aid programs discussed on the Department of Education Web site, you must meet all of the following criteria...
• Student Loans to Parents (The PLUS Program)
  PLUS loans are loans your parents can take out to pay for your education expenses if you're a dependent undergraduate student enrolled at least half time. Also, your parents must have no adverse credit history...
• Student Loans
  What is the student loan repayment program? Under 5 U.S.C. 5379, agencies are authorized to establish a program under which they may agree to repay certain types of Federally insured student loans as a recruitment or retention incentive for highly qualified personnel...
• Student Loan Tax Liability
  f an agency repays the student loan incurred by an agency employee, is the repayment includible in the employee's gross income and in wages for Federal employment tax purposes? Yes. The repayment is...
• Student Loan & Student Aid Overview
  SHOULD I PAY SOMEONE TO HELP ME FIND OR APPLY FOR STUDENT FINANCIAL AID? The quick answer is: Free help is available, whether you're looking for sources of student aid or completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). If there's a fee involved, be sure you know what you're paying for...
• Zero APR Credit Cards
  Let's start with the bad news. There's no such thing as a valid, legitimate zero APR credit card. Think about it; the only way that a bank could afford to do this would be to have it be a pre-paid card (in which case you've already paid and they're earning interest on your money) or a debit card where, again, the money is already in their account. If someone else tells you they have a zero APR card, you'd best pay very very close attention to the small print...

Additional Sites We Recommend

• Consolidate Debt -- Abacus offers UK debt advice, debt consolidation loans and debts management services.
• Bad Credit Loans -- Abacus help UK residents who have been refused a loan elsewhere.
• Far Infrared Clothing -- for Arthritis Pain & Holistic Healing: Far infrared therapeutic knee band, elbow band, wrist band, slimmer, slimmer brief, intimate wear, etc. for arthritis pain, weight loss and holistic healing.
• Polvero Christian Webzine -- Christian Articles for College Students
• 529Rewards.com: Helping Make College Affordable -- reviews, advice and information on 529 college reward credit cards and savings programs.
• Secured Loans -- Secured loans UK. Everything you need to get the lowest interest rates and the best terms for your needs.
• Debt Help & Advice At Your Clear -- Your Clear provides friendly, unbiased & free advice to people struggling with debt in the UK.