General Says New Strategy In Iraq Can Work Over Time Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the president’s new choice as the top commander in Iraq, told a Senate committee that the situation in Iraq was ?dire? but not hopeless.... Read Full Article Police Want Premeditated Murder Charges For Meredith Kercher Killing Prosecutors investigating the death of Meredith Kercher are pressing for charges of premeditated murder after the discovery of the DNA from both Ms Kercher and her American flatmate Amanda Knox on a... Read Full Article Toddler Returns To Iraq After Life-Saving Surgery The homecoming was a public relations coup for the Marine Corps, which has been eager to show that its efforts to win over Iraqis in Anbar Province were succeeding.... Read Full Article Leading Indicators Up In July, Offsetting Decrease In June The Conference Board said yesterday that its index of leading economic indicators, a closely watched gauge of future economic activity, rose 0.4 percent in July, after falling 0.3 percent in June.... Read Full Article Trying To Lick China’s Spitters As Beijing applies the last layers of pre-Olympic Games make-up, there is nothing that rankles tourists and the city’s rulers as much as full-throated spitting.... Read Full Article |
A Guru Offers Help On Credit Scores, But No Longer Makes Any PromisesSuze Orman, the telegenic personal finance guru, offers myriad ways for fans to soak up her wisdom — on her QVC show, her CNBC show, her Web site and in her best-selling books. Now there is one claim she can no longer make: that the credit-score kit with her name and face on it can actually improve the creditworthiness of the person who buys it. Under a proposed settlement of a class action lawsuit against the Fair Isaac Corporation and Equifax, which sell products to consumers who want to gauge how fondly lenders will view them, there are new limits on the assertions these products can make about their ability to raise peoples credit profiles. Ms. Orman sells Suze Ormans Fico Kit on both her Web site and one run by Fair Isaac. Although she was not a defendant in the lawsuit, her kit was among 156 products that came under fire as potentially violating the Credit Repair Organizations Act, a law designed to control fly-by-night credit-repair agencies. Under a settlement that the plaintiffs reached with Fair Isaac and Equifax, none of the credit products can be advertised in various ways, such as pairing the words improving, enhancing, boosting or raising with words like tips, suggestions or advice. Two law firms, Pope, McGlamry, Kilpatrick, Morrison & Norwood of Atlanta and Battle, Fleenor, Green, Winn & Clemmer of Birmingham, Ala., filed suit against Fair Isaac and Equifax, its partner on the www.myFICO.com Web site. Fair Isaac did not admit liability, but settled the matter by paying the trial lawyers expenses and providing three free months of credit-score tracking to anyone who bought products between Nov. 19, 1999, and Feb. 8, 2007. Last Friday was a deadline for commenting on the proposed settlement, and a federal court is expected to make a ruling on June 4. Both Ms. Orman and Fair Isaac continue to sell her Fico kit on their Web sites (for $47.70 and $49.95, respectively), but the marketing pitch for it (and other products) has been tweaked. A spokeswoman for Ms. Orman said that she had no comment because she was not involved in the suit. No one else seems to want to talk about the settlement either: lawyers who filed the class action did not respond to requests for interviews, and Fair Isaac said it declined to comment because the resolution was not final. DAMON DARLIN Tag CloudExternal InformationAdditional InformationJustices Rule in Favor of Telecoms...Alumina soars on takeover talk... Times Co. Promotes Two Executives... G.M.’s Advertising Chief to Step Down... Where Am I?News Main Page - Business - A Guru Offers Help On Credit Scores, But No Longer Makes Any Promises |
i8news.com |