Lost Property
Sonja Haggert | Mar 2, 2023
OUR COMMUNITY HAS a Facebook-like online forum called Nextdoor. I tend to ignore the posts, which usually involve things like items for sale and new restaurant openings. But a recent post caught my eye—because it was from the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds. The article said Pennsylvania’s Attorney General had initiated a lawsuit against a realty company for deceptive practices targeting elderly, low-income and minority homeowners. The realty company was offering a “Homeowner Benefit Program” that gives homeowners anywhere from $400 to $1,000 upfront to lock into a contract. The contract is for 40 years and is recorded as a mortgage, often unbeknownst to homeowners. When they go to sell their home, they’re sued and forced to pay a termination fee of between 3% and 6% of the property’s value because they attempted to sell their home through another broker. I’d grown curious about such things because of an earlier mailing we’d received, which had pitched a “home title lock” service that would protect us against home title fraud. I couldn’t believe that was even a thing. Home title fraud is the transfer of ownership of your home title to a criminal, who files the proper documents with the local authority to assume legal ownership of your property. How could that happen? Apparently, the county clerk who verifies that documents are filled out correctly doesn’t verify that the property sale is accurate. Criminals seeking to perpetrate this fraud typically focus on vacant homes, rental properties and vacation properties. Some are so brazen that they’ll even target properties with the homeowners still in them. The criminals forge documents to transfer legal ownership to themselves. They then sell the property to unassuming third parties or take out equity lines of credit against the property with no intent of paying back the money…
Read more » Details, Details
Sonja Haggert | May 11, 2022
DO YOU SKIM OVER the fine print? Two recent incidents involving insurance coverage made me rethink my tendency to do just that. One incident alerted me to a major problem. The other saved me money. Let’s start with the problem. It was time to renew our homeowner’s insurance. In looking over the policy, something didn’t look right. In the section for dwelling, which is defined in our policy as alterations and other improvements, we had $5,000 worth of coverage. That sum would potentially need to cover the replacement of appliances, flooring, fixtures and so on. Meanwhile, for personal property, we had $250,000 of coverage. This is defined in our policy as furniture and clothing. I think you know where this is going. When I called our insurance agency to ask if I understood the designated amounts correctly, an employee acknowledged there was a problem. I was told to call the insurance company directly. What we discovered was that our coverage had been flipped. Even though we all have the impression that our personal items are valuable, it’s far more important to be able to replace the essentials in our homes, such as appliances and flooring. The $5,000 would barely cover the price of one or two appliances. What about the happier incident? We have some trips planned, and there’s the issue of travel insurance. Since the pandemic, travel has gotten dicier, so finding the right policy is important. In my research, I discovered something positive: We already have significant coverage through our credit cards. For example, according to the American Express literature, I’m covered for $3,000 of lost or stolen baggage. Not bad. The amount for trip cancellation also looked good to me. I was skeptical, so I called American Express. The fine print said it provides secondary coverage. A…
Read more » Check’s in the Mail
Sonja Haggert | May 17, 2019
I HAD TO PAY MY credit card bill, so I went online and set up a payment from my credit union a week before the bill was due. Why not, it’s an online transfer, right? Not always. The payment was due on the 16th. I went online the day before to check my bank account. It said the credit card payment was “sorted” and hadn’t transferred. Same thing the next day and the next. I called my credit card company and the customer service representative was incredibly understanding—probably because I always pay my entire bill on time. Then I called my credit union. The representative told me it was the post office’s fault that my check hadn’t reached the credit card company. What does the post office have to do with an online payment? Apparently a lot. It seems that, in my credit union’s case, if a payment is over a certain dollar amount, it sends an actual paper check. Really? I then asked the obvious question: At what amount should I allow extra time? The representative couldn’t tell me. I was transferred to another customer service representative and she couldn’t tell me, either. She also got very uncomfortable with my questions. I entered the payment on the 9th. If the credit union needed to send out a “real” check, why didn’t it go out the next day? Then there would have been no question the actual check would have arrived on time. To blame the post office was totally absurd. Now for the best part: The credit union said it would reimburse any fees and interest up to $50. Given the size of the card balance I was paying off, this was a pittance. It's a bank. Don’t the folks there know that credit card companies charge interest in the…
Read more » Rules for Gift Giving
Sonja Haggert | Dec 16, 2022
IT’S THE MOST wonderful time of year—for trying to figure out what gifts to give. If you’re like me, you may be wringing your hands. But some studies and a bit of psychology could help. While searching my favorite websites for gift ideas, I came across a helpful article by psychologist Jill Suttie. She offered five suggestions. The first is to make sure the gift is practical. I didn’t see that one coming. Practical gifts are remembered. Expensive gifts aren’t necessarily better. Please don’t tell my husband. You’ll be able to relate to No. 2 if you have small children: Initial enthusiasm doesn’t equate to long-term satisfaction. Have you ever given a child that toy he wanted, only to see him set it aside after a few days or even a few hours, never to be touched again? Suttie says we shouldn’t aim to wow the recipient momentarily with something flashy, but rather give a present likely to deliver longer-term happiness. Third, people prefer gifts they’ve asked for rather than something you thought they’d appreciate. I can relate to this. Growing up, my mother rarely bought something on the spot when I wanted it. But often, I would later find it under the Christmas tree or as a birthday gift. I’m sure this was her way of ensuring her only child didn’t become a spoiled brat. I hope she succeeded. Fourth, there’s been much talk about giving experiences over things. According to science, this brings about feelings of closeness between the gift-giver and the recipient. Finally, there was one caution I found interesting: Don’t give folks a gift if they don’t want one. Such gifts are seen as self-serving, creating a sense of indebtedness. Suttie’s article reminded me that the point of giving gifts is to strengthen relationships. That helped…
Read more » Danger, Junk Mail
Sonja Haggert | Jul 16, 2026
The nice lady in the card store told me I didn’t need to give her any information because it was on my coupon. I left the store wondering exactly what information that was. According to Jose Lejin, a technical expert I contacted, I needn’t have worried. The barcode with my information told her the coupon belonged to me and might have been tied to a specific promotion. There is a privacy issue here in that the retailer may know the time and place I redeemed their offer. In our correspondence, Jose assumed that this was probably a mass-distributed coupon and not a major concern. A barcode is a concern when it is linked to a loyalty account, such as at your grocery store or country club. If your name and address are attached, someone could copy it, perhaps reuse it, or become too familiar with your shopping habits. The bigger concern here is the pharmacy receipt. The stickers contained on them are a key to your prescription file. Consider all your pharmacy receipts like you would private mail and destroy them appropriately. What about QR Codes? Here, both the experts I spoke with say caution is necessary. Mona Rajhans at Palo Alto Networks defined a QR code as a URL in disguise. When you scan it, your phone follows a link which could reach a fake login page, and in that instant your credentials are gone. She relates that her company catches 11,000 malicious QR codes in a single day. QR codes are most problematic on a parking meter or in a restaurant. A fake code could have been put over the original one, and your money could go to someone else entirely. The best way to protect yourself is to look at the code you are shown before you…
Read more » Guess Again
Sonja Haggert | Jan 21, 2023
DON’T LET PREDICTIONS cloud your thinking. When my husband and I first started investing, that was the wisest advice we received. You know the sort of predictions I’m talking about: “It’ll be a bad year for the stock market, so you should pull all your money out,” or “bitcoin is going through the roof, so stock up now.” Last year, I decided to make a note of some of the predictions I read, and put them in my followup file for the beginning of this year. For instance, a year ago, The Wall Street Journal asked its readers where the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500, 10-year Treasury note and bitcoin would finish 2022. They predicted the Dow would end the year at 36,853. The actual finish was 33,147.25, or 10% lower. The prediction for the S&P was way off. Readers were expecting a 6% gain, but instead the S&P finished down 18%, including dividends. They thought interest rates would be 2% when they were closer to 4%. Then there’s bitcoin, which fell 64.3% to below $17,000, nowhere near the year-end price of $53,900 that readers predicted. To be sure, these were readers, not financial experts. But the experts didn’t do any better. The ones I read included a local Philadelphia investment firm, an online financial blog and a financial newsletter. They all predicted the Dow and S&P 500 would be up in 2022. They also predicted there would be four interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. There were seven. What did the experts get right? Bitcoin. They all said it would tank, and it certainly did. How did 2022’s tumbling markets affect my husband and me? Happily, we were down a lot less than the S&P 500, thanks to some good financial advice and our conservative investment tendencies,…
Read more »
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