Collectible Toys Company Steals “Lord of the Rings” Director's Credit Card

The story sounds like a plot in the vein of The Full Monty or Kinky Boots. A struggling Michigan toys and collectible figurines company, headed up by a goodhearted businessman Richard Berry, is trying to keep the business afloat and the workers employed in a time of high unemployment. Berry hardly has a prayer until he discovers that he has in his possession the credit card information for Peter Jackson, the highly-successful film director behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Berry starts using the card to make business purchases and plans to pay it off once his luck changes, but he winds up charging $190,000 by the time he is caught.

Credit card theft is not funny and should not be encouraged under any circumstances. Still, I couldn't help but feel for Richard Berry. In an interview with Macomb Daily, Berry feared what might happen to his employees if his business failed, explaining, “So many people were relying on me and the thought of failure and letting all these people down weighed heavily on me that I made some very foolish and terrible decisions.” He was desperate, and while he admits that his actions were wrong, he is working hard to make things right. Already, he has paid American Express for more than half the money he fraudulently charged and is continuing to pay off the rest. He is hoping that his willingness to cooperate will convince the judge to let him serve his 18 month sentence in a half-way house or under house arrest.

For having the most epic credit card theft story I have heard in months, I am giving Richard Berry the Navin R. Johnson award. I applaud your compassion for your employees, but seriously, did you think you could get away with using Peter Jackson's credit card?

If you are having financial difficulties or have been the victim of identity theft, call My Credit Specialist at 1-866-565-6500, or go to http://www.mycreditspecialist.com to sign up for a free credit evaluation.

Sex, Lies, and Joint Credit Cards

The details sound like something out of dark comedy, but in the case of Illinois lovers Vivian Williamson and Xavier Daniels, truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Both Williamson and Daniels were married to different people when they met in Daniels’ cigar lounge. They started an affair, and she started working at the cigar lounge. Somewhere in the midst of Las Vegas trips and destroying their marriages, the details started getting murky.

According to Williamson, Daniels claimed that he had been diagnosed with cancer and didn’t have health insurance. Williamson helped Daniels get set up with numerous credit cards, and between all the cards, he charged more than $80,000, none of it for medical expenses. Daniels says that he never claimed he had cancer and that the credit cards were used for business expenses for his cigar lounge. Either way, Williamson’s credit history and credit score have suffered as a result.

From what I’ve read about Williamson and Daniels, these are both terrible human beings. They destroyed their marriages pursuing an extramarital affair. Also, I don’t know which is dumber, faking cancer to get a credit card or trusting a man is cheating on their wife (obviously not trustworthy) with a joint credit card. For their supreme levels of stupidity, I am jointly awarding the Navin R. Johnson award to Vivian Williamson and Xavier Daniels. You two deserve each other.

To learn more about responsible credit use, check out http://blog.mycreditspecialist.com, and go to http://www.mycreditspecialist.com to sign up for a free credit evaluation today.

College Seniors Most Likely to Pay Late, Max Out Credit Cards

I regularly check out CBS’s financial website MoneyWatch.com, and one of my favorite bloggers on the site is Dan Kadlec, best known for his column Bank of Dad. I enjoy his writing because he focuses a lot of his columns on financial education for young people and shows parents how to teach their kids responsible credit card usage.

Last week, Kadlec dedicated his column to college students and credit card debt, and he cited a study by the Take Charge America Institute that I wanted to share here. Some of the findings in the study are very surprising and don’t bode well for college students with multiple credit cards.

As you can see, college students are more likely to have credit cards problems by the time they reach their senior year. College seniors have more credit card debt, use credit cards more often, don’t pay on time, max out their credit cards, and have more credit cards than their underclassmen counterparts.

I don’t think that college seniors are less financially savvy or irresponsible with how they use their money. Yes, there are students maxing out their credit cards at the bar, but even responsible students are faced with a dangerous combination of rising tuition costs and credit card companies targeting students with the help of the schools themselves. I haven’t even mentioned that with the rise in unemployment, many students are paying their own way through school without any help from parents or guardians.

This study is frightening to me because it means that young people will be leaving college with a pile of debt and a damaged credit score, and depending upon what degree they received, they might not be able to pay off that debt anytime soon. There is some good news, however, for students falling behind on payments or graduates with poor credit scores. My Credit Specialist can help put young people back on the right track through credit repair and education. They can look over your credit history for mistakes or outdated items, and once they get those items removed, My Credit Specialist will sit down with you and help you put together a budget to keep you out of debt.

To read more credit education articles, go to http://blog.mycreditspecialist.com, and go to http://www.mycreditspecialist.com to sign up for a free credit evaluation.