"Citi Dumps Credit Card Customers at the Pump"

Citibank apparently wants to solve some of its financial problems by transferring them to its customers, and it's not even doing them the courtesy of telling them in advance. Despite faithfully paying their bills on time, some credit card holders have had their accounts closed without any notice. Besides leaving those customers hanging at the gas pump, Citi could be lowering their credit scores.

....Shannon Burdette tried to pay with her Shell Mastercard after filling up her gas tank this weekend but found the card rejected.

Confused, she called the customer service line on the back of the card, issued by Citibank, and was told the account was closed because of something that appeared on her credit report. When the Sykesville, Md., resident got a copy of her credit report online, however, the only negative thing she saw was "closed at credit grantor's request" on the Shell MasterCard (NYSE: MA) account.

"They said there was a routine review," said Burdette, who maintained that she and her husband, Brian, used the card regularly and always paid the bill on time.

Burdette isn't alone. People across the country have been reporting similar experiences in postings on various consumer Web sites.
READ more at:  ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/68452.html?wlc=1256300428&wlc=1257108103
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"The Recession’s Real Winner"

"China turns crisis into opportunity."

One year ago, the leading governments of the world saved the global economy. Remember October 2008: Lehman Brothers had disappeared, AIG was teetering, every bank was watching its balance sheet collapse. Around the world, credit had frozen and trade was grinding to a halt. Then came a series of moves beginning in Washington—bank bailouts, rescue packages, fiscal stimuli, and, most crucially, monetary easing. It is not an exaggeration to say that these measures prevented a depression. But the crisis has still fueled a major slowdown that has affected every country in the world.

The great surprise of 2009 has been the resilience of the big emerging markets—India, China, Indonesia—whose economies have stayed vibrant. But one country has not just survived but thrived: China. The Chinese economy will grow at 8.5 percent this year, exports have rebounded to where they were in early 2008, foreign-exchange reserves have hit an all-time high of $2.3 trillion, and Beijing's stimulus package has launched the next great phase of infrastructure building in the country.

DETAILS at: newsweek.com/id/218282?from=rss 
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"Florida Utility Company to Pay $25 Million for Blackout"

A Florida utility has agreed to pay a record $25 million penalty for causing a blackout that left nearly a million customers in the dark in February 2008.


The next-largest penalty ever assessed for violating rules governing the electricity grid, $250,000, was levied in March against another subsidiary of the company that owns the utility, Florida Power & Light, for a different problem.
The larger penalty was announced Thursday by the new enforcement agency for the grid, the North American Electric Reliability Council.

The council began as a voluntary agency after the 1965 Northeast blackout, and was given enforcement powers by the federal government after the 2003 blackout that stretched from Detroit to New York City. It has brought more than 80 cases, most ending with electric companies’ being required to make improvements, but not to pay charges, which are technically civil penalties, not fines, because the violations are not criminal.

Read more at: nytimes.com/2009/10/09/us/09blackout.html?_r=1
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Just Business? "Facebook users can afford to pay"

Facebook is the new king of social networking. But the site is stuck with an old business model that prevents it from cashing in on the increasing affluence of its users and the monopoly it has over their attention. Simply put, Facebook should charge.

A recent study by Nielsen Claritas indicates that the top third of lifestyle segments measured by the researcher relative to income were 25% more likely to use Facebook than the bottom third. Meanwhile, less-wealthy segments were 37% more likely to use MySpace.

MySpace popularized the concept of online social networking, and had relative success handing out free accounts and plastering them with ads. But this model does not appear to be sustainable; the unit of News Corp. which contains MySpace lost $363 million in the year ending June 30, and a rotating executive team is evidence that the business is attempting a turnaround. The youth and lack of spending power amongst its users is at least partly to blame for MySpace’s decline — so too is the downturn in online ad spending.

READ more at: businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2009/09/facebook_users.html?campaign_id=rss_tech
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"Poll says 86% of Americans believe the U.S. is still in a recession..."

"CNN Poll: U.S. still in a serious recession"

Americans are not nearly as optimistic about the economy as the chairman of the Federal Reserve seems to be, a national poll released Thursday shows.

Eighty-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey said they think the United States is still in a recession, with 13% saying the nation's economic downturn has ended. According to the poll, 42% say the country is in a serious recession, 35% call it a moderate recession, and one in 10 characterize it as a mild recession.

Earlier this week, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the recession is very likely...although the job market will continue to struggle for some time.
READ more at: money.cnn.com/2009/09/17/news/economy/recession_national_poll.cnnw/index.htm
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"Coming Soon? Bank Deposits by iPhone"

Bank deposits at ATM machines just became low-tech thanks to a fascinating and cool new application that will allow Apple iPhone users to photograph both sides of a check, then send the images via their iPhone to make a deposit.

....USAA already released an iPhone application in May that allows members to check their bank balances, transfer money, find nearby ATMs and make other inquiries using their iPhones (and it's not the only one). Mobile banking is expected to grow. But thisnew check-depositing process will add a new dimension to the group's existing services.

READ more at: pcworld.com/article/169923/coming_soon_bank_deposits_by_iphone.html?tk=nl_cox_h_crawl
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"Why You Can't Trust Those Jobs Figures."

In a sign the economy may be bottoming, a jobs report Friday suggested the pace of layoffs is slowing, propelling stocks to new highs. One of the more heartening details in the 29-page study: Jobs in the auto industry actually increased last month, up 28,000.

The bad news about the good news is that the increase in those jobs occurred only in the "make-believe" world of statisticians, not in any real sense of real people finding real work. The fictional figure is small but raises a big question: How much faith can we put in the government’s figures?

“We have major distortions in the system,” says economist...author of newsletter "Shadow Government Statistics" and a sort of thorn in the side of Washington bean-counters. “The methodology is honest--no one is trying to deceive us--but it overstates.”

DETAILS at: forbes.com/2009/08/08/jobs-unemployment-layoffs-business-washington-figures.html
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