Consumer Tips
PROTECTING YOURSELF IN A COMPLEX MARKETPLACE — Our researchers and attorneys provide key tips for how you can get the best deal on health insurance, shop for the best bank, get the best car loan, protect against identity theft and more.
Protect Yourself
In today's marketplace, it takes a savvy, informed consumer to avoid common pitfalls and threats. Financial decisions in particular require assessing a blizzard of advertisements and navigating pages of jargon-laden fine print to make decisions about credit cards, bank accounts, loans, health insurance, and cell phone contracts, among other things.
It’s more important than ever to protect yourself:
- Consumers who finance their cars through a dealership pay more than $25.8 billion in additional hidden interest over the lives of their loans.
- In 2010, more than 8 million households were victims of identity theft, a 33 percent rise since 2005.
- One out of 20 consumers has errors on their credit report significant enough to lead to higher rates on loans.
- Banks made around $30 billion in overdraft fees in 2011. Adding insult to injury, these fees were pitched as “overdraft protection,” which most consumers would be better off without.
That's why the OSPIRG Foundation has compiled recommendations and resources for consumers. Our tip sheets address some of the most common complaints received by the Federal Trade Commission—read on, and protect yourself from becoming a statistic.
- How to get the best deal on health insurance
- Choosing a bank
- Protecting yourself from identity theft
- Picking a cell phone plan
- Resources for Oregon tenants
- Avoiding mistakes when buying a car
- Dealing with credit cards
- Avoiding problems when paying taxes
- Avoiding dangerous toys
Note that these tips are not intended as, nor should they be construed as, legal advice. If you need legal advice dealing with a consumer problem, consult an attorney.
Issue updates
While we are glad that Fiat Chrysler is paying something for damaging the health of Americans and deceiving customers, this settlement does not go far enough. It neither ensures these violations of the public trust won’t happen again nor makes consumers whole.
This holiday season, watch out for dangerous and toxic toys. U.S. PIRG’s 33rd annual Trouble in Toyland report found toxic amounts of boron, which can cause nausea, vomiting and other health issues, in slime products as well as fining that Amazon failed to appropriately label choking hazards.
Facebook announced today that earlier this week, "attackers exploited a vulnerability in Facebook’s code that impacted “View As”, a feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like to someone else. This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts."
King Bio Inc. issued the second significant voluntary recall since late July of their homeopathic drugs on Wednesday. Safety concerns over homeopathic drugs extend beyond King Bio as over the past several years, the FDA has issued recalls to several companies for a variety of health products from zinc-containing intranasal medicine to asthma drugs with toxic ingredients.
Today, we're releasing our revamped Identity Theft and Online Privacy resources.
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