These banks are tops at protecting consumers from ID fraud

These banks are tops at protecting consumers from ID fraud
MarketWatch
By Andrea Coombes 

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Bank of America Corp. took top honors for the second year in a row in a report ranking the largest U.S. banks on how well they protect their customers from fraud and identity theft.

J.P. Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual Inc. and Wells Fargo Co. tied for second place, and Citibank came in third in the study published Wednesday by Javelin Strategy & Research.

The study looked at 25 banks that together hold 50% of U.S. checking-account deposits... The study measured banks' policies for preventing, detecting and resolving fraud, focusing on measures that consumers experience, not internal bank security policies. For instance, banks got top marks for alerting customers of unusual transactions -- say, a wire transfer to a foreign country or an unusually big withdrawal amount...alerts are particularly important because almost one out of two cases of identity fraud are first detected by the individual.

Lowest-ranked were Comerica with a score of 24, Banco Popular with 31 and Bank of the West with 35.


Americans Are Overpaying Billions via Unclaimed Tax Breaks

by Tom Herman
Friday, October 19, 2007
The Wall Street Journal

Many Fail to Claim Deductions Tied To Local Outlays

Millions of people overlooked an important tax break and made other costly mistakes earlier this year on their 2006 returns, according to a recent report by the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, a Treasury Department unit.

For example, nearly 2.1 million taxpayers who were eligible to deduct their state and local sales taxes didn't do so, up 50% from the previous year. These people missed taking advantage of potentially $3.6 billion in deductions,

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