With a number of student loan applicants being recent high school graduates, these kinds of loans can be a crash course in credit, repayment and all of those confusing financial terms in between! To help you make an informed decision, we’ve prepared some did-you-knows about receiving and paying back a BC student loan that we have gathered from a few sources. 

Sure, you may use credit cards frequently for your purchases, but do you understand interest rates, annual fees, liability and everything else that comes with being a credit card user? Here are a few consumer tips when it comes to signing up for a credit card – I hope you find the information useful! 

Have you heard about offers to assist you with “reducing your debt” or promising that you “only need to pay back a reduced percentage of what you owe?” There are many companies in Canada who now offer what are typically called debt settlement services.

If you owe money this may seem like a good solution. But before you consider exploring this option there are several factors you should consider:

If you’ve popped by our Facebook page this month, you probably noticed that we have a contest going on – where consumers offer their best holiday money-savings tip in exchange for the chance of winning one of four (practical) shopping sprees. Called Be Money Smart This Holiday Season, the prizes range from $250 to $1,000 in value, with winners (one drawn per week until Dec. 31) picking a gift card for gas, groceries or household goods.

With a recent poll from the Retail Council of Canada finding that Canadians with kids will spend an average of $75 on Halloween purchases, I thought it’d be timely to share some of my favourite money-saving tips for this ghoulish time of year.

The Consumer Protection BC Inquiry Team receives a large number of calls around debt collection each month. Although we have written a few blogs already about this topic, we thought it might be useful to share some tips around debt collection.

If you owe money to a creditor, they do have the right to contact you in an effort to collect the outstanding amount. However, there are collection rules that must be followed as set out by the Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act as well as the Debt Collection Industry Regulation. Here is some information about when collectors can contact you.

I remember receiving my first credit card and thinking about how I could go out and buy anything I wanted and not pay until I got the bill.  The bill did come, along with a payment due date and an interest rate attached to any unpaid balance.  I realized if I didn’t pay my bill on time, suddenly that $25 bargain would end up costing me a lot more.

This time of the year, the inquiry unit tends to receive quite a few calls regarding debt collection.  One topic that seems to confuse people happens when people receive calls and feel they are not the debtor.