Business & Tech

Visit The Boston Globe Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Comment on this Scroll to top of page By Michelle Singletary Washington Post  September 22, 2018 WASHINGTON — What you don’t know about credit can cost you — perhaps thousands of dollars.And, if you’re low-income, having bad or no credit can make you even more financially unstable, according to new research by the Urban Institute.Let’s look at a person taking out an auto loan who has a subprime credit score below 600 (on a scale of 300 to 850, with the higher the score, the better). He’s buying a $10,000 used car. The subprime borrower has a FICO credit score between 500 and 589, which qualifies him for an interest rate of 17.548 percent for the 48-month loan. He’ll pay a total of $3,987 in interest. Advertisement Meanwhile, a prime borrower with a FICO score between 720 and 850 is offered a rate of 4.896 percent. Total interest paid: $1,031. Get Talking … [Read more...] about 7 credit myths that can cost you a lot of money

Visit The Boston Globe Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Comment on this Scroll to top of page Katie Johnston Globe Staff  September 21, 2018 On the Cape, great whites are everywhere. Not just in the water, but on bumper stickers and license plates and shark-themed drinks made with red syrup. The Monomoy Regional School District proudly advertises itself as “Home of the Sharks.” The Shark Bah at a Brewster resort serves a Dorsal Fin salad with romaine hearts and asiago cheese. But with a fatal attack in Wellfleet last Saturday and a serious attack a month ago in Truro, Cape Cod’s embrace of everything shark has taken a dark turn. Advertisement “Our ‘sharkiness’ has become a cottage industry,” said Wendy Northcross, president of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, noting people’s morbid fascination with the increasing great white activity in recent years. Get Talking Points in your inbox: An afternoon … [Read more...] about After Cape shark fatality, tourism industry reels

Visit The Boston Globe Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Comment on this Scroll to top of page By Jon Chesto Globe Staff  September 21, 2018 Massachusetts tax collectors have two words for online retailers: pay up.Some Internet vendors were unsure how the state Department of Revenue would interpret the Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision in June. DOR just issued a memo to address the uncertainty, essentially telling them to start forking over sales taxes — for the past 12 months.The Wayfair decision, you might recall, allowed South Dakota to require online sellers above a certain size to collect and remit sales taxes — rejecting a long-held legal understanding that physical presence in a state was required to do so. The gold rush was on: State officials across the US raced to follow South Dakota. Advertisement But not in Massachusetts. That’s because DOR adopted its own rules last October, after arguing that software and tracking … [Read more...] about The Mass. taxman cometh — for online retailers

Visit The Boston Globe Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Comment on this Scroll to top of page Scott Kirsner Globe Correspondent  September 21, 2018 Six years ago, I went to a Kendall Square gastropub for lunch with Steve Fredette, an entrepreneur who wanted to show me a new mobile app he had built. It would let a group of diners see what each person had ordered, split the check equitably, and pay with a credit card as soon as they were ready to leave — without waiting for the server to make two more trips to the table.The demo didn’t go well. And Toast, the company that Fredette had started with two former colleagues, didn’t exactly make the jump to light-speed afterward. Its app was never launched in a second restaurant.“I’d been sitting on my couch for nine months,” Fredette says. “My wife was wondering when I would get a real job.” He and cofounders Aman Narang and Jonathan Grimm started taking hourly … [Read more...] about Toast finds its bread-and-butter business

Visit The Boston Globe Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Comment on this Scroll to top of page By Sarah Skidmore Sell Associated Press  September 21, 2018 Consumers can now freeze their credit for free under a new federal law.A credit freeze restricts access to your credit file, essentially halting anyone from opening any new credit in your name. The rules used to vary by state, but previously it could cost up to $10 to put a freeze in place. That fee often had to be paid again when someone wanted to unfreeze it for any legitimate uses.But under a new law that took effect Friday, consumers anywhere in the United States can do so quickly and for free. Advertisement Congress passed the law in response to last year’s massive Equifax hack, which exposed the private information of more than 145 million Americans. President Trump signed it into law in May. Get Talking Points in your inbox: An afternoon recap of the day’s most important business … [Read more...] about Credit freeze free nationwide as of Friday