Leslie Tayne, Esq., is a consumer and business debt-related attorney and advisor. She founded Tayne Law Group, P.C., concentrating solely in debt resolution and alternatives to filing bankruptcy for consumers, small business owners and professionals. In addition, Tayne Law regularly consults and advises on debt management related issues.
Credit cards play a significant role in your financial life—from establishing credit and determining your buying power to potentially being a financial lifeline during times of crisis. Before you add another credit card to your wallet, you should consider your buying habits and financial strategies. The answers to the following five questions may help you... Read More
Roommates come with many benefits. You might get the ability to rent a larger space, share cleaning duties or more easily find friends to watch a movie with. On the other hand, sharing a space with a roommate—or roommates—isn’t always easy. It can bring on some challenges, especially when it comes to money. Planning ahead... Read More
If you’ve fallen behind on one or more bills, debt collectors may come calling. Getting a notice from a collections agency can be stressful, and the calls that usually come with this process can create ongoing friction for you throughout your life. But reacting out of desperation without a calm plan to approach the problem... Read More
For recent college graduates, there is a lot to figure out. But one of the biggest adjustments they will face is their newfound financial freedom, which can be both exciting and challenging. The summer after graduation, then, is the perfect time for these recent grads to take some key steps to get their bearings when... Read More
If your child’s college search process has snuck up on you and you realize you may not have as much saved up as you would have liked by this point, don’t panic. It’s not too late to put some more money away to get you into a comfortable position for when that first tuition payment... Read More
Warm weather means seasonal part-time jobs are cropping up in abundance! Whether you’re driving people around, renting out surfboards at the beach or scooping ice cream on the weekends, summer is a great time to make some extra cash. But instead of blowing it all by the time the calendar flips to September, consider these... Read More
Summer is right around the corner, and many college students who see graduation looming on the horizon use the break from school as a time to take an internship in their field. While internships offer valuable “real world” experience and have seemed to become almost mandatory in many fields, internships often provide very little pay,... Read More
Spring cleaning doesn’t have to be reserved for chores around the house – the months following tax season serve as the perfect time to give your finances a cleanup as well. Because you have recently sorted through your financial documents, you are likely to have a good feel for your financial situation, making now as... Read More
As young people take steps towards their future and eagerly prepare to enter the world of higher education, they are now faced with the seemingly inevitable notion of graduating with at least some student loan debt. While students intend to land a job after graduation to pay off their loans, that task has become more... Read More
Raising kids takes a lot of time, patience, love, and of course, money. Life as a single parent is a great deal of work, and you play multiple roles in the rearing and nurturing of your children. Budgeting and financial planning is a challenge for numerous people regardless of their marital or income statuses. As... Read More
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Thanks for checking out Credit.com. We hope you find the site and the journalism we produce useful. We wanted to take some time to tell you a bit about ourselves.
Our People
The Credit.com editorial team is staffed by a team of editors and reporters, each with many years of financial reporting experience. We’ve worked for places like the New York Times, American Banker, Frontline, TheStreet.com, Business Insider, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC and many others. We also employ a few freelancers and more than 50 contributors (these are typically subject matter experts from the worlds of finance, academia, politics, business and elsewhere).
Our Reporting
We take great pains to ensure that the articles, video and graphics you see on Credit.com are thoroughly reported and fact-checked. Each story is read by two separate editors, and we adhere to the highest editorial standards. We’re not perfect, however, and if you see something that you think is wrong, please email us at editorial team [at] credit [dot] com,
The Credit.com editorial team is committed to providing our readers and viewers with sound, well-reported and understandable information designed to inform and empower. We won’t tell you what to do. We will, however, do our best to explain the consequences of various actions, thereby arming you with the information you need to make decisions that are in your best interests. We also write about things relating to money and finance we think are interesting and want to share.
In addition to appearing on Credit.com, our articles are syndicated to dozens of other news sites. We have more than 100 partners, including MSN, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo, Marketwatch, Scripps, Money Magazine and many others. This network operates similarly to the Associated Press or Reuters, except we focus almost exclusively on issues relating to personal finance. These are not advertorial or paid placements, rather we provide these articles to our partners in most cases for free. These relationships create more awareness of Credit.com in general and they result in more traffic to us as well.
Our Business Model
Credit.com’s journalism is largely supported by an e-commerce business model. Rather than rely on revenue from display ad impressions, Credit.com maintains a financial marketplace separate from its editorial pages. When someone navigates to those pages, and applies for a credit card, for example, Credit.com will get paid what is essentially a finder’s fee if that person ends up getting the card. That doesn’t mean, however, that our editorial decisions are informed by the products available in our marketplace. The editorial team chooses what to write about and how to write about it independently of the decisions and priorities of the business side of the company. In fact, we maintain a strict and important firewall between the editorial and business departments. Our mission as journalists is to serve the reader, not the advertiser. In that sense, we are no different from any other news organization that is supported by ad revenue.
Visitors to Credit.com are also able to register for a free Credit.com account, which gives them access to a tool called The Credit Report Card. This tool provides users with two free credit scores and a breakdown of the information in their Experian credit report, updated twice monthly. Again, this tool is entirely free, and we mention that frequently in our articles, because we think that it’s a good thing for users to have access to data like this. Separate from its educational value, there is also a business angle to the Credit Report Card. Registered users can be matched with products and services for which they are most likely to qualify. In other words, if you register and you find that your credit is less than stellar, Credit.com won’t recommend a high-end platinum credit card that requires an excellent credit score You’d likely get rejected, and that’s no good for you or Credit.com. You’d be no closer to getting a product you need, there’d be a wasted inquiry on your credit report, and Credit.com wouldn’t get paid. These are essentially what are commonly referred to as "targeted ads" in the world of the Internet. Despite all of this, however, even if you never apply for any product, the Credit Report Card will remain free, and none of this will impact how the editorial team reports on credit and credit scores.
Your Stories
Lastly, much of what we do is informed by our own experiences as well as the experiences of our readers. We want to tell your stories if you’re interested in sharing them. Please email us at story ideas [at] credit [dot] com with ideas or visit us on Facebook or Twitter.
Thanks for stopping by.
- The Credit.com Editorial Team
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