Debt Collector, Universal Default and Home Sales Data

Here are some interesting articles I found last week.

Debt Collection Done From India Appeals to U.S. Agencies (New York Times) - It shouldn't be a surprise. When you call customer service, you talk to someone in India. When they send you to debt collection, they call you from India. I wonder if people can pretend they don't understand what they are being asked.

Credit the cardholder (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Payments News) - Consider this. Suppose you lent money to someone. You heard from other people that your borrower started paying late or stopped paying those other people. Are you concerned you may be next? Should you not be able to raise your borrower's interest rate or cut their credit line?

Tracking NAR Spin (The Big Picture) - Nice chart of home sales data with corresponding quotes from the National Association of Realtors. Note the chart shows the number of homes sold, not the average selling price.

Specific share identification mutual fund redemption at Vanguard (IndexTown) - indexfundfan shows how to do specific share identification for selling mutual fund shares at Vanguard. Of course this is only applicable to taxable accounts.