The combination of the recession, high unemployment rates and the crash of the housing market has left many homeowners struggling to make their mortgage payments. However, as the saying goes, in difficult circumstances comes opportunity. Unfortunately, for many homeowners, those taking advantage of the opportunities presented by these difficult times are loan modification scammers.

With the revelation that many big lenders were "robo-signing" documents - signing them without verifying the accuracy of the information - to move foreclosures through the process, several banks, including JPMorgan and Bank of America, temporarily halted foreclosures to ensure that all paperwork was in order.

An early victory for the Obama administration in 2009 was the passage of the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act (CARD) in May. The Act seeks to improve consumer protection in the credit market by limiting what credit card companies can do in the event of consumer default; limiting interest rate hikes; changing rules on late fees; and requiring companies to offer consumers more information about their long-term balances.

IRS section 529 or Qualified Tuition Programs (QTP's) are found under Title 26, Subtitle A, Chapter 1, Subchapter F, Part VIII, Section 529 of the Internal Revenue Code or "IRC". It is considered the most complicated and hard to read section of the Code and a good treatment for insomnia. This section deals with special tax breaks for families, hence the "insomnia effect".

Bankruptcy is not a topic most people are comfortable with, and few are willing to discuss the issue openly. This lends a haze of mystery to the filing of Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and many consumers are ill informed of their rights-which means they are more vulnerable to financial predators.

Lawsuits against debt collectors alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) are on the rise, with 1,928 court filings nationwide by mid-March. Of those filings, 462 occurred in the first two weeks of March alone, an upward trend compared with cases filed in previous periods.