A woman’s 23-year-old nephew needed a place to stay after he couldn’t afford a rent increase on his lease. He asked to stay with her family for two or three weeks, and she said yes. She expected an empty fridge and a cranked-up thermostat. Instead, she came home from a weekend away to a repaired…

A mother of two adult children always planned to split her inheritance evenly between them. Lately, she’s been questioning whether that’s truly fair. One of her children has lived a fairly typical life with a career and family. Her daughter, however, has been on disability for 13 years, can’t work, and faces ongoing medical bills,…

A man and his wife walked into a car dealership planning to pay cash. They told the dealer up front how much money they had to spend. After the deal was done, they found out the dealership had run credit reports on both of them through two different credit bureaus. Now he’s wondering whether the…

A 29-year-old woman working in corporate communications makes about $78,000 a year. She was recently approached about a role that would pay $130,000, a raise of more than 60 percent. After two interviews, she learned the job would essentially mean running a CEO’s entire online presence, with posts going out under his name that he…

A homeowner’s heat stopped working during a freeze, so she called a well-reviewed local heating company that advertised free in-home estimates. The technician looked at her furnace for about 15 minutes and quoted her $8,500 to replace the entire unit. She got a second opinion, and another repairman fixed the problem for $400. Days later,…

A man’s wife has been driving two hours round trip every other day to provide medical care for her aunt, who has terminal cancer and is on hospice. While she’s gone, he’s working full time from home while caring for their 3-year-old and 8-month-old. Then, while helping sort paperwork, he discovered the aunt has $160,000…