Credit Card

Move over, Sierra Club and Elvis fans. Caesars World Inc. has joined your ranks as a credit-card sponsor, the first casino company in the nation to put its name on a major piece of plastic. Since the inception of the Caesars program in Atlantic City a year and a half ago, the resort chain has enrolled more than 20,000 MasterCard holders. Credit-card users receive cash rebates and discounts to restaurants, shows and shops in the chain. Caesars World became part of a growing number of credit-card sponsors that appeal to groups of consumers with common interests.

The bill usually belongs to Tom Brady, because he is the quarterback and, after all, it is his responsibility. Linemen have to eat. Quarterbacks have to pay. But when the crowd swelled at a Scottsdale restaurant Tuesday night, with defensive players joining in on the offense's dinner, a good old-fashioned game of credit- card roulette determined who would pick up the tab. For offensive tackle Nick Kaczur, guard Stephen Neal and defensive lineman...

THE GUY tossed restlessly in his bed, night after night, for the better part of a year. He couldn't sleep. He had nightmares whenever he did - bizarre, Kafkaesque snippets of dialogue involving the Russian mob, a pair of mysterious, dark-haired women, a goofy-looking painting and an incomprehensible credit-card bill. The shadowy characters and confusing plots from the bad dreams haunted John Bolaris in real life, too. Yeah, that John Bolaris. Few people know that the affable local weatherman's life was turned upside down during a visit to Miami Beach last spring that started out pleasantly and ended with his getting drugged - twice - while his credit card was used by Eastern European scam artists to rack up $43,000 worth of expenses in just two days, while he staggered around in a stupor.

D EAR ABBY: I am a woman in my late 40s, and I hate sex. I'm disabled, and it has always been torture. I never got any positive benefits out of it. My problem is I get hit on constantly. I'm single, own my own home and the men in this town (married and single) all seem to think I'm fair game. They're convinced that I'm in need of satisfaction because I don't date or have a steady man in my life. I have told them repeatedly that it's not going to happen, but every once in a while one pops up on my doorstep or approaches me in town, only to be told again to leave me alone.

The Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Adolph and Rose Levis Museum will celebrate its 16th anniversary by honoring nine individuals at a reception to be held at 5:30 p.m. May 20 at the Gershman Y, Broad and Pine Streets. The 2013 inductees are: figure skater Ellen Barkann; former Penn baseball and basketball star Bob Brooks; former 76ers coach Larry Brown; former Temple basketball star Fred Cohen; tennis star and Freedoms head coach Josh Cohen; George Washington High football coach Ron Cohen; golfer Bonnie Kay; CBS senior vice president Marc Rayfield; and Pillar of Achievement honoree Jed Margolis, a longtime participant in the Maccabi Games.

When it comes to credit issues and identity theft, I sometimes feel like what we used to call a broken record. Almost incessantly, I urge readers to check their credit reports by visiting www.annualcreditreport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228. Both will get you to the "central source" mandated by Congress a decade ago for consumers to request free reports from TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax, the nation's three main credit bureaus. If the reports are clean, I tell readers, there's no need to pay for a credit score - which Congress, alas, did not require the credit bureaus to provide, and did not bar them from pitching via side deals to consumers who request their free reports.

NAYDA MORALES has been forced into a neighborhood on edge, where she worries about the next shooting, the next house to get torched, the next house junkies take as their own.   She lives on a claustrophobic block in West Kensington, across the street from four boarded-up houses, two of them charred. Potential landlords won't rent to her. Owners refuse to sell to her. For a while, Morales, a mother of three, had to move in with her mom. Her credit has been ruined. It is all because she rented a decrepit house seven years ago from Robert N. Coyle Sr., a notorious Philadelphia slumlord who stands charged with defrauding banks of $10 million.

If the Charles Dickens tale A Christmas Carol were updated to fit these times, Scrooge probably wouldn't bother gathering his hoard of cash to buy last-minute gifts for Tiny Tim and the others. He'd simply pull out a credit card and worry about the bill later. At least, that's how thousands of people in Scrooge's income bracket pay for their holiday purchases each year. And when it is finally time to pay the bill about 30 days or so later, bankers in South Jersey say, the credit-card customers rarely complain that they are being charged more than twice the prime interest rate on their purchases.

Advanta Corp. yesterday reported a steep decline in profit from its small-business credit cards in the first quarter, as the slumping economy caused more borrowers to fall behind in their payments. Even so, the Spring House company's class B shares jumped 16.45 percent, or $1.24, to $8.78 in Nasdaq trading yesterday because the earnings were better than expected. Advanta said its credit card operation earned $6.67 million in the first quarter, off sharply from $21.17 million in the same period a year earlier.

Also in this column: First Union cuts jobs PhilEx reduces fees MBNA chief recovering Do gamblers borrow more? Casino operator Harrah's Entertainment Inc. has tapped MBNA America Bank of Wilmington to sell cards to 23 million gamblers who have registered at the company's casinos, restaurants and hotels from Atlantic City to Las Vegas, according to Harrah's spokesman Gary Thompson. Heavy users win discounts at Harrah's, Rio and Showboat casinos and casino-hotels.

D EAR ABBY: I am a woman in my late 40s, and I hate sex. I'm disabled, and it has always been torture. I never got any positive benefits out of it. My problem is I get hit on constantly. I'm single, own my own home and the men in this town (married and single) all seem to think I'm fair game. They're convinced that I'm in need of satisfaction because I don't date or have a steady man in my life. I have told them repeatedly that it's not going to happen, but every once in a while one pops up on my doorstep or approaches me in town, only to be told again to leave me alone.

A Lower Merion Township woman who has been suffering from depression after the recent deaths of her husband and father is missing and police are seeking help finding her. Relatives told township police they hadn't heard from Joan Delorefice, 53, in about a week. Her brother-in-law and other relatives finally went to her Haverford home on Tuesday, and when she wasn't there, they reported her as missing. Delorefice's car was parked in her garage and police found no credit card or cell phone activity over the past week.

Imagine going to a restaurant, enjoying a modest meal, and dutifully paying your bill, while across the way other diners seem oddly carefree about their tab. You don't think much of it - why should you? - until one day you get stuck with their bill, too, and a lot more like it. That's the kind of story Carolyn Longo has to tell - about an out-of-the-blue financial mess that isn't even her own. Her nightmare began in November on her 60th birthday, timing that first made Longo suspect a prank: A caller from Chase Bank demanded she pay about $14,000 on a credit card she didn't know existed.

REALLY, PHILLY, this is how you're gonna do me? Me, who's been your one-woman cheering squad for months now? Who's been full-steam ahead with the whole "No Philly Shrug" campaign - despite the sometimes universal, it seems, eye-roll from haters? Me, who's been so rah-rah about Philly that old friends who know that optimism and boosterism and, oh-who-am-I-kidding, even smiling doesn't exactly come natural for me have wondered if I was having some sort of breakdown. No! I'd proclaim.

The Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Adolph and Rose Levis Museum will celebrate its 16th anniversary by honoring nine individuals at a reception to be held at 5:30 p.m. May 20 at the Gershman Y, Broad and Pine Streets. The 2013 inductees are: figure skater Ellen Barkann; former Penn baseball and basketball star Bob Brooks; former 76ers coach Larry Brown; former Temple basketball star Fred Cohen; tennis star and Freedoms head coach Josh Cohen; George Washington High football coach Ron Cohen; golfer Bonnie Kay; CBS senior vice president Marc Rayfield; and Pillar of Achievement honoree Jed Margolis, a longtime participant in the Maccabi Games.

MO VAUGHN gets it. Vaughn, who spent eight of his 14 major league seasons with Red Sox, was a hero to many Boston fans. On Thursday, he turned the tables by taking out a half-page ad in the Boston Globe to let the world know that his heroes are those who sprung into action after the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Here is an excerpt: "I'm deeply saddened by the tragic events that took place this past Monday at The Boston Marathon. Patriots Day is the one day each year that this great city celebrates the bravery and heroism of the people that live here.

'When two elephants fight, the grass gets trampled," goes the African proverb. The same can be said for the epic battle between banks and retailers over interchange fees - what retailers pay to accept credit and debit cards for payment. This battle has resulted in harm to consumers, community banks, and mom-and-pop retailers as Congress injected itself into the fight. Fortunately, this battle is finally drawing to a close. Last year the payments and retail industries resolved their differences through the court system, negotiating a $7.25 billion settlement to their dispute.

Pennsylvania legislators are right to be concerned about consumers paying excessive credit-card swipe fees, but the solution to the problem lies not with the merchants who pay the fees, but with the credit-card companies that set them in the first place. A bill under consideration in the state legislature would ban merchants from imposing a surcharge on customers who use credit cards. I'm not sure it's needed. I have not heard of one retailer, merchant, or business owner even considering surcharging.

Four Alabama football players have been dismissed from the team following their arrests after two robberies on campus. Linebackers Tyler Hayes and D.J. Pettway , safety Eddie Williams , and H-back Brent Calloway "are no longer associated with the football program," coach Nick Saban said. Pettway, Williams, and Hayes were charged with two counts of second-degree robbery. Williams and Calloway were charged with fraudulent use of a credit card. Williams confessed to robbing a student who was punched in the head and face and kicked in the ribs and back, according to court documents.

FOUR PLAYERS for two-time defending national champion Alabama were dismissed from school following their arrests after two robberies on campus. University spokeswoman Deborah Lane said Wednesday that linebackers D.J. Pettway and Tyler Hayes, safety Eddie Williams and H-back Brent Calloway are no longer enrolled after a judicial review. Coach Nick Saban had earlier said the players "are no longer associated with the football program. " "Their actions do not reflect the spirit and character that we want our organization to reflect," Saban said.