Loan

Thousands of stunned small-business owners call Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. each week after they're turned down for loans. Jeff Stibel, CEO of the business credit-reporting company, has a message for them: Don't blame the bank. Instead, he said, find out how you contributed to that rejection and work to improve your company's credit rating so that, next time, the answer is yes. Small-business owners need to be just as savvy about their companies' credit reports as they are about their personal credit files.

D EAR HARRY: I know that you have answered questions about reverse mortgages before, but I don't fully understand how they work. Some experts say that they are great, and others say to avoid them completely. My husband is in his 70s and not in the best of health. I am in my 60s and presently out of work. Our home is worth about $300,000 with $600 monthly mortgage payments that go out to 2035. We're both on Social Security, getting about $1,300 together. We were told that we could get a reverse-mortgage arrangement that would give us $60,000 now, without us ever having to pay anything on any mortgage forever.

A 37-year-old South Jersey man pleaded guilty Thursday to loan sharking on behalf of the Philadelphia mob, federal prosecutors said. Robert Ranieri, of Glendora, admitted that he conspired with Philadelphia mobster Anthony Staino and others to make a usurious loan to an undercover FBI agent and then threatened violence to collect on the loan, according to federal prosecutors. Ranieri's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25 and he faces a maximum 40 years in prison. - Robert Moran

In the tight-money world of small business owners, the occasion seemed more worthy of a bottle of bubbly than a steaming cup of Honduran dark roast. But java is the specialty of Green Street Coffee Roasters, the 17-month-old South Philadelphia company owned by brothers Chris and Tom Molieri. Early last week, the Molieris were celebrating a $10,000 loan for equipment they had just secured. They were also raising a cup to the entity that made it happen – Entrepreneur Works. It is a community development financial institution, or CDFI, one of a network of nearly 1,000 mostly nonprofit entities nationwide devoted to helping entrepreneurs overcome what stymies so many of them: access to capital.

The Chester County Commissioners on Tuesday approved giving a $1 million below-market-rate loan to UB Foods U.S. to further encourage the firm to establish a plant in Oxford Borough. Officials from UB Foods, which makes Keebler snacks, told borough residents last Thursday that the firm intends to buy the former Pepsico Unibev plant, which has been empty for three years. The commissioner's action follows a recommendation by the county's Industrial Development Authority, which actually is making the loan.

The Abington school board took less than a minute to borrow $3 million last week, voting without discussion to borrow the money from CoreStates Capital Markets Group. "And not a person here knows what it's for," grumbled Joseph Polya, a persistent board critic who attended the Tuesday night meeting. Actually, the board spelled out its plans for the loan as far back as June. It will go for repairs and improvements throughout the district, including purchase of computers, buses and windows, and for repairs to roofs, tennis courts and sidewalks.

Philadelphia Sheriff John Green said bar owner Sidney Booker gave him an $11,000 personal loan and then made him an offer he had to refuse. "He wanted a job, and in exchange I did not have to pay back the note," recalled Green. "I told him I don't sell jobs, and after that, he stopped speaking to me," added Green, who took over the 290-member Sheriff's Department in January. Green made his comments after reporters discovered that Booker had filed two suits in Small Claims Court alleging that Green failed to repay a total of $11,000 worth of loans that he was supposed to start repaying on Dec. 1. Booker, owner of the Stinger Bar on Broad Street near Belfield, said he would have no comment until after the suit is heard on Tuesday.

The Inquirer reported this week on the Delaware River Port Authority's role in financing the redevelopment of the RCA Victor building in Camden. As a strong advocate of the Camden waterfront and one of the first developers to participate in its revitalization, I have a perspective that differs dramatically from that of the report. In the late 1990s, when I first saw the RCA Victor building, I didn't just see a boarded-up, vandalized symbol of the blight that had come to define Camden.

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau has begun to take complaints about student loans, it said Monday. The bureau will assist all borrowers experiencing problems taking out or repaying a private loan or managing one in default and referred to a debt collector. Complaints may be submitted through 1-855-411-2372; at www.consumerfinance.gov ; faxed at 1-855-237-2392, or mailed to the bureau at P.O. Box 4503, Iowa City, Iowa 52244.    - Alan J. Heavens

A Chester County agency is suing a Philadelphia eye doctor in an effort to recover a $180,000 loan it made to the physician four years ago to open a health-care center in downtown West Chester. The center, which was to be a multidisciplinary practice owned and operated by minority physicians, never opened, and the building at 16 E. Gay St. stands empty. The loan was made to Neal E. Hall by the county Office of Housing and Community Development using federal Community Development Block Grant money.

A 37-year-old South Jersey man pleaded guilty Thursday to loan sharking on behalf of the Philadelphia mob, federal prosecutors said. Robert Ranieri, of Glendora, admitted that he conspired with Philadelphia mobster Anthony Staino and others to make a usurious loan to an undercover FBI agent and then threatened violence to collect on the loan, according to federal prosecutors. Ranieri's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Sept. 25 and he faces a maximum 40 years in prison. - Robert Moran

  Quicken Loans 400 Michigan International Speedway Brooklyn, Mich. When: Sunday, 1 p.m. TV/Radio: TNT/WNPV (1440-AM) Course: 2-mile oval Distance: 200 laps/400 miles Forecast: isolated thunderstorms, high 70s Last year's winner: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Last year's pole: Marcos Ambrose Track qualifying record: Ambrose, 203.241 mph (June 2012) Track facts: Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 95 laps, including the last 30, in winning last year's race.

WASHINGTON - The Senate deadlocked Thursday over federal student loan interest rates, with no consensus in sight on how to prevent rates on certain loans from doubling for about seven million borrowers on July 1. Amid a swirl of competing proposals from lawmakers and the White House, preliminary votes showed that no Senate bills have the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster in the Democratic-led chamber. Unless Congress intervenes, rates for new subsidized student loans will rise on July 1 from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

SOME Washington folks must be ecstatic about the news that the TV melodrama "24" will be returning to air, because they sure seem to be fans of ticking-time-bomb scenarios down there. First, we had the debt-ceiling, then the fiscal cliff. Now, if you listen closely, you can hear a tick, tick, tick as we approach July 1, when - unless something is done - student-loan rates will double, hindering young people's ability to go to college or contribute to the economy by paying for anything but their student loans afterward.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Friday urged Congress to prevent student loan rates from doubling in a month, prompting a fight with House Republicans who accused him of playing politics instead of sitting down to work out small differences and avoid an increase. Interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans are set to go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1. Lawmakers from both parties say they want to avoid the increase but are divided over how to do so. Obama said that if Congress doesn't act to stop loan rates from rising, students would rack up an additional $1,000 annually in debt.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Friday urged Congress to prevent student loan rates from doubling in a month, prompting a fight with House Republicans who accused him of playing politics instead of sitting down to work out small differences and avoid an increase. Interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans are set to go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1. Lawmakers from both parties say they want to avoid the increase but are divided over how to do so. Obama said that if Congress doesn't act to stop loan rates from rising, students would rack up an additional $1,000 annually in debt.

Sallie Mae, the Delaware-based student lender, said Tuesday that it is splitting into two growth-minded companies as longtime chief executive Albert L. Lord prepares to retire. Jack F. Remondi, chief operating officer, is taking over Lord's job. After the split, he will run the company and its student-loan servicing and collection business, which handles more than $100 billion in loans originated and guaranteed by the federal government. Remondi's company will include about 95 percent of Sallie Mae's current assets, analyst Sameer Gokhale of Janney Capital Markets told clients in a report Wednesday.

WITH APOLOGIES TO Dr. Seuss, I'd like to add some lines to his wonderful book Oh, the Places You'll Go! , which is a popular graduation gift for college students. Seuss begins: Congratulations! Today is your day. You're off to Great Places! You're off and away! You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. But you'd better know what you owe because your debt is high.

WASHINGTON - Dismissing a veto threat from President Obama, lawmakers in the House passed legislation that links student loan rates to the ups and downs of the financial markets in a vote largely along party lines. The Republican-backed bill would allow students to dodge a scheduled rate hike for students with new subsidized Stafford loans next month, but rates could rise in coming years. Democrats largely opposed the measure - which they branded the "Making College More Expensive Act" - while the Republican chairman of the Education Committee labeled the legislation a starting point for negotiations with the Senate and White House.

D EAR ABBY: A woman here at work constantly asks to borrow money. The first time she did it, she caught me off guard and I gave her $20. The second time she sent me an email asking for a loan, I replied that I only had a few dollars. I'm not the only person she asks. To be fair, she did return the $20 I loaned her, but isn't this akin to a hostile work environment? We all avoid her, but we also have to work with her every day. Times are tough for everyone, and it's irritating that she thinks she's the only one with money problems.