What it costs to buy mutual funds

If you want a good primer on mutual fund fees, check out the Vancouver Sun today. Here is an excerpt of some key terms:

- Load: Acquisition costs. Is there a commission that is paid up-front to the broker who sold you the mutual fund? That is a "front-end load." A "back-end" loaded fund will charge deferred service charges if you redeem your investment before it matures.
0% (or no-load) to 5% typically in the 1% range

- Management expense ratio (MER): Covers the costs of operating funds, such as management fees and commissions for buying and selling securities within the fund and administration costs, such as reports and mail outs.
0% to 2.5%

- Trailers: Commissions that fund managers pay to mutual fund companies as an incentive for the company to sell its funds.
0.25% to 1%

Source: Vancouver Sun

Identity Theft plagues 1.7m Canadians

Victims of identity fraud spent more than $150 million of their own money and spent 20 million hours to resolve the fraud in the past year as part of a ballooning problem that struck almost 1.7 million Canadians, a survey has found.

Source: Vancouver Province

Bogus Canada Renevue Agency letter

The scam is designed to prey on taxpayers worried about their records. It comes in the form of an official-looking letter or e-mail claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency and requiring taxpayers to complete a T2 form and bring CRA's records up to date.

CRA does not contact people by email, while the letter has a bogus T2 form in it which request it to be sent to a fax it or send it to an address with a post office box number. The address is just a mail drop which gets forwarded overseas.

Source: CBC.ca