Land of Leather, the 109-store furniture specialist, yesterday became the latest retailer to fall victim to the retail crisis after a dire start to the new year sales, as data revealed that the industry endured its worst December since the early 1990s.

What are the most common types of card fraud?

In The Red

NHS staff are regularly breaching security rules by sharing "smartcards" to access patient records, according to a poll out today.

Q. I ordered a leather sofa from English Sofas, which was ripped during delivery. This was spotted by the delivery workers, who took the goods directly back to the suppliers. I cancelled the order because if the sofa is so easily ripped in transit, it will not cope with my grandchildren playing on it. I paid in advance by credit card and the cost of the sofa was credited to my account. But English Sofas refuses to refund the £85 delivery charge. SM, Gwynedd.

Four travel companies are in the running to operate the new South Central railway franchise, with the successful bidder to be named next summer.

Women will be able to get the Pill online without having to visit their doctor under a new service being launched today.

Currency exchange, debit and credit cards, traveller's cheques ... Esther Shaw sees how to curb fees and ensure your foreign funds go the distance

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world's richest country faces economic crisis

In one form or another, food stamps have been around in the US since 1939, before taking their current form in the 1964 Food Stamp Act, one of the earliest pieces of major legislation in the Johnson administration's "War on Poverty".

If you're buying foreign currency, be wary; charges can add a lot to the cost of a holiday.

Bad decisions on overseas spending could leave up to four million Britons £180m out of pocket this Easter, according to price-comparison site Moneysupermarket.

Anxious consumers worried about their levels of borrowing decided against paying for Christmas on credit, according to a report looking into December spending.

Consumers spent a record £32.2bn on credit and debit cards during December – but the rate at which spending is rising continues to slow.