It’s a free, six-part series of online videos produced by the Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center.

I like them because each video is short (four to six minutes), to the point, and easier to understand than most written advice.

They cover topics such as “Managing Your Money,” “Credit Problems and Debt Collectors,” “If You Are Sued” and “Bankruptcy.”

In them, law professor Richard Alderman explains how to stop abusive calls from debt collectors, find legitimate credit counselors, defend yourself against lawsuits, file for bankruptcy and much more.

You’ll quickly see that Alderman isn’t one of those lending industry lawyers that create the indecipherable contracts and deliberately obtuse disclosure documents we routinely receive from credit cards and mortgage companies.

He’s on your side and can talk your language.

If nothing else, these videos will make it harder for you to be scammed or bullied by unscrupulous collection agencies, credit repair services and credit counselors that lie about their legal authority.

Some of the information is specific to Texas law, such as when Alderman talks about why debt collectors can’t seize most of your money and property even if they obtain a legal judgment against you.

But you’ll know to ask if your state offers similar protections — most do.

I just had a doctor overcharge me (twice) and keep the extra money until I figured out what happened.

First, I was charged a $40 co-pay for the consultation before a minor surgery.

The next week I was billed another $40 to pay for part of the surgery the doctor’s office said was not covered by my insurance company.

Then I hear from my health insurance company. It says my co-pay was $30 and it covered all but $30 of the additional cost.

Needless to say, I called the doctor’s billing rep.

She said the doctor overcharged me on the co-pay for the first visit and kept a $10 credit on my account. Yes, on purpose. Yes, without telling me.

The second bill was a mistake, but once again the $10 overpayment was credited to my account without any notice and without asking if I’d like a refund.

Twenty bucks might not seem like much, but this practice screams rip off.

If I hadn’t called them out on it, I’d have paid $80 and had a credit of $20 on my account that’s worthless since I don’t plan on seeing that dermatologist ever again.

It seems I’m not alone.

The Wall Street Journal says an optometrist asked Atlanta attorney Michael Gurion to pay $70 for an exam and contact lenses.

But months later, when Mr. Gurion received an explanation of his benefits from his insurance company, it said he should have paid no more than $25.

What was the doctor doing with the difference?

Holding it as a credit toward future services without telling Mr. Gurion, who wasn’t a regular patient and didn’t intend to return.

The Journal suggests this is part of a trend in which physicians are no longer waiting to be paid by insurers before they try to collect more than just co-pays from patients.

If they’re ultimately paid too much, the extra is not refunded — it’s credited to a patient’s account.

I’m sympathetic to doctors who have bills to pay, too.

But as a patient you’ve got to know your co-pay before going to the doctor’s office and question any request to pay more until your insurance comes through.

In most cases that’s because they’re underinsured. Their policies have such strict limits on how much the insurer will pay, that they’re left holding the bag most of the costs.

But insurers also reject 10% to 15% of what appears to be legitimate claims.

Insurance companies actually have computer programs called “denial engines” that review every claim, looking for reasons to turn it down.

In some instances, those rejections are based on technicalities, such as failing to obtain the insurer’s permission before a procedure, or filing the claim too late to qualify for reimbursement.

In other cases insurers deny claims because the care is deemed to be unneeded or experimental.

These kinds of arbitrary decisions must be challenged through the insurer’s in-house appeals process — a potentially lengthy and pretty much secret process that usually upholds the insurer’s original denial.

But in 43 states (and the District of Columbia) policy holders can appeal that final denial through state insurance commissions.

Patients win about half of those appeals, and if these state regulators say an expense should be covered, then it’s covered.

These commissions are not consumer advocates. They’re regulators and if you lie about your claim or dispute, they’ll come after you for insurance fraud.

But they all offer advice and information. If you need help or think your insurance company is trying to rip you off, they should be one of the first places you turn.

The National Association of Insurance Commissions has a Web site called InsureU that offers buckets of insurance information.

It can help explain options, plans, and get you familiar with industry lingo before filing a complaint.

That association also allows you to file a complaint about an insurer with your state commission.

The program will be open to graduates with one of the major types of federal student loans — Stafford, Grad PLUS or Consolidation loans made under either the Direct Loan or Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program.

You can have used the loans for any type of education, including undergraduate studies, graduate work or even job training. Parent PLUS loans and loans in default aren’t eligible.

To qualify, your federal student loan debt needs to be considered high in comparison to your income and family size.

To see if you might be eligible for the program, you can enter your salary, number of family members and current loan interest rate into the Department of Education’s Income Based Repayment calculator.

The calculator will estimate what your monthly payment would be under the program. If it’s lower than what your payment would be under a 10-year standard repayment plan at your current rate, it will tell you that you should be eligible for the income based program. To apply, you’ll need to contact your lender.

For example, if you’re single, make $30,000 a year and have a $25,000 student loan, your income-based payment would be $172 a month.

That’s a $116 savings over a standard 10-year repayment plan, which, with an interest rate of 6.8%, would give you monthly payments of $288.

If you have a family of four, make $50,000 a year and owe $20,000, your IBR payment would be $212 — compared to $230 on a 10-year repayment plan.

In the current economy, the program may be a huge help for recent grads who are earning less than they’d planned.

Another bonus: You can participate in the program for as long as you need to. In fact, if it takes you 25 years to repay your student loan debt under the income based plan, the government will cancel any remaining balance.

However, there is a catch. You’re essentially extending the repayment period of your loan — which means you’ll pay more interest over time.

If your monthly income-based payment doesn’t cover the interest that accrues each month, the government will pay it on Subsidized Stafford Loans for up to three consecutive years from when you start the program.

But after three years, the interest that accrues will be added to the principal, which is what your lender will use to calculate the amount of interest you’ll pay in the future if your income ever rises to the point that you’re no longer eligible for an income based repayment.

In addition, you have to submit income and family size documentation each year to reset your payment. If you don’t, it will automatically go back to the standard 10-year repayment amount.

Click here to find out more about the Income Based Repayment plan.

Bank of America, Discover and Citibank all said yes, offering settlements from 40 to 60 cents on the dollar. No arguing, no fighting, no asking to speak to a manager.

“They gave it up before I asked,” says Fred (who asked us not to use his real name so this wouldn’t become part of his Google legacy.)

This might sound preposterous given how the credit card industry has been treating its customers since the financial crisis struck — raising interest rates, slashing credit limits and even canceling the cards of customers in good standing.

But with 6.5% of all accounts at least 30 days late, it looks like banks are quietly trying to keep the recession from turning credit card defaults into the next mortgage mess.

Debt settlement is nothing new.

Reputable credit counselors routinely negotiate “debt management plans” with the credit card companies, which writes off about half of a creditor’s debt and establishes a realistic, 36- to 60-month repayment schedule to retire the balance.

But everything we’re seeing and hearing indicates there’s a sudden willingness on the part of credit card companies to strike such deals directly with their customers.

Customer service representatives have been empowered to settle debts and we’ve even heard that some cards are calling delinquent customers and offering to cut their debt in half if they’ll pay up.

These deals usually require cardholders to pay the remaining balance immediately. At most they’re given a couple of months to come up with the money.

The banks are being cagey on exactly who qualifies for such a settlement and how much debt they’re willing to forgive. But the American Bankers Association, their trade organization, confirms the general trend.

A new study by the Society for Human Resource Management found 42% of companies that do background checks on job applicants are pulling credit histories to see if they’re paying their bills on time.

That’s’ up from 35% in 2003 and just 19% of employers in 1996.

Why do employers care?

Some think a bad credit history demonstrates a lack of judgment or character that can carry over to the work place.

Others worry that job applicants with lots of unpaid bills are more likely to steal from the company, especially if the work involves handling lots of cash.

That’s not necessarily true.

An Eastern Kentucky University study conducted in 2003 found no clear connection between job performance and an employee’s personal financial history.

Job applicants can also have a damaged credit history because of an illness or layoff that doesn’t reflect their ability to be a good employee.

Laws to limit employment-related credit checks are currently being considered in several states, including Hawaii and New York.

But for now, a credit check is perfectly legal as long as the applicant is informed it’s being done, and candidates can be turned away based on what that credit history reveals.

They’ve also promised that they’re following all the laws that regulate what they can and cannot do to get debtors to pay up.

Are pigs flying?

A recent report by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says debt collectors threaten to throw people in jail, take away their homes, pose as lawyers serving lawsuits, tell neighbors and employers about unpaid bills, and call at all hours — all of which is illegal.

Take a look at a portion of “The Debt Trap,” an excellent Dateline NBC investigation by Chris Hansen, shows how workers at a collection agency in the Buffalo, N.Y. area, routinely coerce debtors by claiming to be police officers and threatening to have them “picked up.”

In late May, Cuomo obtained a court order shutting down two debt collection companies, Emanee Development, Inc. and Dial Tech LLC that had used fraudulent tactics like that to get people to pay debts they didn’t even owe.

In early June, Cuomo announced that three companies based in western New York, but that try to collect debts across the country, had agreed to pay $245,000 in fines for breaking state and federal debt collection laws.

Creditors Interchange Receivable Management, LLC, Capital Management Services, LP and Tri-Financial, LLC, also agreed to make it easier for consumers to file complaints against individual employees by placing a direct link on their Web sites to consumer complaint forms.

Cuomo said his office is investigating possible violations at more that 30 other collection agencies.

If debt collectors are calling you, here’s what the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not allow them to do:

• Call before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.
• Talk to anyone else about your debt, including family and employers.
• Bluff legal action.
• Bluff garnishing wages or taking your home.
• Tell you you’ve committed a crime.
• Threaten that you’ll be arrested.
• Threaten you with violence or harm.
• Curse or use racially charged language.
• Pretend to be law enforcement officer or lawyer.
• Call your place of work if you have told them they are not allowed to call there.

And the problem just keeps getting worse.

A couple of years ago about half of all bankruptcies were caused by doctor and hospital expenses that families just couldn’t pay.

Now a new study by the Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School and Ohio University says they caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in 2007.

The most shocking finding is that most of those families weren’t uninsured. They were underinsured.

More than 75% of the families who filed for bankruptcy because of medical bills had health care coverage of some kind. Their insurance simply didn’t pay significant parts of their bills.

Out-of-pocket medical costs averaged $17,943 for medically bankrupt families, with hospital bills usually the single largest expense.

This was not always the case.

As recently as 1981, only 8% of families filing for bankruptcy did so because they couldn’t pay their medical bills.

Today, it seems millions of families are just one illness or accident away from financial ruin.

The credit card companies have agreed to accept smaller payments, over a longer period of time, when members of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling negotiate repayment plans on behalf of struggling cardholders.

When borrowers who’ve fallen behind on their credit card payments seek help, credit counselors often work out what’s called a debt management plan.

The card companies usually agree to forgive about half of the debt if the customer will repay the rest in monthly payments that cover about 3% of the new balance.

But last year the NFCC found it couldn’t help 400,000 clients because they owed so much it was impossible to negotiate a debt management plan they could afford.

You just know that the next stop for many of those borrowers was bankruptcy court.

To fix that, the NFCC worked out two new debt repayment plans designed to help maxed-out consumers reach a deal with the 10 largest credit card issuers — American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Discover Financial Services, GE Money, HSBC, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

They will allow cardholders to stretch the payments out longer, so they can repay only 2% or 1.75% of the initial debt each month.

Now a consumer who agrees to repay $24,000 through a debt management plan could qualify for monthly payments as low as $420, rather than $720.

Of course the credit card companies have the right to review a customer’s finances and determine how quickly they can afford to repay their balance and who will be allowed to take advantage of the new, lower payments.

But if they’ll be reasonable, this could not only help consumers, but cut the credit card companies losses.

(Here’s how to find an NFCC member agency near you.)

Stephen Colbert dove into the fray over slimy lending last night with an hilarious look at the “Payday Loan Reform Act of 2009″ introduced by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Chicago Democrat.

“These days, credit is harder to come by than a brunette on Fox News,” he says on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

But a “great source of quick cash (is) payday loans. If you need money now, you can borrow against your next paycheck at annual interest rate of only 400 to 800 percent. That is a great deal for anyone who gets a weekly 2,000 percent pay raise.”

Colbert noted that Gutierrez wanted to ban the costly loans until a payday loan company became the largest contributor to his re-election campaign. Now he’s seen the light and wants Congress to approve annualized interest rates of up to 780%.

In his role of conservative pundit who hates government regulation, Colbert concludes: “I like this bill because it legitimizes the payday loan industry by dragging it out of the darkness and into the anemic firefly flicker of nominal oversight.”

Could this Colbert Report report segment also introduce the phrase “debt pineapple” into the nation’s financial lexicon?