Erica writes:
Recently, my husband and I got two new Chase credit cards in the mail. I didn’t look closely, assuming that this was a new card for our never-used Chase Mastercard account. This account has been around for seven years, but we prefer another card with a rewards system; the Mastercard account is open only to benefit our credit rating. Therefore, no urgency in activating it — I dropped it in the bill pile to deal with later.
People who are not normally required to file taxes will have to do so this year if they want a piece of the 2008 economic stimulus rebate. This applies to low-income works, and Social Security, Veterans Affairs Recipients, and Railroad Retirement recipients. In partnership with the IRS, the following sites are offering free tax prep and electronic filing if the only reason you need to files is to receive a stimulus check:
Nicholas wrote in with a scary problem: his paycheck, which he deposited at his local branch of PNC on Saturday, never showed up in his bank account. The teller seemed to have difficulty processing the deposit, but the slip he gave to Nicholas showed the check had been processed.
The Red Tape Chronicles reports bank fees are so hard to find that even the government can’t find them. A recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office released this week couldn’t find the fee schedules at 1/3 of the nation’s banks. Not only does this make comparison shopping impossible for the consumer, they’re breaking federal law, the 1991 Truth in Savings Act and Federal Reserve Regulation DD, which requires fees to be posted clearly and conspicuously. Violations are rarely punished with any severity, meaning, as Red Tape Chronicles writes, “it’s far more likely that you’ll get a parking ticket for breaking parking rules outside a bank than it is the bank will be fined for disobeying federal lending laws.”
Cash gifts are the best – On every new year or birthday, Chinese children usually get cash gifts that they end up saving. This sounds pretty sad, but I remember being quite excited about visiting all the relatives and receiving red envelopes with cash in them. Red envelopes are the standard gift for any celebration, and they are considered the best gifts because the recipient can do anything with the money. In America it seems that cash is a less common gift because it is considered to be less thoughtful. Instead, cash is converted to gift cards or useless trinkets that are probably less appreciated by the recipient.
We really have to agree with this. Gifts can be very thoughtful, but in some cases gift cards are capitalizing on people who feel insecure about giving cash.
Here’s a question where money meets ethics: should kids be paid for good results in school? No, we’re not talking about parents dishing out the occasional $5 or $10 bill to junior for getting an “A”. Instead, there’s a new sheriff in town. Now schools and teachers are doing the giving and are handing out much more than most moms and dads. The details:
The fourth graders squirmed in their seats, waiting for their prizes. In a few minutes, they would learn how much money they had earned for their scores on recent reading and math exams. Some would receive nearly $50 for acing the standardized tests, a small fortune for many at this school, P.S. 188 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
And it’s not only the kids making money off the scores…
Author David Loeper over in the WiseBread forums explains how your CEO could be getting a kickback from excessive fees on your company’s 401k. The “administration fees” on some company’s 401ks are sometimes 20 times as much as what it actually costs to run the fund. Part of these fees go back to the 401k admin via “revenue sharing.” Usually the admin keeps it but sometimes they’re so big that they go back to the employee’s accounts. But instead of being credited back equally… [More]
I made an electronic payment online with my one of my bank’s check card. Turns out this was the wrong one, and I immediately canceled the payment (as there’s a very easy to find and large button allowing you to do this immediately as well), and resubmitted it through the correct bank. So, to sum up, the payment was made, about two weeks before it was due. I figured all was cool and I was being a good customer for paying more than the minimum balance, way ahead of the due date, online, so there wouldn’t be any “problems” with a check or the postal service. Then I look on my statement and I’ve been charged a $35 Returned Payment Fee.
Here’s the fees a MoneyGram check-cashing place near me will charge you to cash your checks:
The Candidates on the Pocketbook Issues [Business Week] “Here are some proposals from the 2008 Presidential candidates for shoring up Americans’ financial security.”
A hyper-vigilant Chase CSR canceled a woman’s credit card and issued her a new one when she called in to confirm her interest rate, because Mint was showing a slightly higher rate. A Mint representative confirms that “while we can generally get pretty good info about APR, APR can vary widely by customer & there won’t always be a 100% match (that’s why we allow customers to edit their account information).”
Capital One accidentally sent a customer with a closed Capital One credit card a check for $500. She cashed the check and now CapO wants its money back… so badly that they reopened the closed credit card just so it could bill her. They also added a $1.42 finance charge. When asked by The Oregonian, a consumer advocate and official with the Office Of The Comptroller of Currency both said they had never heard of a company reopening a closed credit card for this reason before. What a brilliant new scam, here’s a check for $500 dummty dum dum two months pass oh wait guess what that was actually a loan, pay up, bitch. In all seriousness, don’t cash unexpected checks, you’re just asking for trouble.
Thomas writes:
If you don’t use your Juniper iTunes Rewards VISA (issued by Barclay’s) for an entire year, they close the card and report to the credit agencies that you requested to close it. I’ve learned that when I called to inquire about a lower rate on 2/26, the agent canceled my account.
Economically tight times can increase the pressure on an already tense personal relationship, as in this absolutely despicable case of domestic abuse: WJXT reports that a 77-year-old man beat up his 74-year-old wife, “because he was upset about the high cost of gas for driving her to and from dialysis treatments.” Signs of the times on the road to hell.
Last week reader Keith told us how scammers in Bulgaria siphoned $2,000 from his account, and his story snowballed into an entire HSBC class breach. Now Keith tells us that he has all the money back. He writes:
Once I was able to get in touch with Robert Olejniczak of corporate security he was extremely helpful, concerned and empathetic. The missing money was credited back to my account on 2/25, 6 business days after it went missing. I just received a letter in the mail stating that the “investigation is complete.” I guess they figured they didn’t need to do much investigating to determine that I couldn’t be swiping my card at a diner in Manhattan and in Bulgaria withdrawing large sums from an ATM at the same time.
They even gave him $.02 in interest, how nice.
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A debt-blogging couple in their forties celebrates one year of paying off debts, going from over $41,000 in the hole to owing only $11,596. [NeedToBeDebtFree via BloggingAwayDebt]
Still looking for an affordable e-filing solution for your taxes? The finance blog FiLife “tested every one of the free tax filing services available through the IRS’ Free File program, then posted the results in a detailed, easy-to-read comparison chart.
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