We get a lot of questions and complaints about the cellphone shopping process, so we thought we’d put together a list of 5 things consumers say to cellphone sales reps that they really should just keep to themselves. Enjoy.
tips
Manage Your Money While Traveling
By 6.1.08
Budgeting a key part of travel, but your usual budgeting tricks lose their potency when you leave home. Get Rich Slowly compiled a handy list of budgeting tips to keep you from overspending on your next vacation.
Use Your ATM Card Once A Year To Keep It Valid
By 5.28.08
If you’re the type of person who never uses your ATM card—and we really mean never in this case, you might want to call your bank to find out if there’s a minimum activity threshold to hit to keep it from being deactivated. A reader tried to use her Bank of America ATM card recently and kept getting an “invalid transaction” error at every ATM. She called the number on the back of the card to ask what was going on: “I was told that since I hadn’t used my card in a couple of years it was closed, even though the expiration date is several years in the future, and I hadn’t received any note that suggested I should cut the card up into tiny pieces.”
Moreno And Woods: Scammy Debt Collectors Who Lie And Harrass
By 5.28.08
Erin was the recipient of a recent scam attempt from Moreno and Woods, a debt collection agency that—according to her account and others found online—uses abusive tactics and fraudulent claims to try to con people into paying off debts they never owed to avoid things like wage garnishments and lawsuits. Erin fought back, and shared her story with us to warn others.
Bring A Magnet When You Go Grill Shopping And Other Tips From Consumer Reports
By 5.20.08
Consumer Reports has some tips for those of you who are grill shopping this week. Our favorite? Bring a magnet! CR says some grills are made of crappy stainless steel that magnets will stick to.
Five Easy-To-Follow Principles To Safeguard Your Financial Future
By 5.18.08
Ron Lieber kicks off his inaugural Your Money column by presenting five excellent principles to help guide your financial decisions.
Arbol Cafe Responds To Tipping Controversy
By 4.30.08
Two weeks ago, we made note of a word war going…
Advice On How To Raise Financially Savvy Kids
By 4.25.08
CNN asks some money experts for tips on how to teach kids about personal finance. Laura Levine, the executive director of Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, says she uses a special piggy bank for her 3-year-old son—it has four chambers, “one for saving, one for spending, one for donating and one for investing,” and helps teach him that money is not just for “one thing.”
By 4.25.08
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20 different ways to make good use of carpet remnants. We like the idea of having them in the car for throwing under the tires in case of too much mud or snow. [Frugal For Life]
Use Electronic Postage And Highlighter To Guarantee Mail-In Rebate Success
By 4.23.08
Rebates are one of those “sales games” where the companies use all sorts of rules and tricks to reduce the likelihood that most consumers will “successfully” complete all the steps, but if you’re anal and like getting money, like this guy over at the SlickDeals forums, you can do a few things involving highlighters and electronic postage to improve your odds:
Philadelphia Cafe Keeping Server's Tips For Themselves?
By 4.16.08
There’s a war of words going on in the comments of a restaurant review in Philadelphia’s City Paper. Someone claiming to be a server has outed the Arbol Cafe for confiscating server’s tips. In response, someone claiming to speak for the cafe defended the practice, claiming that they need the tips to pay for their renovation.
DirecTV Contractor Demands Tip Before Starting Work, Storms Out When Faced With A Table
By 4.5.08
William writes to tell us about an asinine DirecTV contractor who demanded a tip before starting work. The contractor was dispatched by Halstead Communications, DirecTV’s unfortunate installer of choice in New York. After being denied an entrance tip, the contractor noticed an easily movable table blocking his way and declared to his partner, “I can’t work like this, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Using Proxies To Get Good Deals When Virgin America Reneges
By 4.2.08
Reader Tom was all set to buy a ticket on Virgin America when all of a sudden the fare he thought was locked in shot up 33%. The machine told him his reservation had expired. Tom tried redoing the purchase several times, clearing his cookies, changing browsers, only to continue to be denied by Richard Branson’s faceless automoton army. So then he cleared his cookies and then rerouting his signal through another computer so to Virgin America it looks like a different user is trying to buy the ticket (in technical terms, he rerouted his traffic through a SOCKS proxy server on the West Coast). Shazam, he was able to get the ticket at the old price. Whether the deal had expired because he dawdled too long, or whether he was only able to get it because it looked like he was coming from the West Coast and the fare was related to the time of day, Tom felt jerked around. If this happens to you, here’s a how-to on using proxy servers.
By 3.26.08
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Want to reduce your Bank of America spam mail? Our commenter tinder posted a link to their opt-out page in our earlier post on Chase spam. [www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/]
How To Get Chase To Stop Sending You Direct Mail Offers Over And Over And Over
By 3.26.08
Anyone who’s a customer of Chase knows how hardcore they can be about direct mail advertising. Martin writes:
Over the last 12-24 months, I’ve been annoyed with about 3-4 mailings a week from Chase for various add-on services and useless products. Already a customer of theirs, I did not appreciate this onslaught of advertising. Here’s a quick opt-out website in which you can cancel all direct marketing letters from Chase… dnmoptions.chase.com.
