Personal Finance Reviews

Capital One InterestPlus Account 1.60% APY

pfreviews — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:08:50 +0000

When I was checking my Capital One account the other day, I noticed that they now have a new savings product called Capital One InterestPlus Savings Account. This new account is different from and better than the online savings account, which I own, because 1) the InterestPlus account offers a higher yield at 1.60% APY; 2) you can earn additional 10% bonus on interest earned from the former. There’s nothing new that a new banking product tries to win customers by offering a better rate (the difficult part is to always keep the rate competitive as we have seen what happened to those *new comers* lately), but it’s the first time that I heard an additional bonus will be offered if the customer can maintain a higher balance.

I like the idea of getting a little extra for my money even if it means I have to keep more money in the account, but I am more concerned with how much I can earn by banking with them in the first place because interest rate is what I am looking at when selecting a new bank account. In this case, the 1.60% yield is actually pretty good if you compare this rate with what other online bank offers (for example, Ally Bank 1.50%, Dollar Savings Direct 1.60%, FNBO 1.50%, etc.). Actually, it’s pretty hard now to find a savings account from a well-established bank with a better rate.

So, what is needed to get the better rate and bonus? To open an InterestPlus Savings Account, you will have to have at least $2,500 to make the initial deposit and maintain that level of money in the account as minimum balance. This requirement is relatively high compared to other online banks, but still reachable. If you don’t have $2,500, then this account isn’t for you because balance below $2,500 will earn you no interest at all. To earn the 10% bonus on interest, however, you will need to raise the account balance to $15,000. The bonus is credited every quarter and the balance must be maintained at the $15,000 level during each month of the quarter to be eligible for the bonus. Remember, it’s not the average balance of the quarter, but every month of the quarter. If you don’t that much money, you can still get the bonus if you have a Capital One credit card and use it at least once a month. Actually, it isn’t a bad option if you are already a Capital One credit card holder. If the requirement is met, then the bonus will be credited to your account 4 to 8 weeks at the end of the quarter.

What do you think of this Capital One InterestPlus Savings Account? BTW, the account is FDIC insured without any monthly account maintenance fee.

Zecco Forex $100 Bonus

pfreviews — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 03:51:58 +0000

Are you trading Forex or considering currency trading?

If you are, then you can get up to $100 bonus to get started from Zecco Forex during its holiday promotion. From now till December 18, 2009, if you open a Zecco Forex account and fund the account with at least $1,000, then you get receive a cash bonus after making 3 round-trip trades (purchase and sale of either 1 or more standard, mini, or metal lots). Depending on the amount of deposit, you will get

$25 bonus for $1,000 deposit or more
$50 bonus for $5,000 deposit or more
$100 bonus for $10,000 deposit or more

after meeting all the requirements (open an account, deposit and make 3 trades before 12/18/2009).

Since I don’t have a Zecco Forex account, I don’t know exactly what it offers, but here are some highlights of Zecco Forex:

Easy-to-use, practice version of the Zecco Forex trading platform
$50,000 in virtual funds – trade risk-free
200:1 leverage
Real-time quotes in 37 currency pairs
Powerful charting
24-hour news headlines
Daily and weekly Forex research
24/6 support by phone and live chat

ShareBuilder $50 New Account Bouns

pfreviews — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:17:26 +0000

Online broker ShareBuilder, which is part of ING Direct, used to run a lot of promotions in the early days when there weren’t as many real discount brokers as there are now. Back then, buying stocks with only $4 commission (with their automatic investment plan) seemed to be a good deal for many cost-conscious small investors. Trading real-time with ShareBuilder costs even more, at $9.95 per trade to be exact.

Now, with so many discount brokers to choose from, some even offer stock trades that cost less than $4 per trades (for example, OptionsHouse $2.95/trade and SogoTrade $3/trade) without the constrain that you can only invest on a particular day of the month, I don’t know how many people are still interested in trading with ShareBuilder. I know I am not. I opened a few accounts a long time ago to take advantage of the free bonus offer. Now they have all been shut down. Of course, with ShareBuilder, you can buy partial shares since the dollar amount for each trade is fixed. You can’t do this with other brokers because you can only buy a number of shares in each trade. This could work better if the stock you want to buy has a very high share price that prevents you from buying a whole share. With ShareBuilder, though, you can buy a fraction of one share at a time and accumulate shares gradually.

But if you are one of those who still want to have an account with ShareBuilder, then here’s a $50 bonus offer for you. From now to December 31, 2009, if you open an account with ShareBuilder using promo code TRADEBONUS and make one trade before the deadline, you will receive the $50 bonus in about four weeks after the account opening.

PerkStreet Financial $100 Bonus Offer

pfreviews — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:49:34 +0000

It looks like there’s a better deal from PerkStreet Financial for its free online checking account.

A couple of days ago, I reported a promotional offer from PerkStreet that will give $50 free money to everyone who opens a new checking account with the bank with at least $25 initial deposit. Now the bank has a sweetened offer with $100 bonus.

To get the $100 bonus, open an account with a $25 minimum deposit and keep it active for three straight months. We’ll deposit $100 into the account within 15 business days of the end of the third month.

The requirements are the same as those for the $50 offer, but the deal is much better obviously. If you haven’t opened the account yet, you can use this link to open an account and get $100 free money. See my previous post for detailed review of the account.

PerkStreet Financial Checking Account $50 Bonus Promotion

pfreviews — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:42:09 +0000

Are you using debit card a lot?

If you are, then here’s a new offer that will let you earn rewards every time you use the card to make a purchase. Plus, it will give you $50 bonus if you open an account now.

The new PerkStreet Online Checking Account, backed by The Bancorp Bank, gives the account holders 1% cash back for non-PIN based transactions every time when the PerkStreet Financial™ Visa® debit card is used. The accumulated cash back rewards can then be redeemed gift cards (every dollar perk you redeem gets you $1 on a PerkStreet Financial Visa Gift Card or a gift card from Target, Best Buy, Amazon.com, GAP or Ticketmaster), free music (every $100 in non-PIN purchases earns you a song and every song you redeem gets you $1 in credit at iTunes, Rhapsody or Amazon.com Gift Cards for MP3s or millions of other items at Amazon.com) or coffee (every $200 in non-PIN purchase earns you a cup of coffee and every cup you redeem gets you $2 in credit on a reloadable gift card from Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Peet’s Coffee and Tea and Bruegger’s Bagels).

Right now PerkStreet Financial is offering a $50 bonus if you open a checking account before December 31, 2009 with only $25 initial deposit. The account itself doesn’t charge a monthly fee as long as you use the account at least once a month (so the account is not inactive). To stay active, you can use the debit card to make a purchase. Or you do any of the following: Write a check, use online bill pay, withdraw money from or make a deposit to the account. If you use PerkStreet Checking Account as you primary checking account, then the above requirements can be easily met and the $4.50 monthly account maintenance fee can be avoided.

In addition to the 1% cash back, PerkStreet Checking Account also offers other benefits such as free online bill pay and first set of checks for free. Cash withdrawals from the participating STARsf network ATMs is free of charge; otherwise, a $2 fee will be assessed if withdrawing cash from out-0f-network ATMs.

Finally, some information about the bank behind this new checking account, The Bancorp Bank. The Bancorp Inc. is a publicly traded company (symbol TBBK) that is headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. The bank has offices in Philadelphia, Exton, and Warminster, Pennsylvania; Crofton, Maryland; Orlando, Florida; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. According to the FDIC record, The Bankcorp Bank is established on July 28, 2000 and has been a member of FDIC since July 28, 2000 (FDIC Cert: 35444).

To receive the bonus, in addition to the $25 deposit, you will also keep the account active for three straight months. The bonus will be deposited into your account within 15 business days of the end of the third month.

Want To Lower Your Citi Card Interest Rate? You Must Spend More Money With It

pfreviews — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:31:49 +0000

Are you a Citibank credit card member?

I am and have been since 1998. The card I currently have is the Citi PremierPass card which I got in 2007. Though I own the card, I don’t use it very often because the rewards from the card isn’t better than those I receive from other cards. Basically, I can get 2% cash back, in the form of ThankYou Points, for every dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores, plus 1% anywhere else. It’s still a decent rewards program (the card is offering 20,000 bonus points for new accounts), but I get better rebates by a combination of a few cards. For example, when filling up my car or shopping at grocery stores , I use Chase Freedom Card to get 2% cash back; when eating out at restaurants, AmEx TrueEarnings Card is my first choice sine I can get 3% rebates, if AmEx is acceptable. For everything else, I just use Fidelity 529 College Rewards Card to get 2% rewards. While I would love to use a single card for every purchase, it’s unfortunate that there’s no a one-card solution that gets the most out of the money spent. Thus, I have to take the multi-card approach.

Anyway, credit card rebate isn’t what I want to talk about here. The topic today is about a recent announcement from Citibank about its credit card usage and interest rate policy. According to an article on MSNBC, the only way for Citi cardholders to avoid the current round of interest rate hike is to meet the monthly spending requirement, as much as $750/month in some cases, imposed by the nation’s second largest credit card issuers. However, it’s not that you can avoid the rate increase all together even if you charge the required amount on your cards every month. The rate still goes up. What you get is the rebate of the portion of the financial charge on your balance due to the rate increase.

Well, it looks just like another way the credit card company tries to make its interest rate hike look nicer when it is still allowed to do so. I doubt how much it can ease the burden on cardholders who carry balance on their cards because to get the rebate, you will need to spend $750 every month, and the more you spend, the more interests you need to pay and if you can only manage to pay the minimum every month, the deeper you will be in the hole if you are trying to pay off your credit card debt.

The best way to deal with credit card interest rate is, in my opinion, not to have any credit card debt at all. If you pay your monthly bill in full each and every month, how the card issuers manipulate rates and terms won’t matter too much to you.

LifeLock Coupon Code For 10% Off

pfreviews — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:27:37 +0000

This offer comes at a good time.

I reviewed LifeLock a couple of days ago. Though at the end I concluded that I probably don’t need the service if I can take care of things myself, it is still an option for people who need programs like LifeLock for an extra layer of protection. If you are one of those who are thinking of getting a LifeLock service, you can get it this month in November with 10% off (the original price is $10/month) and a risk-free 30 day free trial. To get the discount, use coupon code NOVEMBERCOUPON when you enroll in LifeLock’s protection service. This promotional offer is good until November 30, 2009.

Can LifeLock Prevent Identity Theft?

pfreviews — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:04:04 +0000

From my understanding, the answer is No, LifeLock can’t prevent identity theft from happening. Rather, it alerts its customer when a potential threat occurs so the customer can necessary actions at the early stage. In fact, it’s more like an alert system that detects when a service subscriber’s personal information may be compromised. In addition, LifeLock also focuses its service on helping customers whose identities are stolen while under their protection plan. But it won’t pay the victim out right for any damage done to him/her. In stead, LifeLock will hire a third party to help the victim to restore his/her identity. That’s basically how the service works. So don’t expect to get $1 million from LifeLock, even if they offer 1 million dollar guarantee.

LifeLock Products

The main product is LifeLock Identity Alert. It’s a system with a wide range of identity coverage and early notification of potential identity threats by email, postal mail, and/or phone when such threats are detected. Usually, the alert will be sent out when your personal information is being used to apply for, for example, credit cards, wireless services, retail credit, utilities, check orders/reorders, mortgage loans, auto loans, and non-credit related payday loans. In addition, other services also available at LifeLock include:

TrueAddress – TrueAddress detect any new address information in address databases nationwide. If it finds the address is changed without authorization, LifeLock will work with you to avoid further damage and restore accurate address information.
eRecon – The service scours known criminal websites for the illegal selling or trading of your personal information, including your Social Security number, credit card number,and driver’s license. It will alert you when such illegal activities are found.
WalletLock – If you lost your wallet, you can use WalletLock service to have everything in your wallet, such as credit/debit cards, driver’s license, social security card, insurance cards, checkbook, canceled and replaced.

The $1 Million Guarantee

As I mentioned earlier, the $1 million guarantee isn’t that LifeLock will pay you $1 million for the damage should you become a victim of identity theft while using their protection service. Instead, the program “will spend up to $1 million to hire lawyers, investigators, consultants and whatever else it takes to restore your name and help you recover the direct losses from the identity theft.” And what the specialist will also do include:

Educate you on the recovery process.
Obtain additional information that is necessary to proceed with the recovery process.
Give you the pre-fill forms, and step-by-step instructions necessary for your state jurisdiction and type of identity theft.
Send over a Power of Attorney form that will allow them to act on your behalf.

Essentially, you will hand over the case to the LifeLock and the specialist it assigned until the issue is resolved, which, as LifeLock claims, usually takes 30 days. However, if you decide to take the matter in your own hands, you will not be compensated for your time and effort under this program, as it explicitly states what the program doesn’t cover

Lost wages or business profits, loss of business or lost opportunities and direct out-of-pocket expenses like postage stamps, gas or mileage to go to local authorities, or any notary public fees, etc. The guarantee does cover the cost for lawyers, investigators, case managers but not any direct losses as a result of the theft. Under the Terms and Conditions, NO money passes directly to our LifeLock members.

Now that you know how LifeLock works, do you think the service, which is at $10 a month, is worth the money?

Personally, I haven’t used any identity prevention or credit monitoring service myself and I am not going to use any from what I can see. It’s not that I don’t believe these services. It’s that I am more like a do-it-myself person who likes to have things in my own control. In stead of having somebody watch out for me, I want to be vigilant on how and where to use personal information and my credit myself. In addition, I also use free services such as free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com and free credit score from CreditKarma.com and Quizzle.com to monitor my credit score.

However, if you are not confident about handling the task yourself or are too busy to do it, then an identity protection program like LifeLock may help.

LifeLock Coupon Code For 10% Off

SogoTrade 100 Commission Free Trades Promotion

pfreviews — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:11:18 +0000

Here’s another promotion from a discount broker.

SogoTrade is offering 100 commission free trades for every new customer. It’s quite easy to get the free trades: Open a SogoTrade account; fund the account with $500; receive the bonus. There is a restriction on the free trades though. They have to be used within 30 days after the account is funded, or they will expire.

On one hand, the offer is quite generous because the total value of the offer is $300. That’s much better than promotions from other brokers (OptionsHouse also offers 100 free trades). On the other hand, how many investors, especial small investors, can make 100 trades in 30 days?

SogoTrade Commission

How much does it cost to trade with SogoTrade?

SogoTrade is very competitive in terms of commission. It charges $3.00 per internet equity trade, regardless the number of shares. From what I know, the commission is only higher than what OptionsHouse charges at $2.95/trade, but much lower than the fee at other widely used discount brokers like Zecco, TradeKing, and Scottrade. For options trading, there’s another $0.70 for each contract.

SogoTrade doesn’t charge any fee if the account is in dormant mode and, unlike other brokers, it doesn’t charge a fee if you are not happy with SogoTrade and want to transfer the account to somewhere else. The transfer usually costs $50 at other brokers. But this is not the only benefit. If you like Sogotrade and want to transfer your account at another broker to SogoTrade, you will get reimbursed for the account transfer fee charged by the other broker up to $100 if the account balance is $25,000 or more.

So, what do you think about SogoTrade and this promotion offer?

OptionsHouse Free Trades Promotion

pfreviews — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:14:44 +0000

Online discount stock and options broker OptionsHouse is currently running a promotion which will give each new customer 100 commission-free trades when the new account is opened during the promotion period in November and December 2009.

Here’s what you need to do in order to receive the free trades:

1. Open an OptionsHouse broker account using promotion code FREE100 before December 31, 2009 (you have to use this link to open an account to get the bonus. The sign-up link on their website doesn’t have this offer);
2. Make an initial deposit of $3,000 or more within 45 days after account opening;
3. Receive 100 commission free trades;
4. Use the free trades in 60 days after the account is funded.

Currently the fee charged by OptionsHouse for stock trades is $2.95/trade, so the total value of this promotions is $295, which is pretty nice considering what other brokers used to offer in the past promotions (for example, TradeKing is offering $50 bonus in their current promotion). However, I doubt there are many new customers can take full advantage of this promotion unless he/she is a heavy trader because 100 trades in 60 days are a lot of trades to make in such a short period of time. So on one and, you have this nice promotion that could save you a lot of money on commissions; on the other hand, the time frame will certainly limit the effectiveness of this promotion.

Anyway, since OptionsHouse charges much less fee for stock trades compared to other widely used stock brokers (for example, Zecco $4.50/trade, TradeKing $4.95/trade, Firstrade $6.95/trade and Scottrade $7.00/trade), it is still a good option for small investors who want to lower trading cost, even if it may be impossible to exhaust all the free trades. So it you are considering to have an OptionsHouse account, this is definitely a good opportunity to get started with this promotion.

Interested? Open an OptionsHouse account today.