Personal Finance Reviews

Discover More Card $50 Bonus

pfreviews — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:08:16 +0000

The Discover More Card is designed for those with very good credit who are looking for a cash reward credit card that offers a $50 Cashback Bonus® after you make $599 in purchase within your first three months.

Through the rewards program, cardholders earn a 5% Cashback Bonus® in categories such as travel, gas, restaurants, movies, and more. Cardholders also earn up to 1% for general purchases and up to 1% Cashback Bonus on all other purchases automatically.

As an added bonus, cardholders can earn up to a double Cashback Bonus when redeeming their rebates for gift certificates from participating Discover Card Partners. There is no yearly limit on the amount of rebates that can be earned, and rebates do not expire as long as the account is active within a 36-month period.

Aside from the reward program, the card also provides several platinum benefits, including up to $500,000 in travel accident insurance, auto rental insurance, and various fraud and security protection services. Cardholders will also receive discounts on products and services at participating merchants and retailers.

Therefore, those who plan to spend over $3,000 a year (to earn the 1% cash rebate), plan to use their Cashback Bonus award at participating retailers (to earn double cash rebates), and plan to pay in full each month after the introductory rate expires (to avoid costly finance charges) will benefit most from what the Discover More Card has to offer.

BTW, it is important to note that like many cash reward cards, the highest rebate offered will not apply to all purchases made with the credit card. In this case, 1% will only be applied only to those purchases made after the cardholder spends over $3,000 in one year, so the overall cash rebate earned will be less than 1%, depending on the amount spent. For instance, if the cardholder were to spend $4,000, only $1,000 of this amount would be applied towards the 1% rebate. However, this does not take into account any promotional offers or the full 5% Cashback Bonus® award.

Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Credit Card Review

pfreviews — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:01:57 +0000

The Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card is designed for those with good credit who plan to take advantage of the rewards program offered.

Through the rewards program, cardholders earn five points for every dollar spent on purchases made at supermarkets, drugstores, and gas stations for the first twelve months of cardmembership, one point thereafter, and one point for every dollar spent on all other purchases. These points can also be redeemed for various items or services. There is a 75,000 yearly limit to the number of points that can be earned, and points will expire in five years.

This card has no annual fee, and it has a reasonably low interest rate for purchases and balance transfers in comparison to other reward cards. In addition, the card has a 0% introductory rate that can be applied toward balance transfers for up to 12 months and on purchases for 7 months. The card also offers Citi Identity Theft Solutions, a Price Protection Program, and $0 liability on unauthorized purchases.

Thus, those who plan to take advantage of the 0% introductory rate for balance transfers and are interested in participating in the reward program will benefit most from what the Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card has to offer.

The following is a quick summary of the benefits of Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards Card:

0% APR on balance transfers for up to 12 months;
0% APR for 7 months on purchases;
5 ThankYou Points for every $1 spent on purchases at supermarkets, drugstores and gas stations for 12 months, 1 ThankYou Point thereafter;
1 ThankYou Point for every $1 spent on all other purchases
Redeem ThankYou Points for merchandise, travel rewards, gift cards, cash and more;
Average 4 ThankYou Points for every dollar you spend through the ThankYou Bonus Center;
No annual fee.

TradeKing Strategy Builder Stock Screening Tool Review

pfreviews — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:45:58 +0000

Discount broker TradeKing recently launched a new stock screener, the Strategy Builder, for investors to better choose which stocks to buy based on either self-built criteria or well-known principles. If you are already using TradeKing, you can find the new Strategy Builder in your account under Tools.

Since Strategy Builder is a stock screening tool, what it does is help investors identify which stocks to buy based on certain criteria, some are developed by Recognia based on well-known strategy, such as the ‘Growth At a Reasonable Price’ strategy described in Benjamin Graham’s 1949 classic book The Intelligent Investor; others are provided by individual investors from the TradeKing user community. Each strategy is built on a set of criteria, with some popular ones as stock price, dividend yield, P/E, price/book ratio, volume, and price performance in various time intervals.

I am not an active trader myself. When I did buy stocks, I never used any screening tools because I don’t think I need a tool to tell me what to buy if I only buy a few stocks in a year. Plus, for the stocks I did buy, it was always the case that I knew the company first before buying the stocks. On the other hand, I can see how using Strategy Builder, or any other stock screening tools for that matter, could help those who make a lot more trades than I do. It can reduce the amount of initial research required by narrowing down the number of stocks meet certain criteria to a much more manageable level. However, I still think that a strategy, even those that built on Graham’s principles, can’t replace the human analysis in stock research. As thorough as a screening tool can be, there are still something that are important to each individual investor.

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.

Capital One $25 Bonus For Online Savings Account

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 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