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July 19, 2005

Signing your credit card receipt

I don't know if this is happening to you, but I'm finding a lot of stores ask to see my ID when I give them a credit card for a purchase. So I just started saying "No - you just need to match the signature on the back of the credit card". That's worked three times out of three. No one has refused the purchase - yet - but I'll keep trying.

Anyway, it reminds me of Zug's story where he completely makes up the signature that does not at all resemble the signature on the back of the card. It's a pretty funny read.

Posted by brian at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)

July 18, 2005

Thanks for the free $20, Chase

Last month, I wrote that I had signed up for the Amazon.com credit card to get $30 and almost immediately closed the account. I kicked myself because my girlfriend also got the same credit card but didn't close the account and about a month later got $20 more from Chase for trying out their "Payment Protector". So guess what two things came in the mail today?

First, Chase sent my girlfriend the Terms and Conditions of the Payment Protector Plan and asked her to sign something and send it back saying she understands and agrees to the Ts and Cs. At least they could've supplied a postage-paid envelope. That won't be getting mailed back. Second, they sent me a check for $20 to try out their Payment Protector plan. I wonder what would happen if I crossed out the part above the signature that says:

I understand that cashing or depositing this check automatically enrolls me in the optional Payment Protector Plan at a cost of 79c per $100 of my average daily balance ... blah blah blah

So I guess I didn't miss out on the $20 at all. It's hard to see how they're going to make any money from me since my account is still closed, but maybe they're not thinking that far ahead. Thanks, Chase!

Posted by brian at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

July 17, 2005

Working around the $5,000 per day withdrawal limit

A bus wrecked my car a couple of weekends ago and we bought another used car. It's a Subaru Outback and it's a big step up from the smashed up Corolla. Now we can actually put the mountain bikes on top of the bike rack where they belong instead of taking off both wheels and the seats to try to squeeze them into the back seat of the Corolla, which took about 15 minutes.

The owner wanted a cashier's check or money order - not a personal check and not cash. That was understandable. So the day before making the purchase, I went to the bank to get a cashier's check. However, I only had $10 in my Washington Mutual account and was trying to cash a personal check for $8,700 (for the car) and convert that into a cashier's check. The teller said they'd need to place an eleven business day hold on the check.

The teller said Washington Mutual would only make up to $5,000 available immediately. So I needed to come up with another $3,700 in cash to deposit into my WaMu account that would be available right away.

You can get $50 cash back at Safeway, Ralph's, Vons, and a whole bunch of other stores when you use your Discover card, so my immediate thought was that I just needed to make 74 trips to Safeway and I'd have my $3,700. However, I was trying to get this taken care of on my lunch break with only my bike as transportation and I decided that would be Plan "D".

Plan "B" was to go to Bank of America, where I had recently opened an account to get the $100 sign up money, get a cashier's check there for the $3,700, and come back to WaMu. (Plan "C" was to call up the Subaru owner and ask them if they'd consider taking a personal check for $3,700, but somehow, I didn't think she'd go for it). When I told Plan B to the WaMu teller, he just said, "Why don't you just write another check for $3,700?"

He offered to "simulate" (whatever that means) the transaction to see if it would go through. If it wouldn't, I could go for Plan B. So I wrote another check. It went through. I got the cashier's check and left pretty happy with WaMu.

So you can get more than $5,000 in cash from WaMu by writing personal checks without having to wait for the checks to clear in eleven business days I don't know how much I could've gotten in total, but next time we go to Vegas, I'll bring a big fat checkbook and find out (oh wait - we only play the 50 cent craps at Casino Royale - never mind).

When I called customer service that night to find out how much I could've gotten, the rep (who sounded about 19 years old and pretty clueless) told me it depended on history of overdrafts, length of time the account is opened, and the manager's mood that day, but generally $5,000 is the limit. I guess it's only the limit per check, though.

Posted by brian at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2005

Carfax's "instant" refund

My parked car got hit by a bus a couple of weekends ago and was totaled. Dealing with the insurance company hasn't exactly been fun but it looks like they are going to compensate us decently for the rental car, towing, storage, and value of the car. The biggest pain has been the time and effort involved in looking at used cars to replace our Little Mule and trying to figure out what might be wrong with them.

I know a little bit about exhaust emissions from gasoline and diesel vehicles from my job, but that's pretty useless when trying to figure out if a car is going to last the three to four years we plan to drive it before we can finally buy our first new car. So when we found the car we liked I ordered a Carfax report for $24.95 as the first step to find out more about the vehicle's history. Since the Carfax website offers an instant refund if not 100% satisfied, I thought I had nothing to lose.

The Carfax report was useful. It confirmed the story of the owner as to when they bought the car from the original owner and how many miles they put on it. It also showed the car hadn't been in any accidents - that is, at least not in any REPORTED accidents. I was pretty satisfied. But then I had to ask myself - was I 100% satisfied? I got to thinking that I really didn't know what information Carfax had access to and what information they didn't have access to. For example, is it possible to report accidents to an insurance company or to the police but Carfax wouldn't have found this data? I couldn't tell what records they had searched and what records they hadn't.

So, since I was only, say, 80% satisfied (if such a thing even exists), I applied for the "instant money back" guaranteed at the bottom of the website.

Instead, the next day, I got back an email trying to talk me out of the refund:

Hello Brian,

Out of curiosity, did you find no value in the report?

Consider this useful information presented in the CARFAX Report you viewed. It offers a sequence of odometer readings to help verify the current mileage and offer a sense of the driving history for the vehicle. You know where in the country this vehicle has been during its life. No title problems or potential rollbacks are reported - Buy Back Guarantee applies to this vehicle (and would be voided if you receive a refund).

We also searched for any open recalls for this vehicle. In this case, none were found. That is useful information to have. Were you already aware of this?

Overall this is what I call a "good news" report - it should make you more comfortable in making a decision about this vehicle based on the information that is reported.

Please let me know if you still find no value in the report and would like to continue with the refund.

Chrissy
Consumer Affairs
WWW.CARFAX.COM
"Don't buy a used car without CARFAX!"

So, unless I'm confused about the meaning of the word "instant", Carfax clearly fails in their "instant money back" guarantee. Also, I don't like how Carfax tried to change the subject from "100% satisfaction" to me finding "no value" with the report. So I wrote back:

Hello Chrissy,

Finding value or no value in the report is irrelevant. The Carfax website states "Get every penny back if not 100% satisfied!". I'm "not 100% satisfied". So please refund "every penny back".

Also, it seems that the CARFAX "instant money back guarantee" isn't
exactly "instant", but please make it as "instant" as you can.

Thank you,

Brian

Less than two hours later I got this:

Hi,

Thank you for taking the time to read my response and writing back. I really appreciate it.

I will process your refund request immediately.

The credit should appear within the next statement or two, depending on how your credit issuer posts these items. Please let me know if you do not see this credit within two credit card statements.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Chrissy
Consumer Affairs
WWW.CARFAX.COM
"Don't buy a used car without CARFAX!"

So Carfax gets a mixed review from me. Their report was useful, but trying to talk me out of the refund, regardless of whether I was trying to get a free report or was genuinely unsatisfied, left a bad taste in my mouth. If I'm completely honest with myself, I probably was going to go for a refund no matter how the report came back, but if they're going to offer a guarantee of 100% satisfaction, they should live up to it, no questions asked.

After the Carfax report I paid a mechanic $100 to do a vehicle inspection. He found a leaky battery, slightly worn rear struts, and a couple of hoses that should be replaced soon. I was 100% satisfied with his work and we're buying the car next weekend.

One more thing - Carfax offers website owners $3 for every person who links from their website to Carfax and buys a report. If you go to Carfax from here, I won't make anything - I'm not an affiliate.

Posted by brian at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2005

$200 from Citibank

Citibank sure keeps rolling out the offers. Since I started this website a few years ago, I can't remember a time when they didn't offer sign up money for opening a bank account or applying for a credit card.

Now they have a dedicated website just for the sign up money offers: offer.citibank.com. The best current one I could find one looks pretty good (enter the code CJ22 in the window at the website above).

If you open an EZChecking account with $1500 and keep $1500 in the account to avoid maintenance fees, you get:

- $50 after three months of paying two bills a month
- $50 more after three more months
- $50 more after three more months
- $50 more after three more months, for a total of $200 after 12 months

That's equivalent to $200/$1500 x 100% = 13.3% in guaranteed, risk-free interest.

I've had a Citibank account before and found citibankonline.com to be pretty easy to use. I also remember Citibank as having good customer service reps that responded quickly to email questions. The bill paying is nice too because they have a ton of merchants already set up in their system, so the set-up required is really minimal. The only thing I didn't like was having to maintain a high balance to avoid monthly service charges, so I eventually closed the account and switched to NetBank, where I can keep $1 in checking without any fees.

Still, if you want to get $200 for trying them out, this sounds like a great offer. You can also avoid the monthly service charge with two or more electronic bill payments from, or a direct deposit to, a Regular Checking account during the monthly statement period.

Posted by brian at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

July 04, 2005

Best time to buy stuff

I've read on the internet (so it must be true) that the "best times" to buy a new car are (1) the end of December since a lot of people are buying holiday gifts and not new cars and (2) betweennt model years to get ready for next years models. July to October when dealers are trying to get rid of the curre

(I also ran across this article that says it's never the best time to buy a new car since
the average new car loses 12.2% of its value in the first year and it's better to buy used and let someone else take the depreciation hit).

Anyway, that got me thinking about whether traditional "best times of the year" to buy things exist for other products. Here's what I've culled from my exhaustive (read: 15 minutes using Google) search.

January: Electronics like televisions and computers go on sale
February: Store-wide department store sales around President's Day
March: China, glassware, and silverware plus washers and dryers are cheaper
April: You can find bargains on air conditioners and sleepware
May: Now's the time to get luggage for your summer vacation or home furnishings, if you're planning to stick around the house
June: Furniture sales are big
July: Swimwear and gardening supplies get marked down
August: Fur coats and garden furniture (two classics that always go together) can be had at a discount
September: Back-to-school stuff - but you already knew that
October: Winter wear bargains are around
November: Look for clothing sales and, of course, Black Friday after Thanksgiving when it seems the whole U.S. goes on sale
December: Pick up everything cheap after Christmas when retailers clean out the shelves

Have some more tips? Don't be shy! Please comment here or in the Forum.

Posted by brian at 07:30 AM | Comments (0)