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March 27, 2006

Cancel your cell phone contract without termination fees?

You may be able to cancel your cell phone contract without paying nasty termination fees ($150? $200?) by getting the cell phone company to cancel you when you become unprofitable. How? You cause the cell phone company to pay roaming charges on your behalf that makes them lose money.

If you have one of those "no roaming charge" plans, that means you don't pay roaming charges but your provider still eats the charges, paying them to whatever carrier carries your calls. Rack up enough of those, and the provider will cancel your service. That's the theory anyway. Read more about it here.

Posted by brian at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2006

The free stuff experiment

For the most part, the offers on moneyBB are limited to free money from banks, brokerages, and credit card companies. However, this guy bought a roll of 100 stamps for $39, spent about two days writing letters to 100 companies, and asked for free stuff.

The experiment reminds me of a book, "Letters from a Nut", by Ted Nancy, where Ted (actually Jerry Seinfeld) writes to companies like Pepsi-Cola asking them if it's okay to sell a product called "Piet Depsi" and then printing the response. Only this guy received more than funny letters - he got a whole lot of fancy merchandise like pens, cans of compressed air, some fake tattoos.

Okay, maybe "fancy" isn't the right word - but it is a fun website to browse.

Posted by brian at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2006

Easy way to trade in your computer

My old (that's 2002 model, which is practially ancient) desktop PC is sitting out in the garage. I didn't know what to with it. Give it to a school? Naw, I found out my local high school only wants P4's with 80 GB hard drives and flat screens.

Instead, I found a website where you can trade it in for gift certificates.

I can only get $85 for the thing, but that's probably better than letting it sit out in the garage for another year. I guess I could eBay it, but I'm too lazy.

Posted by brian at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)

March 19, 2006

Loopholes and tricks to earn free cash

I like reading about other people's experiences trying to find ways to get a free ride. Here are some threads discussing how other people get free cash.

This thread and this thread detail how people earn money doing introductory offer credit card balance transfers at 0% - essentially getting interest-free loans, investing it in money market funds, and paying the money when the intro rate runs out.

This thread discusses ways to best take advantage of Washington Mutual's new checking account that actually pays you to use your ATM card.

Along those same lines, a thread describes how to extract the most money from Bank of America's "Keep the Change" program, where BofA matches a fraction of every purchase made on ATM cards.

Posted by brian at 07:20 PM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2006

My $25 off at Buy.com experience

For first time customers at Buy.com, you can get the Buy.com Visa card and save $25 on your purchase. That sounded good, so I bought some software as a gift for a buddy for $25 plus $5 shipping, got $25 off, and owed $5 on the Visa.

Then FedEx delivered the package to the wrong person. Not the wrong address - the shipping label was correct. It just that they delivered the package at 1:30 in the afternoon when my buddy was at work and apparently somebody walking by the apartment signed for it(apparently not the apartment manager, we later found out).

However, I didn't tell my friend about the shipment ahead of time (it was supposed to be a surprise). About a month later I asked him if he ever got it and after he said no, I found out FedEx won't refund anything if a claim isn't made within 21 days of the shipment.

I figured Buy.com would help me - maybe send another package? Nope, they said, FedEx screwed up, it's not our problem.

Then I realized I could get a refund from the Buy.com Visa. I told the Visa guy that the package wasn't delivered to the right person. No problem, he said - and refunded the $5 in about 10 seconds. No forms, no nothing.

So I didn't pay anything, my buddy didn't get a free gift, Buy.com is out a few dollars, and someone out there has a free copy of Microsoft Money 2006.

Posted by brian at 08:49 AM | Comments (0)

March 13, 2006

One year 7.5% CD (sort of) over at NetBank

If you're not a NetBank customer, you can get $75 to open a checking account or money market account on $500 and $1,000 deposits, respectively. I like NetBank a lot and do all my bill paying with them. From time to time they have special offers for their customers. Right now, the offer is a $50 gift card and 5.01% APY to open a one year CD with at least $2,000.

At the end of one year you'd have, including the gift card, about $2,150, or 7.5%. You can also open a one year CD with at least $1,000 and get a $25 gift card, which is the same 7.5% return.

That's not a bad return - certainly it would be hard to beat. Too bad it's not scalable, though - that is, you can't open a $20,000 CD and get ten $50 gift cards.

Posted by brian at 11:23 PM | Comments (2)

March 11, 2006

Get paid to use your ATM card

Apparently a new checking account is being rolled out at Washington Mutual (WaMu) next week, though nothing is posted at the WaMu website yet. Besides being a totally free account (including free checks for life - nice!), they're going to rebate three pennies to you everytime you use your ATM card. It's not a big deal, and I'd rather use my 1% cash back card on purchases over $3, but a bunch of guys over at FatWallet are getting excited about it (I guess you could make thirty $1 purchases filling up your gas tank to make $0.90 or something). The limit is going to be capped at $250 per year.

I like WaMu and have a checking account there for this website (current balance = $2.19). If you like to use ATM cards instead of credit cards, this might be the account for you.

Posted by brian at 08:48 PM | Comments (2)

March 09, 2006

$25 Wells Fargo bonus - I almost have to apply

For a while in college, I didn't have a car and one of the two banks within walking distance was Wells Fargo. My basic checking account had a $750 minimum. If it dropped below $750, I got hit with a $7.50 monthly charge.

It used to irritate me that Wells Fargo charged me for keeping my money and not paying any interest, either. I finally overcame the inertia and walked to the other bank after getting hit with that charge about six times over a year and a half (I didn't have a job and had trouble keeping $750 in the account).

Now Wells Fargo is offering a $25 gift card to open a checking or savings account. I'm probably going to open an account just to get some of that $50 I paid in account fees back. Woo hoo. They still try to hit you with fees if you don't have direct deposit or don't want to keep a huge balance in the account (I consider anything over $100 huge), but if you sign up for College Checking (you don't have to be in college) and choose Online Statement delivery, you avoid the $3.75 monthly fee (at least they've cut the fee in half). Offer expires 4/30/2006, $100 deposit to open.

Posted by brian at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)

March 08, 2006

$100 bonus for Schwab Visa

This is one of the highest bonuses I've seen for a credit card. Apply for the Charles Schwab Bank Visa and make any purchase or cash advance transaction that posts within 45 days of the account opening date. The card offer is offered by MBNA America Bank, N.A. After qualifying, a $100 promotional credit will appear on your Schwab Bank credit card statement in 8-12 weeks. You can find a thread over at FatWallet discussing more details.

Posted by brian at 08:00 AM | Comments (1)

March 06, 2006

$25 from HSBC and 4.80% APY

NetBank messed up a money transfer a few weeks ago so I started looking for a new bank. I opened up a free checking account (no minimum at HSBC) and earned a $25 bonus. Well, NetBank fixed the problem and customer service was great so I'm not leaving but I probably should move some cash over to HSBC to earn the nice 4.80% APY they're offering until April 30.

Use this link and enter "start" in the Promo Code window in the upper-left hand corner.

Posted by brian at 10:55 PM | Comments (1)

March 03, 2006

E*Trade is back with another $50 offer

You can get $50 to open up an E*Trade money market account with as little as $100. You'll eventually need to fund the account with $1,000 to avoid the monthly service charge and you'll earn 4.40% for the first three months. Then after the account has been open 120 days, you can close it and keep the $50 plus interest because - surprise, surprise - the 4.40% drops down below 1.00%.

Posted by brian at 10:19 PM | Comments (1)