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Some Bonus Offers from Citibank, FNBO Direct, and UPromise

By Sun on Mar 28, 2008 | In Bonus, Free money | No Comments »

Citibank is currently having a promotion for their Ultimate Savings Account and the reward is 40,000 ThankYou points which can be redeemed for 2 round-trip tickets, with each valued up to $400. To get the bonus points:

  1. Open a Citibank regular checking account, link it to a new or existing Citibank Ultimate Savings Account and complete qualifying banking activities.
  2. Deposit $25,000 or more into the Citibank Ultimate Savings Account, fund your checking account with $1,000 and enroll it in ThankYou Network.

The Ultimate Savings Account has an interest rate of 3.20% APY. To open an account, use this link and promo code CYFF if it isn’t already there. The promotion ends May 14th.

FNBO Direct is now offering a $25 bonus for opening a FNBO Direct Online Billpay account. If you are already using FNBO Direct Online Savings account, then you can earn the $25 bonus for opening a new BillPay account. The bonus will be credited to your BillPay Account within 30 days after the account is opened. In order to earn the bonus, your BillPay account must remain open for 90 days and you must make at least one BillPay payment during that period.

I have been using FNBO Direct Savings account for a while, but don’t have a Billpay account, which also pays 2.50% APY. Check out this link for details. The offer ends April 30th.

Are you using UPromise to save for your kid’s college? I am and have earned nearly $450 in rebates since 2004. If you want to join, then you can receive a $10 bonus when opening an account and making a purchase through their network of online merchants. Use this link to apply for an account. The bonus offer expires on April 30th.

Finally, want to have some basic knowledge of currency trading? You can download a free e-book, Currency Trading for Dummies, using this link. [Source: FatWallet.com]

Around the PF Blogosphere: March 27, 2008

By Sun on Mar 27, 2008 | In PF blogoshpere | No Comments »

Hope you enjoy these articles:

SmartyPig Reduces Fees to Try to Make the Service Attractive

By Sun on Mar 27, 2008 | In Personal finance | 1 Comment »

I reviewed SmartyPig a couple of days ago. Though in general the concept presented by SmartyPig, social+savings, is good, my biggest concern is the cost of letting others contribute to my saving goal. Paying $4.95 each time to make a $50 contribution doesn’t make a whole lot sense.

Then yesterday, I got an message from Jon, the co-founder of SmartyPig, announcing that SmartyPig has revamped its fee schedule to address users’ concerns. Now instead of charging $4.95 every time a friend or family member makes a contribution by using credit cards or buying a SmartyPig gift card, the fee will be at a flat rate of 2.9%. Furthermore, if the contributor is also a SmartyPig member, the fee of contributing to other’s saving goal via established bank account will be eliminated (for details, check out their fee schedule). The changes, I think, are quite positive.

If you like what you see at SmartPig and want to give it a try, I have two $50 SmartyPig gift cards that I will give away. There’s still time to enter the drawing.

Scottrade’s Customer Service

By Sun on Mar 26, 2008 | In Brokerage, Investing | 5 Comments

Scottrade Last week, I wrote about my experience with Scottrade when I was trying to place an order of Visa (V) when the markets opened. The day after that post was published, I got an email from Chris, Chief Marketing Officer of Scottrade, who expressed concern why I had to wait so long before being connected to a customer service representative:

I saw on your website that you tried to call us this week to buy Visa and were on hold for 20 minutes at the branch before being transferred. I am sorry for the delay on hold. Can you let me know the location of your branch? We are very focused on excellent customer service and I want to look into this long hold time.

Honestly, I didn’t expect anybody from Scottrade to contact me for that minor issue. In my reply to Chris, I told him that my statement (”had to wait nearly 20 minutes before my called was transferred to Scottrade’s national service center instead being answered by brokers at my local office”) wasn’t very accurate. I wasn’t really put on hold for the entire 20 minutes. Here’s what happened on March 19. I called my local Scottrade office a little after 9:30 am. However, the phone rang much longer than usual and nobody picked it up and I didn’t get a voice message either. So I hang up and dialed again. Still the same. I hang up and waited a few minutes before trying again and still nobody answered the phone. I called my local office quite often in the past and even when everybody was busy, I always got the voice message very quickly so I knew I needed to wait, but not on March 19th. Eventually I waited until I was told that my call will be transferred to Scottrade’s national service center during peak hours or in the weekend. After a few more minutes, I spoke to a broker and that was about 10:00 am.

I know March 19 was a busy day because of Visa’s IPO, but somehow the voice message I usually get didn’t work and that caused the confusion as I wasn’t sure what happened. If I had waited a little longer instead of dialing and waiting many times, I could have reached a CSR earlier.

Anyway, today I got a response from Kelly from Scottrade:

I manage public relations for Scottrade and I wanted to follow up with you on your correspondence with Chris and make sure you were satisfied. When you call your branch, the phone rings about five times and then rolls over to our Service Center here in St. Louis if no one is able to answer the call - either because they are assisting customers in the branch or are on the phone. Typically, however, they are able to answer within two to three rings. We’re not sure what happened in your particular the branch the day you called. We do know it was an unusually busy day due to the Visa IPO, but the calls still should have rolled over promptly. We appreciate being alerted to a potential issue and are glad that we had a chance to investigate it.

I have been a Scottrade customer for more than five year, having our brokerage account and IRA accounts with the firm since 2002. Though I have opened several brokerage accounts with other firms in the past couple of years, Scottrade remains our primary broker for reasons I have explained before. I am quite happy with Scottrade, though its commission wasn’t the cheapest.

On the other hand, I also have an account with Zecco, which offers $0 commission for stock trading that nobody can beat, but its customer service is just terrible. I have complained at here several times in the past about my experience with them, but nobody ever contacted me for the issues I, as well as other customers, encountered when dealing with Zecco.

I guess that’s the reason why I won’t jump from Scottrade to Zecco.

Random News: Social Security Exhaustion Date, USPS Free Recycling Through Mail, and First Ever Actively Managed ETF

By Sun on Mar 25, 2008 | In Retirement, Personal finance | 2 Comments

social_security.png

The government today updated its outlook on Social Security and Medicare and there’s no good news for folks who will retire in 10 years from now. According to the annual trustee reports released by The Department of Treasury, the Social Security Trust Fund will run into negative cash inflow in 2017 and exhaust its assets in 2041. The Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, on the other hand, is projected to run out of money in 2019. With 78 million baby boomers expected to retire in the next few years, the financial strain on the two programs will increase, which could force the government and congress to increase taxes or reduce benefits, or both.

Time to save for our own retirement :)

Have old PDAs, MP3 players that you no longer use, but don’t want to just threw them away? You can recycle them through USPS mail!

The U.S. Postal Service announced early last week that it has started a pilot program to allow customers recycle small electronics, such as inkjet cartridges, PDAs, Blackberries, digital cameras, iPods, and MP3 players, for free. Currently the program is only available in 10 areas, including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles and San Diego. But it could nationwide if the pilot is successful. Envelopes used in the recycle program can be found at 1,500 post offices in these areas and postages for shipping back the recycled items will be paid by Clover Technologies Group.

Finally, the wait is over!

Bear Stearns Asset Management, whose parent company has dominated the headlines of financial news lately, launched the first ever actively managed exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Bear Stearns Current Yield Fund (YYY) today. Triple-Y is a fixed income ETF that invests in “a variety of short-term fixed income instruments.” The fund has an expense ratio of 0.35%.

Since YYY is an actively managed ETF, it doesn’t follow any index. That’s different from all other ETFs previously being offered, which all track some kind of index. The actively managed equity ETFs from PowerShares are expected to hit market next month.

Will you invest in actively managed ETFs?

*Photo from Coxandforkum.com

SmartyPig Review Plus Two $50 SmartyPig Gift Cards Giveaway

By Sun on Mar 25, 2008 | In Personal finance | 30 Comments

smartypigHow do you like the idea of letting other people, family members and friends, help you reach your saving goal?

If that, letting others help you reach your saving goal, is what you are looking for, then SmartyPig could the answer.

Continue reading …

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