Current savings and checking account rates
By financen | August 24, 2008 - 11:18 am - Posted in Credit Card, Personal Finance, Savings

Many banks have updated their rates on the savings and the checking accounts. Savings Plus is a credit union account that offers the value and convenience of a traditional savings account. Besides, you get additional facilities like:

  1. You earn competitive rates on your deposits.
  2. You get the convenience of cash withdrawals in ATMs
  3. You can authorize transfers through dial up and ebranch
  4. Call the customer care to get the credit union check mailed to you
  5. Savings plus can provide automatic overdraft protection for your share management account.

 

 

Savings plus is ideal for systematic savings. Visit your branch to know the current savings rates. It earns more than a Share Management Account (SMA), but it doesn’t lock up your funds the way a term savings account would.

  • Do you want to sign up for apporama deals?

An App-o-Ramma (Apporama) is when you apply for tons of credit cards, leveraging your new credit line for the following benefits:

People swipe their credit card for multiple times to make more money on the credit card bonuses like cash back, gift certificates, free plane tickets etc.

They leverage their new credit line into a high interest savings account of CD and earn 5% plus interest on the money borrowed at 0% APR introductory rates.

They take new credit at 0% APR to pay off high interest bearing loans, mortgages, and automobile payments.

The disadvantage of doing App-o-Ramma (Apporama) frequently is that it will hurt your credit scores tremendously. The scores will down by 80-100 points. If you have good credit ratings and you don’t have any plans of applying for any new loans anytime soon, then Apporama is a great way to rack up free money from credit card offers and high interest savings accounts.

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Do’s and Don’ts to prevent identity theft
By financen | August 19, 2008 - 6:17 pm - Posted in Identity Theft

Be an informed consumer and know how to prevent a possible identity theft.

Beware of the word “prevent”: There is no person and no product that can prevent identity theft. The criminals will continue to benefit as long as there are ways to steal personal information. Sensitive personal information can be found everywhere, housed and archived in variety of ways. Every individual and company should take the initiative and store personal information in a safe manner so that it does not fall into the hands of the scammers.

There are no guarantees: There is no guarantee to anything and identity theft is no exception. While a number of instances of fraud can be restored to pre-theft status, some identity dilemmas simply can’t be fixed. If you’re on the ‘no fly list’ thanks to an imposter or an error, you’ll stay there. A third-party solution cannot deliver a remedy.

Watch for shoulder surfers and skimmers: Be careful with your personal information when you are in public place. With the advent of cell phone cameras, anyone can take a picture of your credit or debit card and they will get your private information pretty easily, if you are not careful.

Keep your social security card safe at home: There is no reason to carry cards displaying sensitive information like your social security card.

Destroy the old computer before you dump it: Your personal computer can have a lot of personal information in it. It is always recommended to physically remove the hard drives before you dump it. This is to ensure that your personal information can not be retrieved even if erased.

Don’t keep your personal information and the password stored on any website by the password manager. When convenience trumps confidentiality, you are actually inviting trouble.

Keep a photocopy of the personal material you carry in your wallet. If your wallet is stolen, you will be left wondering what was actually taken and if it had your credit cards, driving license, you will find hard to track the numbers. You need to have enough information of the lost item so that you can immediately inform the appropriate agencies.

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Is it possible to make money in the foreclosure business?
By financen | August 13, 2008 - 5:47 pm - Posted in Business, Foreclosures

Yes, it is possible to make money in the foreclosure business. The key is to know the strengths and weaknesses. First time investors will more often face the problems in assessing the market value of the property towards which they are interested. Experienced investors do not run through the same problems because they usually have all their property valued close to the same amount (3% variance). They will use local multiple listing service comparable sales, Title company comps and experience and experience to come to that value. It is important to know the value of the property. Because if you are not aware of the price it will be sold for on the open market, you will hardly do anything with that property.

The second important issue is to know the laws in your state. If you are interested towards purchasing a property but due to not knowing the laws fairly of that state, you might fall into serious legal troubles due to structuring an illegal deal. Every state has its own laws that determine what you can or cannot do if the borrower has defaulted in his monthly payments. Do your homework and know if the particular state uses mortgages of trust deeds and the legal time frames and implications of each.

Third issue is the money. It certainly helps to make a good deal if you have the monetary back up. But what happens if you are falling short of finance and you don’t want to miss the property that is getting sold. It is important that you have a strong financial back up to be able to find properties and keep track of it, cover on going office type expenses etc. Even if you don’t have the money but you know someone who is ready to invest, that’s also a good deal.

The fourth issue is the knowledge. Federal tax liens, partial interests, leased land, property information wrong, unpaid property taxes and wrong common descriptions are all things that have hurt investors. You should not be investing in foreclosures if you don’t know how to check the following things.

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How to deal with the creditors calling you and asking to pay your bills?
By financen | August 2, 2008 - 6:04 pm - Posted in Creditors, Personal Finance

Most of us fell behind on some of our bills and it can get late to a certain period of time. This is the time when the creditors start calling you repeatedly asking to pay the debts. Most of the creditors will threaten you on the phone. They will want to scare you or back you into a corner and make you think in an irrational manner.

Most of the creditors and collection agencies will try to be ruthless at some point. This mostly happens if the creditors are collecting on unsecured debts. Creditors collecting for mortgage or auto loan are more reputable in their collection attempts. They know they have the title of you car or your house and if you are not making the payments, they will take away the car or the house. Here are five ways to deal with the creditors.

Always check the latest credit report. Make sure that the debt for which the creditor is collecting is legit. It mostly happens that inaccurate items get reported on your credit copy and you are being called by a creditor for a debt that is not at all yours.

Be aware of the consumer rights explained in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. You will have a fair idea on how a collection agency or a creditor is supposed to deal with you when they are collecting for some account. If they try to violate the laws during collections, you should record their phone calls and sue them. Do not let the creditors abuse or intimidate you on the phone. They will try all possible ways, sometimes illegal methods, to get the money from you.

If the debt is too old and you don’t have the money to pay it back, then check the statute of limitations of your state. If the debt is past the statute of limitations of your state, they cannot take any legal actions against you. You need to send a dispute letter explaining that you are aware of the laws of your state and the debt is past the SOL period. This should stop them from doing further collections. If the debt is within the SOL period, then you should try to negotiate with the creditor. The creditor will refuse your offer at first, but if you make it known to them that they are getting something rather than nothing, they will eventually budge. If the creditor has agreed for a settlement amount, make sure that you have the settlement offer in writing.

Never give the creditors access to your bank account or give them post dated checks. In most cases, the creditors try to do unauthorized debits from the customer’s bank accounts.

If the creditor is calling you to pay a legitimate debt, then you should make a plan to save enough money and make a lump sum payment towards settling the debt. You must make sure that the creditor is reporting the account accurately to the credit bureau after the account is paid off.

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