MyCardBlog

It seems we can’t make free money from balance transfer any longer. Most credit card issuers have terminated their zero fee introductory balance transfer offers with a transaction fee. For example, Citi Platinum Select Card,which used to offer 0% APR on purchases and balance transfers for years, all with no fees, added 3% transaction fee with $250 cap! Discover stopped their no fee balance transfer offers on all of their cards, and added $50 or $75 cap on balance transfer. It’s very clear that the sweet age is gone. However, we can still find some cards are still offering o% APR on balance transfers without transaction fees. They all are from Citi. Here I summarized the cards from Citi Cards without transaction fees and I hope you can take the last train. The following cards are offering 0% APR on balance transfer with no fees for 12 months.

Citi Professional Cash Card

Citi Professional Card with ThankYou Network (10,000 thank you point with you first purchase)

Citi professional Card (0% APR on purchase)

Citi Upromise Platinum Select MasterCard

How much can you get from Citi?
I think this is the most important question. SO I spent several hours to figure out a way to make an estimation on how much free money we can get by taking advantage of 0% APR on balance transfer. Here are some basic points I used: APY on saving or CD—5%; Start Balance—$10,000; minimum payment for each month—2% of the balance. Then how much can you get from Citi? My calculation told me that after 12 months, you can get $448.95. Other Citi cards may charge you $75 or more transaction fees. SO basically you can make a judgment on how much you can get from balance transfer. A warning is when you carry a large balance (a dramatic drop of your credit score), other credit card issuers might reduce your credit limit. And don’t forget to pay the bills, otherwise your 0% APR will be terminated by Citi.

Tips on balance transfer

1. Some friends claim that they can transfer balance to their checking accounts online from Citi professional. I don’t know. But I think is highly YMMV; 2. Use debit card to transfer balance. Although it may not succeed, it worths a try; 3. Transfer balance to another credit card and then ask for a refund check; 4. Use the balance transfer check (make sure it’s not a cash advance check) or request a balance transfer check; 5. Do balance transfer through a phone call. (this is useful when you want to pay off all or part of your car loan from your credit card)

We should have some laughs. Enjoy it!

We have talked a lot about credit card and bank. Today I want to introduce new component in the finance market—share trading. Most of us may be used to put money in the checking/saving accounts, CDs and money market accounts. Sure those are very safe. But we should see the rewards they can bring for us is limited. We can earn only about 5% APY from them. SO we have other choice—buy shares. It’s obvious that the risk to earn money from share trading is much higher than that form banks. But if we just open the account and make small purchase in order to get the signup bonus, the risk is minimized. What you need to do is to buy a cheapest stock which will cost you around $3-$10. You then are qulified to receive bonus form the sharebrokers. After that you can transfer money back to you accounts in banks. It seems so easy!!! Everyone can do that! The lost is about $4 comission. BUT you can get $50 or more bonus!

Ok. The following are some links to open an account at Sharebuilder.com

$50 hhecare5007, $45 wissalum45, $30 30ucla, $45 uagrad, $50 stbank07, $50 TVSB50, $40 ENTERTAIN40, 2000 continetal miles, 3500 skymiles, 2500 usairways dividend miles, $70-$90 for costco members.

As I said you can have multiple accounts at sharebuiler.com which means you can earn multiple bonuses.

Tradeking also provide similar offers. You can get$100 from tradeking. Promotion code: ACCESS100. Instead, they offer bonus for refering a new customer for current customers. Whenever someone you refer funds his or her account with at least $1,000 and executes a trade, we’ll deposit $50 into your account. It seems similar like ING.

For those who want to get more credit cards, I have a good suggestion. —Apply for Chase Credit Card!

The reason is very simple—as the second credit card issuer in the US, Chase is trying to explore the credit card market. They want to attract more customers in the most competitive market. I have a limited credit history (less than one year) but I get two credit cards in August. I applied for Chase Sony card on Aug 1. However, I missed a call from Chase fraud department which asked me to send out some materials to verify my address. Then one month later, I received the card from Chase. I then applied for Chase Amazon.com Visa Card on Aug 27. This time I got the call from Chase. After some questions, I can see the new Chase Amazon.com Visa card show up in my Chase account in two days. Amazing! I didn’t expect to receive two cards! Some of my friends also successfully get credit cards from Chase. I applied for two Citi cards both of which were rejected! Then I called them up to ask for the reason—they told me that my credit history was too short. They suggest me apply for Citi cards two months later. It’s also the case for most of my friends. SO my conclusion is it’s a right time to get credit cards from Chase.

For your reference, I give some posts about Chase Credit Card.

http://www.mycardblog.com/2007/09/chase-freedom/

http://www.mycardblog.com/2007/09/move-credit-line-with-chase/

http://www.mycardblog.com/2007/09/100-from-chase-freedom-credit-card/

http://www.mycardblog.com/2007/09/chase-freedom-credit-card/

A good news for those who don’t have an ING account right now. ING Direct is offering $50 sign-up bonus for their new customers. It says it’s a special bonus for New York Times readers, but you can sign up here by using the promo code: NY3. Offer expires 09/30/2007.

TO receive the bonus, you have to open an Orange Savings Account with initial deposit of $250. This account features no minimum balance, no fees and 4.30% APY. For those who need the source of direct deposit, ING is a good choice. When paypal is not considered as a direct deposit, they usually take the transfer from ING as direct deposit. When you open the account, a soft pull will reflect on your credit report. Compared to the previous post from which we can get $25 by referred by our friends, this is really a good deal!
This deal has been a history.

Recently I received many emails from so called “Bank of America” which said there were some unauthorized activities about my account at Bank of America. I also heard that someone really took it as real and revealed their registration information. If you look closely at their email address—<pp-verify@yahoo.com>, <bankofamerica@yahoo.com>, and <bankofamerica@google.com>—you can immediately make a judgment by yourself. A very ridiculous thing is that I click the link they offered and, do you know what I put in? I put in words like “bitch, 911, FBI, F**K you”, as my name, SSN, address, and phone number and then I can submit the information at last! Hmm……but we should be aware that the website is similar to the real Bank of America web. Here I put one of the email I received:

Dear Bank of America client,
You have received this email because you or someone had used your account from different locations.For security purpose, we are required to open an investigation into this matter.
In order to safeguard your account, we require that you confirm your banking details.
The help speed up to this process, please access the following link so we ca complete the verification of your Bank of America Online Banking Account registration information.
http://0xd20e5fb6/icons/…/www.bankofamerica.com/sslencrypt218bit/online_banking/ (see the link!)
If we do no receive the appropriate account verification within 48 hours, then we will assume this Bank of America account is fraudulent and will be suspended.
The purpose of this verification is to ensure that your bank account has not been fraudulently used and to combat the fraud from our community. We appreciate your support and understanding and thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

I don’t know next time they will send me emails under which bank’s name….But I won’t fill in my personal information as required from every email. I hope you also won’t give away your personal information. We have phone and we can call them.

Upromise.com is offering free one year Identity Theft Protection plan for us. However, you can’t see the credit report in this plan. They will notify you whenever there is a change in your credit report. It’s really nice for them to do this. Nowadays, we have to pay to enroll in the credit monitoring plans at least fot $100 per year. To join this protection, you can join the Upromise program (here) or you don’t have to join it. (here) Most of us may not be familiar with Upromise. Upromise is a college service provider that helps families earn, save and pay for higher educations. Joining their program is free—sounds like non-profit organization. You can get lots of benefits from them.

By the way, Citi is providing Citi Upromise Platinum Select Mastercard which will give you 1% cash back on everyday purchase and 10% cahs back on 7000+ grocery and drug stores. It also provides 0% APR on balance transfer without a transaction fee. For those who wants to take advantage of the 0 APR on balance transfer offer it’s a good choice.