MyCardBlog

As Associated Press indicated the Honest Abe will become Colorful Abe with splashes of purple and gray livening up the $5 bill. Today government showed off the new design of $5 bill fearuing Civil War president—Abraham Lincoln.Starting in 2003, the $10, $20 and $50 bills are already colorful today. The primary reason for the redesigns is to stay ahead of counterfeiters and their ever-more-sophisticated copying machines. Pastel colors were added in those bills. According to the report, the government will start printing the new notes next week at its facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The goal is to have 1.5 billion $5 bills ready to be put into circulation, at a date still to be determined.

There will be a new large-size 5 printed in the lower right-hand corner of the backside of the bill in high-contrast purple ink which was added to help the visually impaired.

Our government hopes those changes will make it harder for conterfeiters to pass fake bills. As the report sated, there were 3,945 arrests related to counterfeit bills with about 62 million loss.

The next bill to get a makeover will be the $100. However, according to the report, the government is only about one-third of the way through the redesign of the $100 and hopes to have that process completed by this time next year.

Will we be safer to use bills in the near future?

I received a lot of emails about my previous posts—“How to Make Money with $100”. I mentioned that if you have an ING orange saving account, you can get up to $250 bonus by referring your family members or friends to open orange saving account. Some of friends are not sure all the features of this account. Many of them are afraid of be charged extra fees by ING. I have been using this account for a long time and like it very much. Hereby I write a brief review with this account.

ING Direct is a branchless or virtual bank in the United States that was funded in 2000. ING Direct is a member of Feral Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). I think most of us have known that the Net Bank was acquired by ING in September 2007.

People open the orange saving account for two goals: 1). Use it to make direct deposit to take advantage of sign-up bonuses offered by other banks or financial institutes; 2). Enjoy the famous $25 sing-up bonus and earn high rate interest (currently 4.2% APY). A unique feature is you don’t have to maintain a minimum balance to get such high interest rate. As long as your account is active, you can enjoy the 4.20% interest rate without any restrictions.

$25 sign-up bonus if you referred by your friends with minimum $250 initial deposit. (Sometimes they offer $50.)

High interest rate, no monthly fees.

No minimum balance required to earn interest.

No fees, no service charges, no penalties, no hidden fees.

24/7 access your online account.

Link other bank accounts can be easily done via mailing checks or online (Maximum 3 external accounts can be linked online. No maximum accounts limit if you link account through mailing checks.)

Safe and secure—FDIC insured.

They offer Automatic Savings Plan which allows you to automatically have a fixed amount of money regularly transfer to your orange saving account from your linked checking account. All you have to do is to specify how much money you would like transferred, and how often you would like it moved. It’s very simple and easy to maximum your earning.

Other comments:

You might have to wait 10 days until your initial deposit becomes available. Your sing-up bonus will show up immediately you open the account. You have to wait 30 days or so to link other accounts online. At the same time, you can link your other bank account by mailing a check to them. Online funds transfer usually can be finished in 3 business days without any charges. No hard pull to open this account. Click here to learn more features.

AmTrust Bank is offering a $50 bonus for its Totally Free Checking account. This offer is nationally available. To receive the $50 bonus, you have to do the following 4 activities in 90 days after you open the account. They also offer a free 4-pc Corningware Portable Round Casserole Set right now.

1). Minimum $50 to open this account

2). Use debit card—3 purchases each month for 2 consecutive months.

3). Direct deposit—2 direct deposits with minimum $50 are posted to your checking account.

4). Online bill pay—pay 3 different bills per month for 2 consecutive months.

If you can only make one of them, you will get $10. If you can do two of them, you’ll get $25. If you close the account in 12 month, your bonus may be debited from you account.

*Features of this account:

*No minimum balance requirement.

*NO monthly fee.

*Free 24/7 online banking with free bill pay.

*Free unlimited check writing.

*Free debit card.

*Free first order of checks.

No HARD Pulls for this account. You are free to get bonus!!!

I would like to mention the Money Market account at AmTrust which is offering higher than 5.00% APY. If you have lots of free money, AmTrust might be a good choice.

I believe most of us enrolled in the Chase Check Card Promotion (see this post). I sent them a bank mail to ask about the bonus. However, what I got is:

Dear David,
I want to thank you for your patience and your business
with Chase and wanted to write you back to let you know
that I did receive a response from my inquiry about your
promotion. Unfortunately, you did not qualify for the
promotion as the requirement was to spend $500.00 with the
card during the time period, but it appears only $328.41
was spent. I am sincerely sorry for any inconvenience and
thank you for your time.

If you have any questions or require further assistance,
please e-mail us via the Secure Message Center or contact
our Internet Service Center at 1-877-242-7372.

Thank you,

XXXXXXX
Internet Service Center

I remember that I spent more than $500 on this card and I never entered my PIN during check out. Anyway, how can we trust Chase again? I’m really disappointed with Chase.

Compass bank is offering $50 iTunes gift card for opening a new Build-to-Order Free Checking Account. Open the checking account with a minimum $25 deposit within 30 days of registering for the offer, and you will receive a $50 iTunes gift card.

However, the offer is limited to the residents of Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico or Texas. The offer is available only to new Compass new customers and will expire on December 31, 2007.

The feature of this account is absolutely no fees. No direct deposit and no minimum balance required. You can also use the free bill pays online. Another feature is you can get $25 bonus each year for keep account open.

You must make one withdrawal or deposit each statement cycle in order to receive the bonus cash for that particular statement cycle. This approximate amount earned each statement cycle is $2.08. This amount is added every statement cycle (every month) totaling $25.00 at the end of the twelfth statement cycle.

A hard pull is implied to open this account. You can see the promotion page here.

Citi has a new $200 bonus for opening a new checking account. The new promotion code is MVS4. You have to call citi toll-free number 866-810-9043 to open the account and mention the promotion code. Of course, you can apply for a new checking account in branch and ask the banker to enter the promotion code. I can’t find anywhere you can apply for the new account online with this promotion code.

How to get $200?

Open a new checking account with at least $100 (EZ-checking doesn’t qualify)

Set up direct deposit or use 2 bill pays per month for 3 months to get the first $100

Another $100 will be credited to your account within the next 3 months

Must be a new customer without any checking and saving account history with Citi

You can open the account by phone or at a Citi Financial center (please mention the promotion code)

The monthly fee for the Citibank checking will be waived as part of this promotion as long as direct deposit or bill pay usage is maintained.

Offer expires on Feb. 29, 2008

Please note that a hard pull will be appearing on your credit report during the application process. Outgoing external transfers are limited to $2,000 daily and $10,000 monthly. If you don’t keep direct deposit or use bill pay from citi, monthly service fee will be charged.

I have a post about the other $200 promotion at here.

Recently, WaMu keeps sending me mails and emails about its free checking account service. Ok. Let me briefly introduce the free checking provided by WaMu.

WaMu is officially known as Washington Mutual. It is actually the largest savings and loan association in US. Wamu provides financial service across the US. After the acquisition of Providian Financial Corporation in 2005, it’s also the 9^th largest credit card company in US.

The most intriguing feature of the WaMu checking account is “free checks for life.” In this way, you can order checks from WaMu online for free at any time. This will save us a lot of money. WaMu offers one Overdraft/NSF fee waived for each 12 months. It also offers free outgoing international wire transfer. Another feature is they offer free Gold Debit MasterCard with Reward. Reward paid to the account on anniversary date and equals $0.03 for each Gold Debit MasterCard purchase transaction made with the last year up to a total reward of $250. (Is this similar to BOA keep the change?) If you open a free checking together with a saving account, you will earn 4.75% APY from saving account (Statement Savings account)! Minimum amount to open a checking account and saving account is $1 each.

I would say the banking service from Wamu is really great. They don’t impose common fees. No minimum balance required and no direct deposit needed. You can transfer your deposit from saving account to checking account instantly. Another nice feature is that online funds transfer. You can link up external accounts. Of course, they need to verify the account via two trial deposits.

The free of fees, convenience and high yield interest make WaMu checking/saving combination a top choice.

HSBC is offering $25 for their customers. All you have to do is to use Bill Pay to make three bill payments through your online payment account by January 31, 2008. If you qualify, the $25 bonus will be directly credited to your account in about 6-8 weeks. Although the bonus is not so sweet as Chase, it’s just extra money for the account holders of HSBC. Click here to start paying your bills.