MyCardBlog

This is a short notice for all MyCardBlog.com readers that CVS is running American Express Gift Card Promotion starting on the Sunday. According to the flyer, you can get $10 extra bucks from CVS for buying any 3 American Express Gift Cards. Plus you can also get a $15 gas card via mail-in-rebate from American Express for purchasing 3 American Express Gift Cards at CVS stores.

SO for 3 $25 American Express Gift Cards you pay $75 plus about $12 fees. But you can get actually $75+$10+$15=$100! So there is about $13 profit.

The $10 extra bucks is limited to 1 per household. And the $15 gas card is also limited to 1 per household. You have to mail the rebate form to get the $15 gas card.

Update: Official American Express Gift Card information can be found at www.americanexpress.com/gift.

Mint.com is offering free credit score promotion—free FICO credit score for Mint.com users! This is a limited time offer which is ended on November 26, 2008. This is a special promotion from Mint.com partnered with myFICO.com to offer mint.com users a free credit score.

All mint.com users have received the email titled “Get a Free FICO Credit Score: Limited Time offer to Mint.com users”. The email indicated that:

Through an exclusive partnership with myFICO, you can get this valuable information free when you visit Mint.com before November 26, 2008.

What is FICO credit score?

First, FICO is the acronym for Fair Isaac Corporation, a publicly-traded corporation that created the best-known and most widely used credit score model in the United States. So FICO score is the credit score most lenders use to determine your credit risk. Your score is based on information the credit bureau keeps on file about you. The FICO score is primarily used in credit decisions made by banks and other providers of secured and unsecured credit. Only myFICO actually is offering FICO score to general US consumers. We usually get the credit score from our credit reporting agencies. However, those are not real FICO score. It’s not normal to see there are up to 100 difference in credit scores provided by credit reporting agencies. For example, TransUnion might say your credit score is 756, but Equifax indicates that your credit score is only 687! The reason behind this is those credit reporting agencies are only using similar model to estimate your FICO score but absolutely not real FICO score. Usually, people call those scores are FAKO score to distinguish from the FICO score.

Consumers who received the invitation email can login to Mint.com and click the “Get my FICO score now” tab at the mint.com account. This will lead you to www.freeficoscore.com which indicates that only the first 40,000 responding can get the free FICO score. It’s free. NO credit card required. And no obligation.

You need to put your SSN and address to verify your personal information to get the FICO score.

I have a post named “6 Web Based Personal Finance Tools” which introduces many web based personal finance tools. I think most of the users of the 6 personal finanace websites have received the offer. Since your FICO credit score directly influence your loan rate, and your other financial matters in your life, it’s important to know your FICO score. Do not miss this chance!

Equifax, one of the famous 3 credit report agencies, was just named a technology leader in the 2008 FinTech 100 list by American Banker and Financial Insights. Consumers have been using the service from Equifax for more than 100 years. And Equifax is continuing to promote technical innovations all the time. The latest technique innovation is the introduction of I-Card which is supposed to be an online identity card.

What is the I-Card?

I-Cards (information cards) are just like your driver’s license, passport or other IDs which can be used everywhere to identify who you are. But I-Cards are a little bit special because they can only be used online. You can’t use I-Card at a grocery store to buy alcohols or cigars. In other words, the I-Cards are online equivalent of your driver’s license or passport. I-Cards allow you to show your “online ID” at some ID required websites and e-commerce sites that accept the I-card and conduct online transactions with greater security. It’s expected that the easy-of-use and security of I-Cards will boost the relationships between consumers and businesses and make the online transactions more easy and secure.

What can I-Card do?

• Login to websites with a single click
• Create relationships with those you want to do business with
• Manage your personal data more easily
• Manage the claims that you make to other people and institutions about yourself (for example, you are over 18)
• Prove that you are who you say you are without revealing unnecessary details, by using trusted identity provider

According to the equifaxicards.com, you can use your information cards at any sites show the i-card logo on their screen.

The I-card is a product of Equifax and Parity, a leader in user-centric identity management. After creating an I-Card, the consumer will also be offered Parity’s Azigo I-card management software to enable one-click sign-in and identity verification. (somewhat like the American Express’ Online Assistant)

The first product is the Over 18 I-Card. The “Over 18 I-Card”, authenticated by Equifax, demonstrates the power of I-Cards to enable immediate, secured access to restricted content without site-specific account creation or log-in. Every time there is a requirement of age verification, you should only present your I-Card to prove that you are over 18. A very good demonstration is the watch-this.com which requires you to provide I-Card to watch the video contents on that site (this is only a demonstration site).

More I-Cards products are coming soon.

There are 3 easy steps to get your I-Card:

1. Register and securely authenticated by Equifax.

2. Download and install the Azigo Card selector.

3. Whenever this is a requirement of I-Card, you I-Card is automatically stored in your card selector and ready to use.

I-Card is a new technology product that can secure online activities like online shopping and online entertainments. The I-Card is expected to reduce the online credit fraud and identity theft. Create a new I-Card for yourself today!

I have a review on the ShopDiscover Program developed by Discover Card. Frankly speaking, the cash back offered by the ShopDiscover Program is much higher than other cash back shopping websites. However, the obvious disadvantage of the ShopDiscover Program is the online merchants are not too many compared to other cash back websites. Today I realized that the ShopDiscover Program actually just added more stores for the coming shopping season. It’s a great time to use ShopDiscover to save money for the shopping season.

The ShopDiscover Program is a rewards program which will give you extra rewards in addition to the cash back or other rewards you can accumulate for online shopping through ShopDiscover. This is a similar program like Chase Rewards Plus, Bank of America Rewards Shopping Mall, and Citi Bonus Cash Center. You can earn extra cash back for shopping online through above mentioned websites.

The advantage of ShopDiscover Program is high cash back rate compared to other websites. For example, Sony offers 5% cash back at ShopDiscover but you can only get 4% cash back at ebates.com and 3% cash back from Chase Rewards Plus. You can get 5% cash back from Best Buy through ShopDiscover but you can only get 1% from ebates.com and 3% from Chase Rewards Plus. The difference is huge if you are shopping for a laptop, desktop or other electronics.

The disadvantage of the ShopDiscover Program is you have no way to track your click history thus you will miss your cash back for shopping through ShopDiscover. ebates.com and fatwallet.com will offer click history in your account thus you can know exactly when you placed the order. If the merchant missed your order, you can complain by providing the click history and your order confirmation. In this way, your cash back will never miss. But in ShopDiscover, you don’t have access to your click history and order confirmation email alone is not so useful sometimes. I personally missed a cash back reward from ShopDiscover which should give me $12.00 for purchasing an iPod touch at apple store (5% cash back is highest among other cash back websites.).

Some added online stores are:

Banana Republic 10%

Best Buy 5%

Dell 5%

EastBay 10%

Enterprise 10%

GAP 10%

Guess 10%

hotels.com 5%

Lenovo 5%

Old Navy 10%

Onlineshoes.com 15%

Ralphlauren.com 5%

Sony 5%

North Face 5%

I should also mention that you can get 5% cash back from Wlamart.com through ShopDiscover. This is the highest rate that I have ever seen.

In order to qualify to get the cash back, you have to shop through ShopDiscover (click the link at ShopDiscover) and place the order using a Discover Card (Any Discover Card will qualify.). The most popular Discover Card is the Discover More Card which offers 5% cash back on selected categories which change every quarter. Since Chase Freedom Card changed its new cash back rate, the Discover More Card is much better than the Chase Freedom Card. Another popular Discover Card is the Discover Open Road Card which offers 5% cash back on gasoline purchases.

Of course, there are other rewards sites for your reference:

ebates.com, fatwallet.com, cashrewardsplus.com, live.com/cashback, jellyfish.com, and mrrebates.com.

Today a reader sent me an email about “Verified by Visa” service. He obviously didn’t know anything about the Verified by Visa and thought it was a phishing site. I think it is necessary to talk about what the Verified by Visa is for and how it works. My friend actually placed an order at Newegg.com to purchase the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 digital camera and he didn’t know what the Verified by Visa was, as a result, he placed the order twice at Newegg.com.

So what is Verified by Visa?

Verified by Visa is free to Visa cardholders and was developed to help prevent unauthorized use of Visa cards for online shopping. The cardholders can choose a password at through activation of the Verified by Visa service. Only the cardholders remember the password. Thus Verified by Visa protects Visa cards with personal passwords, giving cardholders reassurance that only they can use their Visa cards online. Once your Visa card is activated, your card number will be recognized whenever it’s used at participating online stores (Click here to see the participating stores.). A Verified by Visa window will automatically appear and your Visa card issuer will ask for your password. You’ll enter your password to verify your identity and complete your purchase.

For the online stores that are not participated in the Verified by Visa service, you can use your Visa card as normal.

The Verified by Visa is an attempt by Visa to reduce online fraud and identity theft. However, there are some problems associated with it. Because the Verified by Visa step comes as a pop-up window and general shoppers usually think pop-up windows are from phishing sites. Actually, if you look at the domain of the pop-up window, you will find that the domain is not from the site where the user is shopping, not from the card issuing bank, or visa.

Actually, Verified by Visa is a 3-D Secure protocol which is an XML-based protocol used as an added layer of security for online credit and debit card transactions. The 3-D Secure protocol was developed by Visa to improve the security of Internet payments and offered to customers as what we now know Verified by Visa service.

How does Verified by Visa work?

• Activate your Verified by Visa service in the Verified by Visa program now or while shopping online. You have to provide your visa card account number and last 4 digits of your social security number along with other information. It’s easy and only takes a few moments to activate your card. You can do it right here on the secure Visa site or when prompted during the checkout process at one of our participating online merchants. Either way, your information is protected. (link to activate the service: https://verified.visa.com/aam/data/default/landing.aam?partner=default)
• Shop at participating online merchants with Verified by Visa symbol.
• Use your Visa credit card or debit card at the checkout and then put in your Verified by Visa password. Once your password is recognized by the transaction system, your order will be successfully placed.
• There is no charge — Verified by Visa is free to Visa cardholders.

Verified by Visa used to pop up at many online merchants which participate in the program. Right now, this service seems not so popular and not all online retailers are using it. But the Verified by Visa still is an important and effective way to reduce your risk when you place an order at the websites that out of US. Many payment network might still require you to use Verified by Visa service.

Most of you are familiar with the famous Black Card (American Express Centurion Card) issued by American Express. This Black Card has been reviewed here. The reason why the Black Card is famous is over 98% people are not qualified for this credit card which has an annual fee of $2,500. However, there is another card that even more prestigious than the Black Card, the Diamond-Studded Dubai First Royale MasterCard.

Yes, this is a very cool credit card which is studded with real diamonds all over the credit card. For me, there is no other ways to let me know that you are a very rich people in the world. Because all of our credit cards are made from plastic but your credit card is made from real diamond and covered with real gold! The Dubai First Royale Diamond MasterCard was introduced to the Dubai credit card market in the March of 2008. This credit card is also by invitation only. This credit card is offered to a “select” group of elites who “must possess the right criteria in terms of social standing and profile.”

Another limitation which restricted the population of the First Royale MasterCard is this credit card is only available to the super rich people at Dubai. This handcrafted black with golden metallic border credit card with no spending limit is studded with a certified diamond.

The First Royale MasterCard is designed by Inno Design, an internationally acclaimed design consultancy and is the first of its kind to use a certified diamond and metal implant technology in credit card design. There are less than 200 people are using this credit card in the world.

What’re benefits of this credit card?

The cardholders can have their own personal relationship managers with personalized services worldwide, yacht charter, polo club entry, VIP restaurant services, and a business package that allows customers to order a set of four key personal services in more then 13 international locations.

Due to the special design, it’s reported that only nine cards are produced in a day and the manufacturing process involves 36 processes from metal casting to diamond setting by a jeweler.

Actually, there are many other similar credit card products in the market like Sotheby’s World MasterCard and GK Power’s High-Concept Card. I will introduce them in the near future.

(Report about this card can be found at business24-7.)

This must be one of the hottest topics on the web yesterday. Ocean National Bank is offering free credit monitor service for its customers. Anyone with a promotion code can use it to get free credit monitor service at Equifax, one of the three credit bureaus. Since the promotion code is open to everyone, everyone can use it to get a free 2-year credit monitor service from Equifax and Ocean National Bank will pay for you.

This promotion is listed on the Ocean National Bank’s front page (https://www.eocean.com). About the free credit monitoring service can be found at https://www.eocean.com/freemonitoring.html. Apparently, the service is offered to Ocean National Bank deposit customers only. As they indicated:

In our continuing effort to provide our customers with enhanced privacy protection, we are pleased to offer all of our personal deposit customers free Equifax Credit Watch Silver.

Equifax Credit Watch Silver offers you:

• Email alerts within 7 days of key changes to your Equifax credit file to help protect against credit card fraud (alerts triggered by the lender’s report to Equifax)
• Wireless alerts option
• “No news is good news” monthly message if there are no alerts
• One free Equifax Credit Report with a discount on additional reports
• $2,500 in identity theft insurance with $250 deductible (some limits and exclusions apply)
• Premium customer care, 8AM–3AM, 7 days a week
• Identity Theft Protection news and tips

The truth is there is a leaked promotion code with which you can enroll in the Equifax Credit Monitor service without any payment for two years. Click the link and you will get a free promotion code.  With that code, you can click here to finish the enrollment process without any payment information. So you do NOT need to be an Ocean National bank customer to enroll in the free credit monitor service provided by Equifax.

About Ocean National Bank: A a locally managed commercial bank headquartered in Portsmouth, N.H., with $2 billion in assets and 42 branches in New Hampshire and southern Maine with more than 150 years of operation history.

People without any relationship with Ocean National Bank reported successfully enrolled in the credit monitor service. Personally, I think this is a good deal to catch.

American Express is in trouble like every other financial companies nowadays. And now it has got the approval from the U.S. Federal Reserve to become a commercial bank which will allow American Express to gain the access to the huge bailout plan fund in the near future. This is said to be the last big independent credit card company that transforms to a bank holding company.

The reason for this transition is probably the increased number of credit-card holders failed to repay loans since the credit crisis. However, American Express is still keeping running credit card promotions to credit card holders. My last mention of the promotion from American Express was “American Express My Wishlist Teaser” which will be terminated on November 21, 2008. Another promotion that is worth mention is the $10 statement credit for shopping at walmart.com.

Today I received a mail from American Express indicating that I can use my Starwood Preferred Guest Card from American Express at walmart stores or walmart.com twice with at least $40 per transaction. The mail from American Express clearly indicates that

Receive a 20 $ statement credit on any American Express card account when you spend $40 or more two times at walmart stores or walmart.com between Nov 18 and Dec 18 2008.

The link to register your credit card to qualify for this offer is http://offers.amexnetwork.com/walmart.

You have to fill in your credit card number, expiration date, security code, billing zip code and name on the card.

This is a really easy money to get since you can simply buy two $50 walmart gift cards and you can get $20 back! This promotion is targeted to most of American Express credit cards like Simply Cash Business Card, and Blue Cash from American Express etc.

Fine print:

To be eligible to receive the $20 statement credit, you must be 18 or older, a holder of a valid consumer American Express Credit or Charge Card issued in the U.S. and you must have recieved this offer letting you know that you have been pre-enrolled in the campaign (a Registered Cardmemeber) To receive $20 Statement credit, Registered Cardmembers must complete 2 separate transaction of at least $40 or more at any Walmart store or online at www.walmart.com (each, an “Eligible Transaction”) between 11/18/08 and 11:59 PM EST on 12/18/2008.Only one registration per Cardmember account permitted. Certain American Express Cards, including, but not limited to , HealthCare Related Cards, Prepaid Cards, and Corporate cards, are not eligible for this offer. To receive offer, both transactions must be made on the same American Express card. Transactions made on another card account or a supplementary Card with different Card account number are not eligible. The $20 will be credited to the Card account as statement credit. Statement credits are generally issued within 5 business days upon completion of the 2 Eligible Transactions, but it may take up to 2 billing cycles from the date of you last Eligible Transaction for the statement credit to be posted to you account. Limit one statement credit per Cardmember.