PayPal

PayPal Dividend Issues

Several months ago there was a significant delay in PayPal sending out dividend payments, and its happened again. This time however, several people are reporting that they have received a dividend payment, but its been incredibly small.

To follow-up on the threads, check out the original post here:

PayPal Dividend Issues

UPDATE: PayPal recently emailed me with this notice:

We’re contacting you in regards to your January Money Market dividend payment. Due to a technical problem we experienced, you may not have received your January dividend payment, or you may have only received a partial payment.

We’ve processed a credit to your PayPal account which includes the balance of your dividend payment.

We apologize for any confusion this issue may have caused, and we appreciate your business.

Thank you,

PayPal Operations

Bank of America SafePass Wednesday, November 21st, 2007

I just logged into Bank of America’s website and in the process I noticed that they are promoting a new feature: SafePass. If this is anything like Chase’s authentication code which is emailed or sent via SMS, it would be very unfortunate.

Email and SMS are insecure, and only add a layer of inconvenience to the login process, in my opinion. The only thing similar that actually adds some security is the service offered by PayPal, which is really a service offered by RSA, a company which in my opinion actually understands how security works.

I hope Bank of America offers this “feature” as an option, not as a common element to their web services. If I recall correctly, the service for PayPal is optional, and you have to pay $5 for the unit, which is more than a fair price for what you get.

New PayPal Logo

PayPal has launched a new logo, and are working on a new look for their website. The new logo isn’t so different from the old one, but I think I like it better. It’s simpler.

What do you think?

Obviously, PayPal is a registered trademark of PayPal / eBay.

ING Direct Savings Account for Small Business

ING Direct sent me some direct promotional mail this week announcing their newest product: an online high-yield savings account for small businesses. They are offering approximately 5% APY, but to me this product is second rate compared to the products offered by Advanta Bank Corp., unless you need an online service (Advanta doesn’t offer online banking for small businesses).

I use PayPal for transferring money to my different online accounts, and I bet the new ING Direct small business accounts can do the same thing. The nice thing about PayPal is that they do offer competitive interest and they also offer online payment services.

PayPal Problems Friday,

I’m having trouble accessing my PayPal account. Anyone else having this problem? Afraid my network might have been hack and someone was redirecting the PayPal domain name server, I logged into a remote site to ping paypal.com and received the same IP address. Hmmm. Wonder what the problem is.

UPDATE: Now at 4PM, their site is accessible again. Whoops, I spoke too soon:

Line of Credit

No More AMEX Line of Credit?

I received a letter from American Express recently that stated that they are phasing out their line of credit product. I was disappointed to learn this, but after thinking about it, it doesn’t really affect me that much.

I’ve had an American Express business line-of-credit for a few years and only used it a handful of times. Within the past year, they drastically reduced the size of the line, so after that I used it even less.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t make much sense to me why they are phasing it out. It seemed like a smart product to me, especially for a company like American Express.

Mastercard

Home Depot Business Credit Card

Citibank sent me a letter today with an update to the Home Depot Business Credit Card Rewards Program. The program used to feature 1 point for regular purchases, and 2 points for Home Depot purchases. Now it features 1 point for regular purchases, 2 points for gas, pharmacy, and grocery store purchases, and 3 points for Home Depot purchases.

This is a good improvement to a great card. Thanks Home Depot and Citibank!

Bank of America Payment to FIA Card Services Test

As a test to make sure payment arrives and is credited to the right account, I made a small payment of $10 from my Bank of America account to my FIA Card Services account using the online bill payment system to my FIA Business card, using the zip code mentioned in my last post:

FIA Business Card Services Contact Information

I just logged into the FIA Website and it hasn’t show up yet, though Bank of America shows it as been processed. I’ll check again tomorrow and update this post. Bank of America is in a bizarre position with the FIA Card Service; they are offering a credit card branded for other banks - i.e. their competitors! My FIA Card Services MasterCard is branded as a TD Banknorth Business Card. It almost makes sense that they are providing poor customer service because of this tenuous relationship with the customers of their competitors. If a customer of a TD Banknorth Business Card, supplied by FIA Card Services, is dissatisfied, will they be disappointed by TD Banknorth, FIA Card Services, or Bank of America? What do you think?

UPDATE June 1, 2007: The test worked. My deposit from Bank of America’s online banking system worked fine. Now I’ll setup two payments per month.

FIA Card Services MasterCard Platinum Plus for Business

This product name is a mouthful! My new “FIA Card Services MasterCard Platinum Plus for Business card” (yes that is the full name of the card) arrived today. It is a TD Banknorth branded card that really has nothing to do with TD Banknorth. MBNA used to allow retail banks the ability to offer these types of cards to their business customers, and that relationship made sense because MBNA was only a credit card company. Since Bank of America bought MBNA awhile back, I’m not sure how well that scenario works anymore.

That could be the reason that FIA does not make their relationship with Bank of America that obvious, but there is no denying it: FIA Card Services is owned by Bank of America. So think about it, what are banks like TD Banknorth doing offering credit cards issued by their competitor Bank of America? I have no idea!

For more information, check out the FIA Card Services Archive here at Informed Banking. Of note, Brian writes in that he’s disappointed with some of the changes he’s experienced since the change from MBNA to FIA. What about you? Are you finding the changes to be negative as well, or are you getting good results from FIA? Let us know! Feel free to submit a comment or send us an email at staff [ at ] informedbanking [ dot ] com. Thanks!

Personal Banking

Fed Rate @ 1%

The Federal Reserve Bank lowered their primary interest rate another half percent to one percent. This makes it generally less expensive for banks, businesses, and people to borrow money. There is a lot of existing debt, including credit card debt, out there which is directly tied to this number, so over the past month, interest rate payments on those debts have lowered by one percent as well.

I have two loans from the Small Business Administration which are tied to this rate, so I will see a tiny bit of relief, thankfully. The danger here is that the low rate will cause inflation, and given how much money is currently being injected into the economy at the moment, I’d say that’s an important risk. I’ve heard on the radio that the treasury isn’t actually releasing any more “dollars” out into the economy, which should help offset any risks of inflation.

Yay! Fed Cuts Rate

Finally, the Federal Reserve Bank dropped their primary lending rate from 2% to 1.5%. Its a significant drop, and has been described as an “emergency” measure.

Around the time the $700 billion bailout was introduced, I suggested that the Fed held off on lowering rates to that they could later have more options if they needed them. Whether or not I was right, I’m sure the Fed is thankful that they still have some room to drop the rate.

The danger here is inflation, and while that is a serious problem to watch, a recession is a serious problem too. And worse, market stagnation can cause some serious loss of value in a short period of time, as we’re seeing the stock market plummet day after day.

The party is over folks, time to get back to real work.

Sovereign Bank, Rockville, MD

I took a picture of this Sovereign Bank building in Rockville, MD:

How much is 700 billion?

As just a regular Jane I find it very difficult to understand what is going on with the banking industry at the moment. The headlines talk about banks being insured up to $100,000, and the government is going to give 700 billion dollars to the failing companies to keep them from going under.

As I understand it if the banks go bankrupt that’s big trouble for the economy. Little businesses will be in financial trouble because the banks hold all their money, and then they can’t pay their bills or buy supplies to continue to operate. Individuals are impacted because they stand to loose all their life savings. The implications of all the money in my checking account disappearing is not lost on me.

The insurance of up to $100,000 is a guarantee, from a separate Insurance company, I can only presume. Should the bank ever go under individual customers would receive any amount of money they had in the bank up to $100,000. No problem for people like me. I have nothing to lose anyway. But lots of people have a lot to lose.

How does it work, if the insurance company has to come swooping in? Is it like when the bank takes you house? My guess is the insurance company seizes all the banks assets including mom and dad’s retirement fund and uses, it to pay everyone their insurance up to $100,000. And then sits like a fat cat on all the excess money they took?

Now if the government comes with their “bail out” plan. What an inspiring title for the everyday person, usually you bail out a sinking ship. Way to instill consumer confidence. Anyway this plan of a whole lotta moola, is it good or bad? Where’s that money coming from? Will it stop the swarm of foreclosures sweeping across the country? Will it allow people to keep their homes? Maybe it’s selfish, but $700 billion in tax payer money better be spent to help the tax payers, it sounds like it would be going to help the banks, which in turn would help the tax payers.

But what about the insurance companies? I assume the banks pay them a hefty monthly premium to insure all that money in the event of an economic crisis. If the government just steps in to take care of things, what have the banks been paying them for?

I don’t get it. Can anyone explain it to me, in simple terms?

Huge Spike in WaMu Interest

As part of my efforts to provide quality and up-to-date information about banks and the banking industry for everyday people, I keep track with Google Analytics. It provides information about our visitors, including what search phrases were used to find this site.

Upon reviewing the statistics this morning, I was surprised to notice a huge spike in the number of search phrases including “Washington Mutual bank branch locations”. When I mean huge, I mean going from practically zero to almost 200 in the last few weeks.

How come? A quick scan of the news reports doesn’t provide much. I wonder what is going on in consumers’ minds?

Another possible explanation is that the spike might not represent a shift in consumer sentiment, but instead a shift in how various search engines position Informed Banking in their database indexes. Hard to say what the ultimate reason is, but its interesting to think about.

Retail Banks

The Transfer Has Begun!

We started an update to the Informed Banking website several, actually many, months ago. The main target was the wiki, and finally the transfer process has begun. I’ve been very careful to make sure the URLs get mapped to the new site. The old wiki engine was not really designed for dynamic publishing, so we’re switching to MediaWiki.

Many pages have already been transferred, but I’ve only redirected one so far. I’m excited for this transition, though it will take a few more weeks to complete.

The first migrated page: Marketable Securities.

More Banking Rumors Some new rumors abounding this morning in the banking world: New York Times is reporting that Washington Mutual is in talks for sale by Goldman SachsNew York Times also reporting that Wachovia might buy Morgan Stanley What the blazes is going on here?

Informed Banking Status Report

Informed Banking has taken a hiatus lately (my wife and I had our first baby recently), and so the launch of the new design had to be postponed. Now I’ve got a moment to revisit the process, and I’m wondering how to proceed.

Within the past few weeks, I was able to migrate IB to the new hosting platform we’re using, but in the process, broke a few existing feature, like the forums and the bank directory. These will be fixed eventually, using more sustainable software applications and databases.

I’m trying to decide the order in which to do all this. I’ll probably update the blog first as that should be a fairly easy switch - just have to make sure all the old URLs are redirected to the new path. Then I’ll follow up with the wiki update, as most of the articles have already been migrated, and again fix the URL’s. After that, I’ll replace the forums and the bank directory. I’m not as concerned about the URLs for the bank directory or the forums, both are designed more for browsing and interacting than as a reference.

Request for Feedback

Hello Informed Banking readers! I’m posting today to ask for your feedback about our new design. As you’ll likely notice, the content isn’t fully up-to-date, but the point is to only to preview the new design. Here is the address:

New Informed Banking Design Beta

I’ve still got a lot of work to do on it, but I figured you might enjoy a sneak preview. Thanks for your comments!

FIA Card Services

Business Banking Updates

My company is going through many banking changes at the moment - mostly having to do with debt and credit cards. My business’s Simply Cash American Express credit card is almost one year old, so my 12 month promotional 0% rate is almost up. I had planned to shift some of the balance to my American Express line of credit, but last month they reduced my available credit, much to my dismay.

Therefore, I applied for a few new credit cards on behalf of my company:
* Bank of America Business Power Rewards Card
* Citibank Points Card
* Chase / Amazon.com credit card

None of the cards gave me an instant approval, but I’m happy to report that I was eventually approved for the Citi and Chase cards. I haven’t heard from Bank of America yet about my Power Rewards application. Speaking of Bank of America credit cards, I recently took them up on an offer for a 7.9% fixed rate on a cash advance on my FIA Platium Card. Not a bad deal since its for the life of the balance. Speaking of which, I should setup auto-payments for that!

The Chase card looks great, it comes with a 6 month promotional rate of 0% on purchases, balance transfers, and balance transfer checks.

The Citi looks good too. The credit line is lower, and the promotional rate is only good for balance transfers, but it is 0% for 12 months.

Auto Loans

My wife is looking to buy a new car, and so we’re shopping around for auto loans.

When I bought my 2006 Toyota Corolla, Toyota was having a promotion and I landed 2.9% financing. The same dealership is now offering 7%, no thanks.

USAA

We called USAA, and they said they could offer 5.99%, a little better.

FIA Card Services / Bank of America

FIA Card Services is really Bank of America, and they are offering 6.04% according to their website.

Capital One

Capital One also has 5.99% car loan rates on new cars.

Credit Cards

While there are no doubt better deals on credit cards, the available credit won’t be as high, and it will also have a negative impact on our credit score, so no thanks.

Promotional Car Loan Rates

We’re hoping to find a promotional auto loan rate within the next few weeks. If I find anything good, I’ll post it here!

UPDATE:

We ended up going through Toyota Motor Credit Company (TMCC) as they were able to provide a slightly better rate and a faster turnaround. My wife got her new Toyota RAV4 in less than two days!

FIA Card Services Honoring Offer

I got my FIA Card Services business credit card statement today, and I’m glad to say that they are indeed honoring the offer they sent me months ago for 2.9% interest on cash advances.

The first statement I received had an interest rate of 19.9%, so I called and asked them what that was all about. Although the CSR was helpful and agreed that it was a mistake, I wasn’t sure if they were going to come through with a fix.

I know FIA Card Services isn’t doing as good a job as MBNA did in managing their private bank branded cards, but I’m so glad that in this case they fixed their error.

Also, here’s a link just in case you are looking for FIA Card Services contact information.

FIA Card Services Contact Information

I just got an inquiry from a Citi credit card representative about debits on a customers account from FIA Card Services. Unfortunately, contacting FIA Card Services is difficult for many, so I will link back to the original post with their contact information:

FIA Card Services Contact Information

Here’s what I wrote back to the Citi representative:

FIA Card Services is the new name for MBNA since Bank of America bought them. Please see our post about FIA Card Services for their contact information:

FIA Card Services Contact Information

Informed Banking Staff

Fia Card Services Balance Transfer Interest Rate

I just opened my FIA Card Services monthly statement (first one since MBNA was bought by Bank of America / FIA) and was greeted with an unpleasant surprise. While I was offered 2.9%, they tried to charge me 19.9%. I called up their customer service department and dug out a copy of the offer.

Surprisingly, someone picked up the phone fairly quickly. I explained the situation, and after verifying my identity (which I appreciated) found that my complaint was justified. The customer service representative was also surprised by the error, and said he would fix the rate. He said the correct rate of 2.9% would be applied to my account retroactively and moving forward.

Can you believe it? That only took about 5 minutes. Its nice when people admit their mistakes.

e-bills

Bank of America E-Bills

Bank of America just sent me an email about some changes they have planned for e-bills from American Express. Because of the problems that were caused when Chase’s e-bills were failed to be delivered to Bank of America, I’m going to post the contents of the email for everyone to read. If I understand the email correctly, the changes will be an improvement, and existing, non-recurring payments will be executed, but recurring payments will need to be reconfigured using their new system.

Here’s the contents of the email I received:

As a reminder, Bank of America will offer an enhanced e-Bill service for your American Express Card beginning in November. As a result of this change:

In November, your current e-Bill Service for your American Express Card will be discontinued so that our systems can be upgraded.

When the upgrade is completed, you will be able to enroll for the new e-Bill service for your American Express Card. (Please note that this upgrade is expected to take no longer than 3 days.)

This new enhanced e-Bill service will allow you to view a PDF replica of your American Express paper statement through your Bank of America Online Banking service.

You can continue to pay your American Express bill through Online Banking, even if you elect not to re-enroll for the upgraded e-Bill service.

Any payments you schedule to your American Express Card will be processed as directed, even if your selected payment date is after the upgrade. However, if you use the automatic payment feature to pay your American Express e-Bill, no additional payments will be automatically scheduled after the upgrade. To continue using automatic payments, you must re-enroll for this feature after the upgrade is complete.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions regarding this message or the effect this upgrade will have on your Online Banking service, please contact Customer Care at 1-800-933-6262 and our representatives will assist you.

UPDATE November 6 2007: I just checked my Bank of America account and the automatic payments I’ve setup there, and nothing has changed. What’s the deal?