Expresspay key fob R.I.P.
Well after 4 years of being an RFID card pioneer, tomorrow, we say good bye to the American Express ExpressPay keyfob. American Express said people preferred to tap their cards instead of they key tags. I beg to differ. What if you forget your wallet? I kept mine on my house keys. This allowed me to buy lunch at McDonalds and a snack at 7-Eleven when I forgot my wallet one day.
My experiences with the fob were pretty good, but rather mixed. Many times the card readers were not active or did not work. Last week at Tully's, one reader worked, but the other did not. Same as Jack in the Box. No problems to encounter if you use cards only, as you can either tap or swipe your purchases. Often at McDonald's drive thrus I had to train the managers how to tap this. In California, you often need to do this in espangles or Spanglish. When I said that you have to tap the card on the red panel, the cashier waved the fob over the red "cancel" button completely oblivious to the wave symbol on the terminal.
I also liked that you could link any American Express card to the key fob. Great for Platinum or Gold card members. Express Pay is now enabled only on Blue and Starwood cards (at least in the US). I have a Blue card, so this is now moot, but I guess Amex did not want to keep track of yet another linked account number. Also, I bet so few people used it that the cost to support it on a per person basis was rather unappealing. Amex did not do a good job of promoting this. I had to specifically call to request this.
Another great security feature was that this key fob had a different card number than the linked card. If it was stolen and someone attempted to use the number online, Amex's system would know it was a fradulent transaction. The number on the keyfob was for RFID purchases only.
Citibank's keyfob on the other hand appears to be the same as the linked card since the last four digits on my Paypass receipts are the same as my linked card. Again, I also had to specifically request the key fob. The next time I'm in NYC, the Citi keyfob can be used in place of a MetroCard on selected lines. http://www.mastercard.com/us/paypass/subway/
If you're interested and you're a Citi customer, log into your account and click on "Request Payment tag". Citi's tag looks cool compared to the simple, black flat ExpressPay key fob, but god is this thing big. It's bigger than many USB thumb drives.
Labels: American Express, Amex, Citi, Expresspay, NYC Subway, PayPass
What the banks won't tell you about debit cards. Chapter 1
Many of you have a checking account and perhaps a debit card with a Visa or MasterCard logo. Some of you may even have a Discover debit card. But no matter what debit card you have, you may not want to use it after I reveal what the banks won't tell you.
If there's unauthorized use on your debit card, you're the one who will have the biggest headache because YOUR cash has been taken out of your account.
Bank of America had a great TV ad where some guy discovered someone used his debit card and took funds out of his account. He thought his weekend would be ruined. He discovered the problem on a Thursday morning. True to BofA's service standards, funds were restored the next business day - on Friday. What if you discovered this on a Friday evening. Funds would be restored on the next business day - Monday. Your weekend is screwed.
Solutions:
1) Use a credit card for purchases. If someone uses your credit card without your authorization, it's the bank's credit line that got hit first, not your cash. You've got a buffer between the loss and your statement to report the problem.
In 2006, some unauthorized charges totaling over $5,000 posted to my credit card. Can you imagine if this hit my checking account? Just think of all the bounced checks that could be generated.
2) Use an ATM card (no Visa/MasterCard logo) that requires you to enter a PIN to make a purchase. This is still no absolute guarantee, but if your ATM card, chances are that no one could use it since they would need your 4 digit-PIN to make a purchase. This is referred to as a POS (Point of Sales) transaction. This is NOT the same as a signature-based transaction which is usually free by itself.
Watchout! Some fee-greedy banks like Fifth Third Bank will charge you $0.25 to $2 to do a POS transaction. (See fees at bottom of the linked page). Of course Fifth Third will tell you that it's always free to use a debit card at any store. That is when you select "Credit" and sign for your purchase.
Next chapter:
The only two occasions when you should use a debit card.
Labels: banking advice, Debit card tips
Upromise double dip. Fatwallet cash back.
In an earlier blog, I mentioned how you can get a cash rebate from Upromise. What you shouldn't forget is that you can often double up on discounts. For example, when you link to a merchant website through Upromise, you can still use coupons and other discount codes.
Two other sites to try out are Fatwallet and ebates.com. Both are similar to Upromise's online shopping rebates, although you can get refund via PayPal. ebates requires $5 in refunds before they pay back.
How to score a cell phone discount.
Few things can get complicated as buying a cell phone and service plan. But before you go shopping check out any discounts from work.
One of my favorites is Sprint PCS's corporate discount program. Discounts range from 5% to about 25% depending on the company and how many subscribers it can combine. What I like most with their program is that once you are on, you are considered a business customer and you will never pay activation fees again.
Of course, the other cell phone companies offer similar discounts. Ask your current provider if it has a corporate discount. Check your company to see if it has discounts with carriers. You might be pleasantly surprised.
Upromise program is really a cash rebate!
You may have seen the Upromise rebate program in supermarkets. This program is geared toward earning rebates which are funded into a 529 college savings which can then be applied toward tuition.
What you probably didn't know is that those rebate earnings are yours to redeem at anytime and you do not have to fund tuition. It's a bit of a pain, but you must write a letter to them. If you're a Upromise member, you have to search a bit for the details.
Withdrawals are processed every calendar quarter and you can only request amounts that are funded and available, which means it could take up to 5 months to receive your earnings. That's up to 2 months after your purchase, and another 3 to get your refund check in the mail. But consider that some rebate credit cards only refund once a year.
The best thing about the Upromise program is that you can use any credit card, earn your credit card rewards or rebates and still earn Upromise savings. I'll talk more about some great ways to double dip next time.
How to get a toll-free number.
My motivation for getting a personal toll-free number came when my mother called me collect from a hotel room. The charge on my bill for a two minute phone call: $13! After that I said there's got to be a better way. What if I get my own toll free number, so that she could always reach me with no hassles.
So I did some research and found ATN which is a long distance company that offers Dial-1 and stand-alone toll free numbers. ATN is an agent and my service provider is actually TTI National which is an MCI company. Go through either ATN or TTI National. It looks like ATN has found a new, cheaper provider than TTI National, but I cannot vouch them. Both offer toll-free numbers without monthly fees or minimums.
The lowdown:
1) You do NOT have to switch your long distance provider in order to have a toll-free number.
2) The toll-free number is like email or URL forwarding. You still need an actual phone number to ring. This could be your cell phone, home, office, etc.
3) You will have to pay for ALL incoming calls, including wrong numbers. However, since both providers bill by 6 second increments with an 18 second minimum this is not expensive. At 5 to 7 cents/minute this is not much at all.
4) There is an extra charge for payphone originated calls (approx 25 to 30 cents/call). Like ATM surcharges, someone has to pay the payphone owner for the equipment use.
The upsides:
1) This will be your number for life and it will never change even if you move. Yes, there is now number portability, but you cannot always (or want to) keep your old phone number when you move.
2) You can create a vanity number like 888.1MY.PHONE and keep it for life. No extra charge.
3) You can access the number from anywhere in North America, or restrict access to in-state, US only, US & Canada, US & Canada & Caribbean, etc.
So, if you're starting your own business and you want a catchy, easy to remember, permanent phone number, this is one way to do it.
Email forwarding
Now that you have your domain name (see "Why buy a domain name for details"), here's hohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifw you use it in your email. Let's say your real address is "123@myisp.com". In your account in MyDomain.com you click on "Manage my domain forwarding" For each alias you want to create, i.e. "1@askmrlee.com" enter the actual email address where the messages will be received.
I hope you get the idea. It's really simple and you should just play around with the feature.
Now that you've set up how to receive mail at your new domain name, here is how you send mail. In your email program, you need to change the displayed email address and/or the reply to address with your new custom email name. Keep the email server settings the same.
If you use a free web based email program like Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail, you can change the reply to address so that your custom name appears. However, your outgoing messages will show your @hotmail or @yahoo.com address.
If you use an ISP then you can just change the displayed email address to your customized address. You still use the same server information, since that is not changing.
Experiement with a few test messages to see how you like the look of your outgoing and incoming mail.
Next time, I'll get started with some frequent flyer mileage info.
How to get your own domain name.
Today someone asked me how I launched my weblog. Well, as you can tell from the right side, I am using Google's Blogger service, but you access these pages through askmrlee.com
How do you do this? Well, you first need to buy yourself a domain name. I have used MyDomain.com and GoDaddy.com to buy the domain itself because I think they offer good prices and pretty good service. MyDomain.com offers free URL and email forwarding.
Think of URL forwarding as nothing more than call forwarding, but applied to the internet. You direct all hits to askmrlee.com to be redirected to askmrlee.blogspot.com which is the real address of the page you're looking at right now.
Now apply this concept to email. Instead of being chained to an address such as youarestuckwithusforeverhahaha@sbcglobal.net, you just setup email forwarding to the real email address. The real advantage is that you now have a permanent email address and if you leave your ISP, you won't have to give up your email address and go through the hassle of letting everyone know your new address. Getting too much junkmail on one address? Change it and use another one without closing your email account. Now this method is not spam proof and you cannot completely hide the real email address in messages. However, this is a simple way to unchain yourself from any ISP and give yourself a domain name that YOU control. Plus it is simple enough for most people to apply to their existing email accounts.
How much does this cost? The cost of the domain itself is $8 - $9/year through either MyDomain.com and GoDaddy.com. MyDomain's email and URL forwarding which are free.
Next time, more details on using email forwarding.
Welcome to Askmrlee.com!
Hi there. This is Ask Mr. Lee and here is my weblog entry. Since I was a kid, I've always loved to travel. When the first frequent flyer programs were created I joined as many as I could thinking that one day I would earn enough for a free trip. That was back in 1983 and since then I've traveled the world often on free tickets.
I discovered EAASYSABRE, which was the predecessor to Travelocity on CompuServe (now integrated into AOL) back in 1985 and learned how to search and price my own airline tickets. I learned how to find the lowest fares and maximize earning mileage.
I've always seen the rewards programs and rebate credit cards and similar promotions as one big game. Over the years, I've learned to get something back for everything I purchase, earn frequent flyer miles everywhere and actually use them.
I am not a business traveler, although you might mistake me for one when I'm in First class section on an upgrade.
So I'm here to help guide you through the sometimes confusing maze of frequent flyer and other travel reward programs.
Take it from me, you don't have to be a frequent flyer or travel often for business to enjoy many of the travel perks they enjoy. Even if you don't travel, I'll show you the way to get a little something back for everything you buy.
