Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with creditcard

What is the best way for me to try to get a debt consolidation loan?

drjimmy11 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 22:17:49 -0800

What is the best way for me to try to get a debt consolidation loan? I have around $20k of credit card deb. The interest rates vary, some are quite high and some are decent. I have a decent salary and I could pay it off in a few years, but I would prefer to get a debt consolidation loan and pay that instead.

The issues:
1. My credit score isn't very good, around 650 at the moment. When the financial crisis hit, a bunch of my cards closed my account or lowered the credit limit right down to the balance I was carrying. Ratio of debt to available credit is the main thing holding my score down- prior to the crisis it was up around 700.

2. I have one debt consolidation loan from my credit union already. This will be paid off in about 3 more payments. This was a "special offer" they had and I'm not sure they offer any specific debt consolidation loan right now. I also owe my bank about $3500 on a Visa card they issue. I've had an account there for about 9 years now and in general they've been great.

I'd like to get a loan to pay off some or all of the debt. A good interest rate would be nice, but I realize that's probably not going to happen in the current climate and with my crummy credit score. My main goal is get the debt off my credit cards and get my credit score back up.

So my questions are:

What's the best way to approach my bank about this? I don't want to just randomly start applying for loans without knowing if I'll be accepted. I'd like to get a little more insight into the process they use:
-Will I help my chances if I pay off the credit card they issue first? -Will it significantly help my chances if I finish paying my current loan before asking for another one?
-How much of a factor is the amount I ask for? I would be happy even being able to borrow $10k or so. When asking for these kind of loans, does it make sense to just ask for a high amount, and then they will meet you with what they're willing to lend, rather than just saying "no?" I think that's how it happened last time.
-Does it hurt my credit score to apply for and be turned down for a loan?
-If anyone has insight into the inner workings of giving loans, I'd be curious to hear an estimate of what kind of credit score is generally needed to get a loan like this.

Finally, is there any website that would help me find other banks that might be willing to give me this loan? Or are there any other novel solutions to revive my credit score I'm missing? I realize no one is lending much money right now, so the only answer may well be "just pay it off yourself."

Other data:
-I don't want to go into debt consolidation or bankruptcy.
-I rent and lack many other valuable assets. My car is old and beat up.
-I am in California.

This is not a referendum on the wisdom of my past financial decisions. Thank you.

Can I stay in an American hotel without a credit card?

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 17:12:14 -0800

Can I stay in an American hotel without a credit card? I'm waiting for a payment to go through on a credit card, but need to stay in a hotel in the southern US before that payment is processed. Until then, I am essentially without credit.

Will I have any problems booking a room at a hotel/motel in, say, Nashville or Memphis with only a debit card or cash? Is there anything I should know about this?

How can I get myself to stop rationalizing bad behavior?

dumbledore69 — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:05:50 -0800

There are a lot of goals that I am working towards, that are easily within my reach if I just stick to some simple routine tasks. However, I always wind up sabotaging myself by making excuses for or rationalizing getting off track, and ignoring the reminders and cues I have created for myself to stay on track. How can I knock it off so I can reach my goals? I have been doing a lot of work lately on some of my goals, mainly weight loss and getting my finances in order (paying off my credit cards and stop overdrawing my frigging bank account).

I know exactly what I have to do, I know exactly how to do it, and I have done both of these things with fantastic success before. My problem is that whenever I become sidetracked with something else that I consider urgent, or stressed out and cranky, I am really good at either ignoring my big picture goals, making rationalizations for not working towards those goals, or even lying to myself or others about my behavior towards reaching those goals.

I think this is one of my biggest issues, and I just do NOT know how to knock it off.

For example, let's use weight loss.

I have lost large chunks of weight before and kept it off for a good amount of time. I know exactly what to do so that I can do it in a way that is pleasant for me.

To lose weight, basically all I need to do is the following:
- Eat breakfast at home instead of on the run.
- Bring lunch & snacks to work instead of eating out or running to the caf.
- Take 10-15 minutes each evening or morning to plan out my meals for the day (and total the calories or WW points).
- Take 30 min - 1 hour most days of the week to do any workout I choose, whether it's a Wii workout or a video or the elliptical at the gym or a walk outside (and I enjoy all of these things!).
- Remember to face the music no matter how the week went and weigh myself & track my weight every week.

There are other things I try to do, sure, like looking at the balance of the types of foods I eat and taking vitamins and getting enough rest, and so on. But these are the basics.

However, I typically start slipping after a month or two. Usually it's little things at first, but then as other things start stressing me out, I turn to food (or excessive spending, on the financial end) to soothe me and cheer myself up.

And I will recognize this and set up ways to keep myself accountable, like setting up bets with friends (I'll pay them $5 a week if I don't exercise 3x) or websites to nag me daily to remember my goals, etc. I have tried SO MANY awesome tools, and had so much great support from my friends (who despite the fact that they would profit from my failure, always encouraged me).

But it doesn't work, because I will just ignore the email reminders or lie about my workout sessions. It's awful, and I really, truly hate myself for being like that. I even lie to myself sometimes about what I've eaten or readjusting my priorities.

But it always comes back down to the fact that I really do not like where I'm at ... I'm 100+ lbs overweight (though I am a bit down from my high weight), still in credit card debt (though I have paid off quite a large chunk of it so far), and I have like no faith in myself to really keep trying because nothing can keep me honest.

And I know the response is often that I must not want it badly enough or I would just do it and stop lying to myself. But it's NOT that I don't want to lose weight & pay off my credit cards badly...I do. I want it more than anything. Failure to do these things is preventing me from starting a family or to feel secure in my life. Not a day goes by when I don't hate those things about myself.

But it's like a different person takes over when I fall off the wagon and just want to be left alone to eat or spend. It's not me, that person has no goals except to get a little fix from food or spending. It's so stupid, but I seriously do not know what to do.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to deal with this?

Getting another copy of the receipt

GleepGlop — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:10:34 -0800

My PS3 died out of warranty, but still under the extended purchase protection of my credit card. Only problem is to make the claim I need the receipt which I lost. I called the store where I bought it (EB Games in Canada) asking if they could print me a new receipt and they said that they would but the credit card purchase log only goes back a couple months at their store. Is there any law about being able to get another copy of the receipt? Maybe if I called their corporate HQ armed with such information?

How to convert credit card debt to a business loan?

KathrynT — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:31:41 -0800

You are not my accountant. How do you convert personal debt to business debt? My sister-in-law and her husband are the owners of a chiropractic practice with no employees other than themselves. They opened the practice shortly after being married, and paid for nearly all the startup costs with their credit cards rather than securing a small business loan. The business is doing fine, or anyway as fine as it really can be given the economy; they have a steady and increasing client stream, and word of mouth is getting out.

But their interest rates have been hiked on their credit cards, and now they're facing increasingly enormous minimum payments that are really affecting their ability to get by. In retrospect, their decision to use credit cards for this purpose was pretty poor, and they recognize that, but barring a time machine, they can't change that now. In this economy, what's the chance of them getting a business loan now? Is there any way they can convert this massive unsecured consumer debt into a business debt that's more reasonable, interest-wise? Any other advice for them? They're in a largish city in the Pacific Northwest.

Car rental insurance: vital or scam?

cgs — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:50:14 -0800

Car rental insurance: what should I get? - I don't have any primary auto insurance (don't own a car).
- This is just in the states (NY, NJ, PA)
- I am renting via my credit card which has Master Rental Insurance (http://www.citibank.com/us/cards/gen-content/en.htm). They said on the phone that they become the primary insurer since I don't have auto insurance, that it is the same category (damage/loss... mentioned in that document as well).

Does this mean I just need to worry about hitting someone else?

I don't understand the various insurance labels and want to be as well informed as possible when I get to the counter. I hate feeling pressured or like they are taking advantage of me.

Thanks for your help-
cgs

How to use a different default funding source?

Solomon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:16:26 -0800

How can I get a visual warning every time I pay for something with Paypal, warning me to change my payment source? This Greasemonkey script would do what I want, but it's US-centric, so it doesn't work with the UK version of ebay, or apparently any UK Paypal sites. It could just be out of date, I guess. I use Firefox, always.

Is there another method by which I can get some kind of visual reminder (preferably a big neon sign...) that I'm on a Paypal payment page and that I should take a look at my payment source?

[I don't want to open another account with Paypal, as I already have a credit card associated with my current account, which means they won't let me register it again with a new account. Nor do I want to remove my bank account from my Paypal account, as I sometimes find it useful. Paypal don't offer any way to set a credit card as a default payment method, as it costs them more in fees. And no, "just remembering" isn't enough, sadly.]

You are being given a new card/account number

dabug — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:05:24 -0800

"A recent merchant database compromise may have put your account at risk. A new card/account number has been issued." Is this common with credit cards? This is the third time in the last two years that I have been issued a new credit card/number due to suspected compromises. This is a big hassle since I now need to change my account details with all of the automatic billing services I use (again!).

Have other people experienced this? Should I be happy instead of irritated that they're being proactive?

Citibank is the card issuer if that matters.

Someone stole my credit card, should I be worried about anything else?

AlisonM — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:45:51 -0800

Someone stole my credit card. The fraudulent charges have been taken care of, but is there anything else I should be worried about? My credit card (that I charge a whopping $9 a month on for Netflix) is expiring next month. Chase sent me a new card on Sep 4th, I never received it. Today, someone charged a whole bunch of money at a whole bunch of stores to my account. They're in Florida, I haven't been to Florida in years (I'm in NYC). The fraud department at caught it, I verified it wasn't me. Obviously somewhere between Chase sending me my new card and me getting my new card, things went wonky and some jerk got their hands on the envelope. My account is temporarily closed/denied/whatever until I get my new card (with a new account number) and activate it, and I'm not liable for any of the charges.

Awesome!

Except, now these people have my name, address, and a credit card (even if it's useless) with my name on it. Is there anything that I should be concerned about or do to try to ensure that they don't use my identity to do anything else? I've certainly used a credit card as an ID before, and after talking to my roommate just this week about these things (he has no state issued ID or passport and needed to get on a plane), a credit card plus any piece of paper with your name on it is considered enough ID to do whatever you want at a lot of places. Even though I'm in debt (thanks, school) and am sort of underemployed, I have pretty decent credit. I'd REALLY like to keep it that way.

So, is there anything I should do? I don't intend on taking out any loans or opening any new credit accounts in the immediate future, but I may consolidate my several private school loans at some point in the next year or so. (I would get advice from a financial planner, but see the underemployed bit? I can't afford it.)

White-label hosted credit-card processing?

pengale — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:03:21 -0800

What online credit-card processor best meets these criteria? 1. 100% hosted. No PCI-DSS worries.
2. 100% branded/white-label. Use own domain (i.e. CNAME), and customize design and navigation.
3. Concentrates on just the payment step; design your own cart/sales page
4. No minimum annual revenue amount; cost structure suitable for small business.
5. Customer-service-focused (where the customer is the merchant...)

Sorry if this has been posted before; most of the other questions I could find pertain to either shopping carts or payment gateways that require you to comply with PCI-DSS. Does something like this even exist?

Close the card or take the hit?

dforemsky — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:10:36 -0800

Should I reject a credit card's rate increase if I cannot pay off the balance right away? I received a letter from a credit card company (Chase) saying that my interest rate would increase to a variable rate of prime + x%, but I could opt out of the increase if I were to close the card.

The letter also stated that I could continue to pay the balance off over time at the current rate, but I could not use the card any more.

I have no problem with closing the card, but I cannot afford to pay off the entire balance right now and would like to take advantage of paying the balance off over time, while keeping the current interest rate. I am, however, afraid that if we close the card, in six months the company will come back and say that they need the entire balance immediately.

Has anybody else done this - closed a card and kept paying it off over time? Has the bank ever asked for the entire balance due at one time? Am I better off taking the interest rate hit and leaving the card open?

I'm not worried about the FICO hit for closing the card, and I know it's bad to carry balances, but this one snuck up on me.

Can I fix my credit history? Should I?

ocha-no-mizu — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:17:40 -0800

Botched online credit card applications: can I have them removed from my credit history since they were due to an unresponsive website, and does it really matter anyway? I tried to apply for an American Express credit card online, but the website was behaving badly and would be unresponsive for several minutes after I submitted the application. I tried several more times throughout the day, and on the 3rd or 4th attempt it finally gave me a response (more or less immediately). Since I've only been in the US for a few years, my credit score is apparently still too low, and I was denied.

Fair enough, that was not completely unexpected. The problem is that one of the reasons I was given for the denial was something like "too many credit applications in the past 12 months". Concerned that all of those earlier applications that got lost in the tubes actually made it to American Express, I called their customer service. Sure enough, they were all recorded and now 3 or 4 denied credit card applications will show up in my credit history. I was told unequivocally that American Express couldn't remove them from my history, despite the fact that most of them were due to their dodgy website.

Can I fight this? Should I fight this? Despite having a low credit score, I have already successfully applied for a car loan and a mortgage through my employer's credit union, so I don't have much need for a glowing credit history. I'm only interested in the credit card for the cash back benefits; I wouldn't be too upset if I never got a credit card. Is there any reason why I'd benefit from not having this string of denied credit card applications on my record?

Personal experience with payment processors that offer very simple transaction processing?

odinsdream — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 06:22:25 -0800

Personal experience with payment processors that offer very simple on-site credit card entry and the ability to sell digital goods (i.e., license codes, subscriptions, etc.). I'd like customers to enter the bare minimum of payment information. I'd like to accept credit-card payments on my website. I can already do this with Paypal or Google Checkout, but they are more complex than I'd prefer for this particular venture. Features I'd like include:

Bare minimum of data entry. I've purchased from sites that require only the credit card number and an expiration date. Examples include paying for a new account on Shopify, or paying for a checked bag on Delta and US Airways. I don't need to collect names, shipping information, or anything else for this product. It's a very inexpensive virtual good, which is why I'd like to make the customer payment experience as painless and hassle-free as possible.

Entry of data on my site, or at least visually similar enough to appear to be my site. Examples include Panic Software, Shopify, Delta, and US Airways.*

Able to process digital goods that are unique to each customer. Panic Software is a good example here. Immediately after you pay you get the product unlock code, which is unique to that transaction. I want this to be completely automatic. Out of the box Google Checkout doesn't seem to work for this. With their API it looks like it could work, but they don't meet my other requirements.

Do you have personal experience with payment processors that meet most or all of these requirements?

* Note on PCI compliance: This requirement is really a visual thing. The actual HTML form doesn't need to come from my server. I'm not interested in actually storing the credit card data - I'd still like it to go directly to the payment processor without passing through me. I just want the customer to have a seamless experience of not appearing to leave my site.

Help me handle my finances during my last month in apartment

lblair — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:01:10 -0800

Can I persuade my landlord to let me use my security deposit for my last month's rent? If not, what's my next best option? ( I'm dealing with paying my credit card bills too.) My lease is up on 8/31 and I'm broke. (I'm moving home with my parents to save money.) I have about $1000. That's about how much my rent is. My security deposit was a month and a half's rent. My apartment is in good condition, and with the exception of being a few days late with the rent a couple times, I think I've been a pretty good renter. (Lived here 2 years.)

My problem is that I am also behind on a bunch of (small) credit card bills. Also about $1000 worth of needs-to-be-paid-asap type stuff. So, right now I can either pay my rent and wait and pay the credit cards over the next 1-2 months. (I have a crappy p/t job and I'm trying to find a better one, but til then . . . ) Or, I can try to convince my landlord to let me use the deposit, and put my $1000 towards my credit cards. (I know, I know, being in credit card debt is a whole other story, but I'm moving home so I can work and save money and pay them off.)

I think it would be better for me to pay the credit cards and try to negotiate about my rent, simply because the cards will ruin my credit a lot more if I'm late on them. If I'm lucky my landlord will agree to taking my deposit for August rent. If he won't, and I just don't pay it, I'm afraid of legal action or ruining my rental history.

I tried to google for the answer and the impression I got was that using the deposit for last month's rent is generally something that you can't do, but people try to do it anyway- sometimes by talking to their landlord, and sometimes by simply not paying the last month's rent. (I live in IL, if that matters.)

So my question is- what is the best way to persuade my landlord to let me do this? If he says no, then what? How bad are those 'over-30-day' hits on your credit report? (I'm not about to be sent to collections, but I think I have gone over/will soon go over 30 days on some of them.)

What's my best road out of debt

letstrythis — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:22:37 -0800

I am in debt to the tune of about 20,000 in credit card debt. However, I have great credit, (739) which I've finally cleaned up after a horrible year of ID theft. Most of my debt is on one credit card at 12% APR. I make about 35,000 a year, rent, and don't have any equity or a car. At the rate I can afford to pay at this point (450/month) I'll be in debt for about 8 more years. This seems unreasonable. Should I take out a personal loan, sign up for several low APR credit cards that offer no interest for a year, etc... I live off what I make at this point, and look forward to a credit card-free future. Thanks!

How do I set up an e-commerce site that accepts photo uploads and takes credit card payments?

designbot — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:42:48 -0800

How do I set up an e-commerce site that accepts photo uploads and takes credit card payments? I've been asked to set up a website for a client who wants to custom-print an item using photos uploaded by customers. They need to accept credit card payments.

As one option, I am considering setting up a custom front-end for Shopify, but I'm not sure whether that's overkill, or whether they can accept an uploaded picture sent as part of the order information.

What's the simplest/best way to do this? My PHP/Javascript skills are rather rudimentary, but I'd like to learn more. Should I try to do something from scratch, or are there good solutions out there already?

It seems like there would be a few parts to doing this manually:

Getting the customer's order info from a form (I can handle the HTML for this)

Getting the customer's photo, making sure it's within specs, and displaying a reduced preview (I don't know the best way to do this… I assume there a image processing libraries available or something)

Processing a credit card payment (I don't know the best way to do this)

Doing something with that order data (could it be emailed to the client, or is that too insecure? would I need to set up a front end for the client to access orders stored in a database?)

Hope me, Metafilter! You're my only help.

Widespread credit card fraud or bizarre coincidence?

nelvana — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:22:31 -0800

Both my daughter and I have fraudulent charges at the same online poker site on our credit cards. Is this happening to lots of people or is it a weird coincidence? I checked my online account last week and discovered a $700+ charge to FullTiltPoker. I've never played online poker or even been to the site. I called Citi Mastercard and they have canceled the card and are sending me documents to sign that the charges aren't mine (there were two other pending charges; total of about $2500).

My daughter was checking her account yesterday and had two charges on her account for the same site. She also has a Citi Mastercard, but it's not shared (or even the same type - mine is a rewards card and hers isn't).

Neither of us had lost our cards. My daughter keeps her statements and I shred mine so the information is not being stolen from the garbage or recycling. They told me at Citi that someone could have hacked into a merchant's computer system where I had used my card. I doubt my daughter and I have used our cards at the same merchant recently. The odds of this happening to the two of us at virtually the same time seem pretty huge unless it's happening to tons of people. Is it widespread? Has this happened to anyone else recently?

Is this credit counseling scam worth it?

Anonymous — Tue, 19 May 2009 15:45:18 -0800

DebtFilter: I've been paying a credit counseling company (law firm, actually) $60 a month for the past three years to make my minimum payments to the credit card companies I owe. They lowered my annual interest rate to an average of 10% and threaten that if I cancel their service, my interest rates will reset. Is that true? I owe about $16,000 (as of today) on four different credit cards and my monthly payments are ~$700. I signed up for the credit counseling company because I had panicked about making my payments and needed to take action. It appeared legitimate at the time, but I didn't really do any research before I solicited their services. They have since been charging me, in addition to the initial $600 fee, monthly fees of $60 to transfer money from my account to my credit card companies (I can still make my payments to the banks directly; I've regained all online access to my accounts, etc.). They provide no other service.

If I took out a personal line of credit to consolidate my debts, I'd still pay more than the current 10% APR, so I think I'm getting a decent deal: but I could make the payments myself, on time, and I'd save a good amount of money.

I called a couple of my creditors to ask them if I would get to keep my current low interest rate, but got very evasive answers (one bank couldn't answer, another told me they'd only talk to the lawyer who currently handles my account).

When I called the credit counseling company to ask what would happen if I canceled their services, they became outright threatening, told me that I'd be a pretty difficult process to cancel their service (signing up took a day and an electronic signature!), and told me the interest rates would reset to the credit card defaults (upward of 25% APR, I think).

Do you have any experience with this situation? I finally have enough time to deal with this: what would you advise me to do?

The credit card counseling agency is called Coastal Credit Solutions; the law firm they signed me up for is Laura Hess Kennedy, currently disbarred: they recently lost a class action suit due to debt settlement fraud (I received a whole lot of mail regarding that, but I'm not a client of "debt settlement" services; they just lowered my interest rate but not my debt amounts or minimum payments).

Fiscal Responsibility: The gov't isn't setting me an example. Maybe I can set an example for the gov't.

silkygreenbelly — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:25:27 -0800

Personal Fiscal Responsibility. Help me turn over a new leaf (and keep it turned over). Looking for a new bank and some advise. My track record for being responsible with my money is not very good. Over the past 10ish years I've lived paycheck to paycheck with only a few short stretches of managing my money well. I need some advise in the following directions:
1. A new bank: "Christine" from Wells Fargo just cheerfully agreed with me that my financial life sucks, but the issue in question "wasn't the bank's error" so she was going go ahead and let Wells Fargo fuck me over $80. I'm sick of Wells Fargo's bullshit banking practices*.
I've looked through previous askme's but some of them are pretty old (ie recommending BoA). I've heard about ING Orange Checking seemed to be all the rage a couple of years ago, is it still good? Are their better alternatives? Requirements for a bank account would be: no minimum amounts required, no annual fee (unless having direct deposit gets it waived), free electronic transfers to other peoples bank's accounts at other banks.

2. Tips, tricks, advice, links to blogs (besides get rich slowly already know about that one) or classes in the Seattle area, on small personal finance management, how to curb spending, but most of all how to stick to it.

3. I currently have only student loans and I am concerned the fact that I do not having any credit is going to screw me over when I eventually need to get a car of my own (currently using my sisters until november). I have tossed around the idea of getting a credit card for a dedicated expense (like gas). Bad idea? How would this work with money management?

*I asked why they took out my withdrawls largest to smaller and she said it was because most people don't want their largest checks to bounce. I asked why it would matter when WF doesn't actually seem to bounce checks, they just "overdraft" the account and she told me it was because they can technically return checks if they choose to and they might want to (at some ill-defined point) decide to return a bounced check instead of charging overdrafts.

Need a store that's quick and cheap

arniec — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:49:30 -0800

Me, being the family resident techie, has been asked to build an online shopping site for an in-law. EASY and FAST is the name of the game...what should I use? (asking for Father-In-Law...so the less effort I have to put into it the better).

My FIL runs a local clothing business and would like to sell his wares online. Requirements:

1) Secure online checkout using credit cards.
2) Shopping cart capability so a user can purchase multiple things at once
3) Ability to have multiple items at multiple prices.
4) Ability to have "versions" of items (shirts in S, M, L, XL, and surcharges for shirts 2X, 3X, etc).

It would be best if items can be grouped by category (say shirts, hats, etc. where a user can click on a group to see all items or a paginated list of items in that group).

The inventory will be fairly static, and there will be no "on demand" work (so think Amazon, not CafePress).

I can build him a site no problem, but the secure checkout and credit card processing...I'm not sure what the best option is. I have seen several on-line merchants using Yahoo stores for this type of functionality... How can I get this set up easily with a minimum of hassle?

Credit Card concierge services worthwhile?

bystander — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:15:41 -0800

Credit Card concierge services worthwhile? I have the option of an Amex gold credit card with no concierge, or an Amex platinum credit card with the service. The higher cost of the platinum will be made up with a higher reward points value per dollar spent, but it is pretty close to a wash, so I would probably keep the cash and go with gold unless somebody can advise some value in the concierge service.
About me:
- I have had a gold Amex charge card for years and like its travel benefits. Customer service has also been helpful.
- I have access to a Mastercard for places that don't take Amex
- I'm in Australia, so many benefits available to US mefites don't apply (see here for the specific deal I am looking at)
- I like to hunt for a bargain, I can't imagine I would very often use such a service for purchases
- Perhaps I would call them and say 'I am looking at a Sony TV model xxx. It costs $y, can you find it cheaper?'

So, do you use the concierge service? What are some things you do with it? Do you find it worthwhile?

Online Payments

AMP583 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:13:35 -0800

I need to build something that allows a client to make credit card payments to my client. I want to use Authorize.net as the gateway but im not sure what backend i should use - a modified opencart or something similar. I DONT want to use paypal, blinksale, etc. as its not so much 'invoice' based but more of a method of sending funds. This thread is very similar but no dice. I think some sort of modified cart might work, but i was wondering if theres a better solution thats somewhat more streamlined and easier to implement. Also i'm not a developer by trade, more of a designer.

Buying a house soon: is it better to pay down my credit card partially, or pay off a small personal loan?

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:24:37 -0800

Buying a house soon: is it better to pay down my credit card partially, or pay off a small personal loan? I'm buying a house in the U.S. and will be looking to get pre-approved for a mortgage soon. My credit score is currently in the 700s, and I make appx. $65,000 per year. I'd like to get pre-approved for a mortgage in the $130k-$150k range. I have about $8,000 in credit card debt (with $18,000 available) and a small personal loan (not a car) of $4,500. Before I buy the house, I'll have that $4,500 personal loan completely paid off -- unless it would make sense to knock $4,500 off of my credit card balance. Or does it matter?

Eerie coincidence, or does bigfoot...er...OS X malware actually exist?

jferg — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 10:52:30 -0800

Fraudulent Skype transactions: eerie coincidence, malware, or something else? So, my mom had some real weirdness happen in the past couple of days with Skype and her credit card, and I'm wondering if there's some sort of new, bleeding-edge malware for OSX out there I'm not aware of, or if it's just a really crazy coincidence.

(Note: I'm an IT Security Guy, but mostly on the development and network side, so I'm not _as_ current on desktop security and I do almost nothing with Macs - but feel free to go technical on me.)

This is the timeline of the weirdness:
1. Last Thursday afternoon while visiting my mom, I downloaded Skype to her Mac (x86 iMac, OSX 10.5.4), and set her up with an account. The account didn't have the same username as any of her other online identities, but was tied to the gmail address she uses for most other stuff. Didn't give them any credit card info or anything else, because she's just going to be using it for Skype-to-Skype to talk to me. (And I don't have her credit card info anyway.). After testing it to make sure it works, we closed Skype and didn't touch it again before we left.

2. Saturday, shortly after we left, she gets a call from CitiBank saying her credit card has been used for 'high-risk' transactions, in the form of 3 charges from www.skype.com totalling $10. She calls me, I tell her what info I gave them, that her credit card info was not given to them, etc. She calls them back, tells them the transactions were fraudulent, and they cancel the card, refuse the charges, etc.

3. Sunday morning, she gets an e-mail to her gmail account from Skype telling her that the charges to [some other Skype username] were refused, etc.

So this means that within 48 hours of having downloaded and installed Skype on her computer, somebody else has used her credit card number and e-mail address to sign up for a Skype account. This is, in my mind, slightly beyond coincidental, but the only other thing I can come up with is that her machine is compromised, or her home network (cable modem, wireless, WPA2, average password quality, few neighbors) is comp'ed.

However, I also signed up for a Skype account from my machine on her network, as well as paid bills, logged into my online banking, etc, and my stuff (at last check) was fine, which suggests its not at the network level.

So...is anybody aware of Malware for OSX that's harvesting info for Skype fraud, or is this just a really bizarre coincidence? Or is there anything else you guys can think of that I'm missing? Does anyone have any suggestions (outside of the normal unixy methods of looking for running processes, open ports, etc) for detecting malware on here machine, if such a thing were out there? I don't have physical access to her machine now, as we've since driven back across 4 states to home, but can do a WebEx or VNC session with her if need be.

(Also, she's since had the card cancelled and is getting a new one issued, so that's a non-issue, but I want to make sure this doesn't happen again.)

Credit card I used to book holiday expires the same month I'm there - is this a problem?

Anonymous — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 14:31:30 -0800

I have booked flights and hotels with a credit card that expires the same month as my holiday. Is this a problem? The credit card is a Visa which expires in June, the same month I'll be away. Will this be an issue with the hotels or airlines I have booked with? Should I just take this card with me for ID and my new card to book stuff with? If it's a problem, what can I do?