Previously I blogged about how I was concerned about identity theft.  Well the other day I left my application for my upcoming contract in the apartment’s public office.  When I found it the next day the envelope had been ripped open and the contents had been obviously perused.

Fearing identity theft I put a fraud alert on my credit report which is a free service.  I already put a fraud alert before with TransUnion so I did another one with Equifax.  The confirmation screen said that my fraud alert request would be sent to TransUnion and Experion automatically.  I guess I didn’t need to do this in the first place since the fraud alert I made before with TransUnion on February 26 probably went to all three services.

Identity theft is such a pain.  I don’t even understand why my next client needed so much of my personal information, maybe because it’s a government institution and they like doing background checks.

Categories: Finance
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Over the years I have been pursuing the best way to manage my finances that maximizes interest without too much inconvenience.

This is my current setup.

Washington Mutual for free business checking, free personal checking, free personal savings. The checking accounts have zero interest and the savings account as of today has an interest rate of 0.25% APY. I use these accounts for depositing checks and keeping a very small amount of cash on hand, less than $500.

Most of my long term savings are with Countrywide Bank which is 4.05% APY.

I used to use ING Direct but their rates have become less competitive. The current APY rates for Electric Orange are:

$0-$49,999.99	1.75%
$50,000.00-$99,999.99	3.20%
$100,000.00 or more	3.40%

The current rate for Orange Savings is 3.00% APY.

Most of my mid-term money is in my GE Interest Plus Checking Account with the following APY.

$0-$14,999.99	3.04%
$15,000.00-$49,999.99	3.20%
$50,000.00 or more	3.35%

On February 4, 2008 I learned thanks to this blog article that I can get a savings account with Washington Mutual that has a 3.55% APY interest rate. Such an account will both maximize interest and make things easier in terms of transferring.

I attempted to open this account following these instructions.  I also tried to open an online savings account directly.  Unfortunately after trying for several weeks I’ve given up. It looks like they have my incorrect credit information. In fact because of this I ordered my free credit reports to make sure my information was not incorrect.

Categories: Finance
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I have been using the American Express Blue Cash card since I moved to Sunnyvale because Costco only takes American Express. It’s a pretty card and it has a pretty good reward if you spend a lot. I still use my CITGO Visa, which gives 1% back every month as a credit, as my secondary card.

Your rebate is awarded annually for each Rebate Year (12 consecutive billing periods). Rebate percentages for each Rebate Year are as follows:

Year to Date Purchases	Cash Back on Everyday Purchases	Cash Back on All Other Purchases
$0 – $6500	1.0%	0.5%
$6500.1 or more	5.0%	1.5%

Everyday purchases are groceries, gas and drug store. My anniversary date is May 6.

Categories: Finance
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Recently I have been applying for various online savings accounts and been rejected each time for security purposes. I started wondering if there is an issue with the information in my credit report so I went to AnnualCreditReport.com to get my free credit report. This proved to be an incredibly frustrating experience.

You can choose up to three credit reporting companies to get your credit report. I chose all three. For each reporting company you chose you are redirected to their website to get your free credit report.

The first one was the worst, TransUnion. When I was redirected to their site they told me that they an online account for me though I don’t remember ever creating one. I tried to login but it did not work. I then tried recovering my username by entering my SSN and last name but it said it did not recognize. I tried getting online help but there was no way to do this. Finally after clicking on many links and pages I found a phone number to call, (800) 916-8800. Using this number I was able to order a free credit report but they were not able to help me with my online login issue. They gave me another number, (800) 493-2392 (option 1, then option 3) which is for TrueCredit, the online fulfillment arm of TransUnion.

When I called TrueCredit they told me that they had an account with my SSN but it had a different name! They then told me to call TransUnion customer service at (866) 212-2170. They told me an account had been created in 2003 and that the last name is “Jordan” for my SSN.

I was advised to put a Fraud Alert on my account and to call the TransUnion fraud department, (800) 680-7289.

The next one was Experian. Getting the credit report involved many screens including a security check which I thought for sure I’d fail since I had started this in the first place because of security check failures with other banks. Fortunately this succeeded and I got a credit report.

The last one was Equifax. When I was redirected to their site they immediately told me something was wrong and provided me with a form to fill out and mail in to get my credit report.

On my Experian credit report I found a few accounts that I did not even know were still open. I closed them immediately.

1. Chase Rewards Plus Visa, (800) 955-9900
2. TD Bank Visa/Debit Card?, (800) 747-7000
3. Home Depot (THD/CBSD) Credit Card, (866) 202-5490

Then my mortgage broker told me I shouldn’t have done that, that it will actually hurt my credit score so I had to reopen them.

Overall this experience was quite alarming and makes me wonder about how safe my credit information is. What’s frustrating is there seems to be plenty of security that prevents me from accessing my information but not enough security to prevent my identity from being compromised by others!

Categories: Finance
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It turns out that ING Direct and Washington Mutual only support web connect, not direct connect. What’s annoying is that Quicken 2007 itself prompted me to use direct connect for these banks. You can see a list of which connection methods a bank supports here. After Quicken support alerted me to this page I sadly turned off direct connect for ING Direct and Washington Mutual.

Categories: Finance
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I never appreciated receiving unrequested marketing. Recently I noticed Bank of America’s logo appearing on my Quicken splash screen.

Thanks to this Quicken forum I was able to figure out how to remove it.

First I found the Quicken splash screen with Bank of America’s logo at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Intuit\Quicken\06526\SPLASH.BMP.

Then I found this splash screen referenced in the init file C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Intuit\Quicken\Config\QUICKEN.INI in the Splash entry of the MarketingMessages section.

I changed the Splash entry to be C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Intuit\Quicken\Sku\Premier\Custom\splash.bmp. Fortunately that did the trick.

Overall I am quite happy with Quicken Premier 2007 which I got for free from a friend who works at Intuit. It has a nicer interface than Quicken Deluxe 2005, which I also got for free from another Intuit friend, and it allows me to download in the one step update from my Washington Mutual, ING Direct and Bank of America accounts. Previously I could only use web connect to download these transactions into Quicken. My life just got that much easier.

Update 02-06-2010: Another Intuit friend gave me Quicken Premier 2010. It’s great but today I noticed an unappreciated Chase logo on my Quicken splash screen.  Fortunately these instructions were just as useful for removing the bank logo from Quicken 2010.

Tags: quicken
Categories: Finance, Software
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