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Home :: Money 14 Dec 2011 Apparently endless free money from Capital One Money A year and a half ago I blogged about my Capital One credit card's payment checks sent along with the monthly statement, that offered a free loan for about 45 days. Early last year I stopped because they sometimes bounce the checks even though the online statement says there's plenty of credit. Since then, they stopped sending the checks, but I found that I could point and click on their web site and have them mail me a check, payable to me. See more ... posted at: 13:18 :: permanent link to this entry :: 3 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Money/freeupdate.trackback 10 Oct 2011 Is there a reasonable way to use credit cards online? Money A friend whose daughter just had yet another credit card cancelled and reissued due to online fraud asked me what she did that let bad guys steal her credit card. The answer is probably nothing. Bank security stinks, and large company security stinks more. For example, a few years ago someone stole 45 million card numbers from TJ Maxx, cards which as far as I can tell, the customers swiped at the register and never left their hands. Banks are figuring out that they need to do better, but they are ponderous, timid, and move in herds, so change comes slowly. I've seen estimates from well-informed people that crooks may have something like half of all credit card numbers issued in the US. See more ... posted at: 23:23 :: permanent link to this entry :: 1 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Money/cards.trackback 03 Jun 2011 Bitcoin and tulip bulbs Money Bitcoin, for anyone who's not up on their techno-trends, is this year's hot trendy digital payment system. Its main claim to fame is that it is peer-to-peer, not depending on a central bank to issue or validate the "coins", actually blobs of cryptographically signed bits. This makes it both fairly anonymous and hard to manipulate (at least in the ways that real money is manipulated), making it a darling of anarcho-libertarians. A lot of people have opined on its merits, most notably this Quora message. I took a look at the design of Bitcoin, which is credited to "Satoshi Nakamoto". Nobody seems to know who he is (or who they are), but he definitely knows his crypto. As a piece of cryptographic software design, it's quite clever. As a system you might want to use to pay for stuff, it's hopeless. See more ... posted at: 01:24 :: permanent link to this entry :: 9 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Money/bitcoin.trackback 15 Feb 2010 No more free money: everything bad you've heard about Capital One is true Money For the past couple of months, I've been trying an experiment in which I deposit "payment checks" from my credit card in my savings account, then pay off the account when the bill comes so I collect the savings interest. But not any more. On Feb 4th, I paid the balance from last time, and on Feb 5th, Capital One's web site said my balance was zero and I had lots of credit. So on the 8th, the next time I was at the bank, I deposited this month's payment check. On the 11th Capital One bounced it. Huh? See more ... posted at: 17:54 :: permanent link to this entry :: 3 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Money/freelast.trackback 28 Jan 2010 Free Money: January update and tax planning Money Capital One sent me some "payment checks" which give a grace period just like a credit card charge, so I deposited a couple in my savings account to collect the interest. Earlier this month I paid my bill electronically the day before the due date, and once I saw it had posted on their site, I wrote myself another check and deposited it in the bank. Payment and deposit posted at the bank on the same day, so I'm earning my 1.35% APY uninterrupted. When this month's bill arrived, there were three more payment checks in the envelope with it, and in the same day's mail was a little booklet with three more, just in case. I guess they really want to lend me money at 0% interest. In the meantime, I've been pondering how to best pay my taxes. Since I'm self-employed my income varies a lot from year to year, and this year I'll have a large payment due in April. I could write them a check, but what fun would that be? You can pay your taxes with plastic through three providers who have arrangements with the IRS. Since the IRS won't pay a merchant fee, they all charge extra. If you use a credit card, they charge 1.95% or 2.35%, much more than any plausible card rebate. But if you pay with a debit card, there's a flat fee of about $4. One bank I use now offers reward points on debit card payments. It's not a lot, one point per $2 with a point being worth about a penny, but a payment of $800 would earn more than $4 of points, and my tax bill will be considerably more than that. Hmmn. posted at: 01:13 :: permanent link to this entry :: 2 comments Trackback link is http://jl.ly/Money/freejan.trackback

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