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About Wyndo

  • Rank
    Impressive 100+ postings


  • Interests
    Reading, Game development, Writing.
  • Occupation
    Senior Software Developer

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  • Location
    Wichita, KS
  1. Like many, I promptly cancelled my PrivacyGuard membership when they almost doubled the price and seriously crippled the service by updating things only once a month. I kind of assumed they would go out of business (although, if I recall, they're owned by one of the CRA's, so maybe they didn't). I got junk mail from PrivacyGuard today (some shopping thing I have no interest in), but it prompted me to go check their site. Now, they're claiming to have "DAILY Monitoring" (yes, DAILY is all caps). I can't determine if they're really updating and letting customers obtain new reports each day again, or if it still works the way it did when I quit -- you see the same report over and over all month. Anybody know? Anybody still using PG?
  2. If MyCreditKeeper is the same company, I won't use it just on the principal of it. Besides, won't they do the same thing with it? Anyway, I got the same load of BS that the credit reports are only updated once a month anyway. I've seen new info appear and my scores change a dozen times in a month. They're just reciting BS they've been fed by their supervisors. They probably have no idea how it all works. Also, it's all an electronic transfer. There is *no* cost involved, except the artificial kind. The companies hosting the information have to pay for server(s) and bandwidth. That's all. Everything else is to (a) make a profit, and ( pay additional expenses, like employees and development costs. Essentially, *anything* you pay to view your credit report online is pure profit for the company, it's simply a database query. Sorry for the side rant. I'm a programmer and I do eCommerce websites, so it's kind of a touchy subject with me.
  3. Whoa -- MyCreditKeeper looks exactly like PrivacyGuard, except with a red scheme. How does this differ from PrivacyGuard?
  4. My refund would be $7, with an account ending June 1st. I ended *not* cancelling (but I won't renew), simply because the credit card they have on file was lost back in August, so the CC# isn't the same. I got some kind of shpeel about there being an issue if I were to try to change the credit card info now, so that I *could* receive the refund. I decided I was wasting too much time for just $7. I'll call on June 1st, and cancel. I wonder, though, how long it will be before they're bankrupt? Are they backed by a larger company -- Trilegent, or whatever it is? Because if people are getting refunds now, it's safe to assume all those subscription fees weren't just sitting in a bank account for this occasion, what with expenses and employees to pay and all.
  5. I didn't get a postcard, but I just posted a message about this very thing. I was unable to access my credit report this morning, so I email them. The reply I got back said the same thing. What's worse is, I thought maybe I had just ran out of time, so I signed up again. What I found is, they're now charging $155 per year, and it used to be $89 per year (when I signed up last January). I'd keep it for $155 if it was daily. But not monthly. I might as well just pull my reports directly, as needed. I'm calling to cancel, right now.
  6. I was unable to check my credit reports on PrivacyGuard this morning, so I sent an email to the tech support department. The reply I received back says that they're going to change the service so you get credit reports once per MONTH instead of once per DAY. I'm astounded. I had just signed up again (thinking maybe I had misjudged my sign-up date, and perhaps had expired), to find that it's now $155 per year (was $89 when I signed up, early 2004). Below is the email from PrivacyGuard, and my reply. Does anybody have any more info about this??? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Privacy Guard Customer Service" Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 1:30 PM Subject: Re: Unable to request Credit Report > Thank you for taking the time to email us at Privacy Guard. > > We do apologize for any inconvenience in this matter. Please be advised > that over the coming weeks the Privacy Guard Team will be making some > changes to the Web site. You will still have unlimited access to credit > report, but the information contained in your report will be updated > monthly instead of daily. As always we will continue to monitor hour > credit for you. Monthly instead of daily? You have to be kidding, right? I just renewed, and found that it's now $155 a year (was only $89 a year when I signed up, a year ago). Almost double the price, and the service is going to be crippled to that extent??? No thanks. Cancel me, please. ---- Mike.
  7. Heh -- yeah, the same thing is happening to me with Wells Fargo (seems like they have their hand in just about everything, from auto loans to furniture store financing). Luckily, the only complaint I have against WF is they're aggressive with recycling their customers (calling with "special offers" unrelated to our accounts, despite being on the Kansas no-calls list, which apparently gives them a loophole). But, other than that, everything has been okay. No problems dealing with them, no reporting errors, no real cause for concern.
  8. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think consumers should have the right to make decisions regarding what companies we do or don't give our business to. I choose not to deal with CitiBank. I've found them to be more trouble than they're worth, and in my experience their customer reps are some of the stupidest, nastiest people I've dealt with. That's my opinion. Right or wrong, I don't wish to deal with Citibank. Last year, my wife's long-standing student "Associates" credit card was acquired by CitiBank. Frustrating, but it happens. This year, she consolidated her student loans. It seemed like a good idea, but apparently this company *immediately* sold it to CitiBank. My guess is, they're a front-end, and it was no coincidence. Again, very frustrating. But at least it wasn't Sallie Mae. But I'm at my wit's end, now. My home loan, through Principal Residential Mortgage, is now being serviced by CitiBank (well, CitiMortgage). This just breaks it. The loan is only two years old. I don't like the idea of refinancing my home just to get away from CitiBank, but I'm thinking about it. This isn't a question or anything... just me venting some frustration. In my opinion, this account-shuffling thing many companies do is completely out of control. Consumers should have a say in who they do business with, instead of these companies just being forced upon us. Grrrrr.
  9. Oh, and I almost forgot -- information float! Used to, we would receive our credit card statements almost a month before the due date. Now, CC's are changing their grace period for repayment (what I'm seeing recently is a 20-day period). This means they wait a week or two longer before sending our your statement. There have been times when I've sent a payment online or using an "extra" invoice/envelope from a prior month when I did pay online, because we sometimes get bills mere days before the due date. You have to really know your cards and the billing cycles, otherwise if you get a bill late and that's the first time you've even given it any thought, your payment probably can't reach them on time.
  10. Ah, good point. I hadn't encountered that (it could happen -- even though you send a payment in plenty of time, they'll sometimes "post" it late and call it your fault -- hasn't happened to us yet, thankfully). But yeah, those get buried even deeper under the 0% APR balances.
  11. These things have probably been discussed recently, but I haven't been around in recent weeks, so I'm not sure. Appologies if this has already been discussed. I'm starting to think that the more things are changed to help consumer rights, the sneakier and dirtier credit card companies are becoming, to keep profits sky-high at the expense of their customers. Arbitration isn't totally new, but have you noticed that it's pretty much impossible to get a card without agreeing to this? Or, without the CC assuming that you have agreed by applying for the card? You can decline the ammendment to your existing CC policy, but that means you have to close the card and no longer use it. And, new agreements add this from the very beginning -- you have no option to decline. Sneaky. Next, I mentioned a few weeks ago that my wife got hit with this next tactic, but CC companies are starting to practice bait-and-switch scams. You are roped in with a low interest rate, but then they keep a constant watch on everything else going on in your credit. In my wife's case, there were no problems. We were just paying some other bills and saving for a vacation, not really making "huge" payments to her card, and MBNA decided to jack up her interest rate by more than double, because this "might indicate financial difficulties". We "declined" the change in terms, so it's pretty much a dead/unusable card now (if it's used, it's treated as "acceptance" of the change in terms). They screw over their customers in the name of "taking a risk" -- come on, give me a break. All that serves to do is make it harder for consumers to pay, and pad their own pockets using whatever excuse they can drum up... But this next one seems new to me. CC's are offering deals for no interest on balance transfers or no interest on purchases when you do a balance transfer. In the fine print, they state that balances with lesser APR will be paid by your payments first. In other words, if the offer calls for 0% APR for 1 year on balance transfers (but not debits), then any time you use the card, you're going to bury those purchases under the balance transfer until it's paid off. Basically, they rely on you using your card because you're going to pay interest on the purchases with no way of taking care of the balance until the balance transfer itself is paid off. It's too bad consumers aren't allowed to select the manner in which our payments will be applied, but it doesn't work that way. I kind of just needed to vent a little. Mike.
  12. Even with taxes, $60/week retirement investment, $35/week 401k repayment on a loan, health insurance (excessive, IMO, at about $60/week for me+wife), my net bring-home is about 66% of my original gross salary. There are websites for finding appropriate salary ranges for different jobs in different locations. http://www.salary.com, if I remember right, is one such site.
  13. I got a Mastercard offer in the mail today (not unordinary in itself -- I must be on a dozen mail lists) from "RBS" -- It's for a 5.99% variable APR (Prime + 1.99%). They say it's the real rate, not an introduction. Everything else looks pretty standard (all the usual stick-it-to-you-if-you-mess-up fees). No annual fee, no balance transfer fee. Anyone heard of this company before? Opinions? Respected company (Royal Bank of Scottland issued by Citizens Bank of Rhode Island) or a fly-by-night iffy one?
  14. Weird -- I have the best luck on Sundays later in the day. If I happen to be up at 2:00 AM CST (which is when it "resets" for me)... or 3:00 AM or whatever, it usually runs very slow and I know it's going to fail before I even try. I'm a web app programmer myself, and it looks like they're running maintenance (especially because of the suspicious timing, first day of the week) and that intereferes with retrieving credit reports.
  15. Heh -- I bet you're doing what my wife was doing. You have to go to "Credit Center" and then on the left, there is an option to order a new report. She was just clicking on "credit reports" then entering her SS# and seeing the most recent one pulled. You may be doing the same thing.