FiLife

Yesterday, I checked myself into a JetBlue flight by just waving my credit card under a nifty red scanner. Even after repeated check-ins like this, I still feel a brief rush of Star-Trek glee fused with not having to show my embarrassing 16-year-old mug to another disgruntled airline employee yet again.

The card’s seemingly magic properties come from its radio frequency ID tag (RFID). Other examples include EZ Passes, the new U.S. Passports and PayPass cards used in the New York subway system.

Enter personal finance. In this BoingBoing TV video, Xeni Jardin has her RFID-enabled American Express card hacked by a pro, Pablos Holman.

As the video points out, you don’t need to worry about this kind of credit card threat for a while. The paranoid among us could wrap cards in tin foil or use a stainless steel wallet (comfy!), but the takeaway is that RFID security has a scary future. “There are more and more ways to leak that information without knowing it,” Jardin says. To which the hacker Holman replies; “with a bigger antennae hooked to this, I can go into Starbucks and get the name of everybody there.”

As if the economy wasn’t hard enough to figure out, this is yet another thing that consumers shouldn’t have to deal with, but we do. Find out what kind of security protection the cards in your wallet have and don’t have and if necessary, demand more security from the card companies–you deserve it.Also–and this goes without saying–beware of any geeks who come near your derrière with one of those weird card reading devices.

-Mary Pilon

It figures. Just as I’m packing for Rome, the dollar hits a new all-time low against the euro.

I’ve put off traveling overseas for several years in hopes that the dollar would eventually firm up. But when you start reading stories about how some New York shopkeepers are beginning to favor the European currency, you lose hope. And you just go anyway.

Since we’re already starting at a disadvantage, I want to avoid as many of the fees banks and credit-card companies tack on every time you make a transaction in a foreign currency. So I did some research to find out the best credit-cards to use, as well as what’s the most economic way to convert my weakling dollars into euros (I need a small pile of euros to qualify for a 10% discount on my hotel). (more…)

If you ask these people, today’s twentysomethings are swarming with financial scabies.

KeepItInYourPants.org is handing out a $5,000 scholarship for the student who can produce the best Debt Disease PSA and perpetuate its gimmick of likening credit-card debt to STDs. You can see the Pants People’s intro video (Barry White alert!) here, via US News and World Report.

I admire the general mission of the campaign, but I think most of us would rather take a missed credit-card bill payment over the clap any day. And unlike STDs, credit cards can actually be good for you. Last I checked, there weren’t any rewards program out there for herpes infections.

It’s no secret that banks and credit-card companies seek out college kids like underage frat boys looking for a kegger. And the average undergrad will have $2,327 in credit card debt by graduation.

But what about the irony of handing out a $5,000 scholarship to promote debt awareness and not even breathing a word about ballooning student loan debt? I looked all over the Debt Disease site with its nifty iPod icons and awkward pop-punk design (because kids today LOVE that stuff) and couldn’t find ANY information about how to use credit cards responsibly, establishing credit history or the fundamentals of student loans.

So who are the sexually-charged folks behind this campaign? (more…)

There have been a handful of occasions when I needed to call customer service about my husband’s credit-card account. I’m an authorized user on that account and have a card with my name on it.

But representatives always ask me to hand the phone to my husband, so that he can give them permission to speak with me. Instead of trying to deepen my voice by a couple of octaves — which I’m always tempted to do — I simply put him on the line.

It’s a minor inconvenience, but it made me think: is there a way we can get around this? If he’s traveling, or simply down the block at the gym, I should be able to call up customer service if I have a question about a random fee — and vice versa. (more…)

It’s hard to cross a university campus these days without seeing at least one flyer, pamphlet, or kiosk promoting a new student Visa credit card or student MasterCard. “No interest for 6 months!” “No credit history? No co-signer? No problem!”

The student credit-card offers often seem too good to pass up. But are they?

There are plenty of reasons why a college student would want a student Visa. But before signing up for the next offer that pops up, there are several things to consider. (more…)

SPONSORED POST: Redeeming credit card airline miles has gotten much tougher. There are fewer seats available and redemption amounts keep rising. On top of that, you actually have to get up and go somewhere.

It’s no wonder, then, that cash back credit cards have become favorites among the rewards junkies. And, according to many experts, the American Express Blue Cash card is among the best.

(more…)

As we all indulge in collective gift lust over the next few weeks, making lists of things we’d like from relatives and updating our Amazon registries, we thought it would be fun to set up wish lists for our financial-services providers too.

So for the next four Wednesdays, we’ll draw up lists of fees that shouldn’t exist, features that should but don’t yet and other things that inspire delight and disgust.

We kick it off today with a handful of requests for the credit-card issuers in our lives: (more…)

The iconic Black Card – issued by American Express – is an invitation-only card known for its lavish perks and services. It carries a $2,500 annual fee and a $5,000 initiation charge. Want to elope in Paris? They’ll make the arrangements.

So when Citibank upgraded me (I didn’t ask for this; it just happened) to a new credit-card – in jet black – I figured it was trying to capture some of the real Black Card’s mystique.

Still, I suspected my new black card was really a watered down version for the masses. It’s not the first copy-cat black card with special benefits, though the card – Citi Diamond Preferred Rewards World MasterCard – appears to be one of the first geared for people more like me. I don’t have a private banker — I have a 401(k).

So after you get past the sleek exterior, how does the new plastic stack up? (more…)

Earlier this week, Ezra Mound, FiLife’s systems administrator and resident security expert, sent a few questions to Mint founder Aaron Patzer about how Mint keeps user data safe (click here and scroll down to see our series of posts on Mint’s tool).

Here are Ezra’s (abbreviated) questions with Aaron’s (unabbreviated) answers: (more…)

Debit and Credit-Card Purchases Per Month: About 50
The Percentage Mint Tagged Incorrectly or Incompletely: 30%
Shopping for Better Deals Right Now? Just finished, actually (due to the good influence of my FiLife colleagues)

I’m a nut for tools that make me feel like I have my act together. As a senior in college tracking my spending carefully, I try to use my credit and debit cards for everything I can. But I do hit up the local ATM a fair amount. When I heard about Mint, I was skeptical. (Click here for our first post on Mint, which describes it a bit more).

Is this site really going to save my pockets from financial demons? (more…)