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I log in to the chase credit card website with firefox...

https://online.firstusa.com/bank/BolLogin.aspx

Chase has a secure login Located Here But most customers are not smart enough to know that. You should have seen the mess I got into when I tried explaining to my wife to use that one instead of the home page one.

• Chase.com lets you log in from an insecure webpage (the homepage) with a fake "security lock" image to make you think it's safe. This site is vunerable to man in the middle attacks and does not educate users to only login from a site that says https://chase.com/
• Some banks / credit cards use generic domains for loggging on. Citibank uses a domain called "accountonline.com" to login their users. Use one domain please.
• Promotional emails use 3rd party to track clicks. Bankone uses a domain called bfi0.com redirected to https://online.firstusa.com/bank/ to track clicks from email. I honestly couldn't tell if that was real or fake. It asks for SS & card number, a sure sign of phishing. It looks faker than most phishing emails I get. I honestly thought it was fake till I researched the site.

You are correct with the debit card that they will not fund a debit card transaction with anything but your existing PayPal balance, meaning you'd have to transfer money in, wait for three business days 'til it shows up, and then use the debit card.

Instead of getting the debit card (which I have and do find useful), for this purpose I would recommend using the PayPal debit bar, which just gives you a virtual MasterCard number you can use online. The requirements to get it are:
- Have a Domestic PayPal account
- Be Verified (have added and confirmed a bank account)
- Have added a credit card where the monthly statement is sent to a physical street address (not a P.O. Box)
- Have a positive balance in their PayPal account
- Have a PayPal account in good standing (as determined by the Account Review Department)

In other words, (a) you don't have to wait for the card to be delivered, (b) you don't have to have a Premier or Business account, and (c) you don't have to have had the account for 60 days.

In answer to whomever said the card was issued by Bank One, you might be thinking of the PayPal credit card, which is actually issued by Providian. It's just your average sponsored credit card, like the Disney Visa or the Amazon.com Visa. Just a standard Bank One credit card with a PayPal logo that PayPal markets for them and PayPal gets a cut of the commission. You don't even need to be a PayPal user to get it. The debit card, by contrast, is actually issued by PayPal themselves.

then came Phoenix. Much smaller, I think somewhat faster and it works with sites that mozilla (for whatever reason, I don't know) wouldn't work with - First USA online was my personal pet peeve.

Just have some patience, and hopefully it'll be worth it!

I think .05 is already worth it. I haven't really run into many issues personally. What's new in 0.6?

Posted using Phoenix 0.5 / Linux (RH 7.3)

back to work...

FWIW, using a credit card for most purchases is actually good advice, because it avoids all sorts of frauds and other problems....

That is, of course, unless your credit card company belongs in the same detention hall as PayPal. This is slightly off topic, but consumers should remember not only to do their homework about online payment mechanisms, but their credit cards as well. There are some (IMHO) excellent, consumer-focused companies, and there are some (documented and documented) dishonest companies that suck rocks. If your credit card company tries to push off all of its fraud onto the end consumer, then using it is about as good as using cash.

A quick search online will give you volumes of complaints from customers on various different banks. The trick is to interpret them and pick the least evil.

One thing that consumers can do to protect themselves (beside reading their cardholder's agreement, but I'll assume everybody does that) is to call customer service of your bank before making a risky transaction and ask the representative to spell out your rights. Record the conversation and inform them you are doing so from the outset. That way if they renege, you have something to fight back with.

Another good thing to do is to find and read the Visa or MasterCard regulations (I would post a link, but they seem to be hard to come by) with which issuing banks must comply. Many banks will play upon the ignorance of the consumer and attempt to push responsibility for fraudulent charges onto the cardholder knowing that if they get lucky even 10% of the time, that's a whole lotta $$$ in their pockets.

Caveat cardholder.

Maybe this will finally convince my banks that Mozilla is a real web browser. It's annoying having to switch back to Netscape 4.x to use online banking just because they haven't bothered to test and adjust for Mozilla. And yes, I know what it takes to make a major web site Mozilla compliant. (I was formerly employed by a large rodent. ;-) ).

- Stealth Dave

because yesterday I noticed that the Woodstock people are offering a card and I wondered how long it would be before Slashdot sold out and did the same. Sure enough, here it is... Well, close enough.

• They do have a website for online account review and payment.
• They've never made a telemarketing call.
• My interest rate is 9.99% - great for plastic.