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The global economy is battling the Fed and USA Congress cancer.

USA Federal reserve and USA Congress are the primary engines for the weakness, creating inflation...

Well, they aren't doing a very good job at creating inflation since the rate is just a little north of zero at present, and actually well under the Fed's target rate to sustain economic growth.

But never mind, in the right-wing mind inflation is always at terrible levels (if a Democrat is in the White House, anyway) and hyperinflation around the corner -- any day now, just keep watching, you'll see...

Services like this one https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/car_buying_services_products will negotiate with many dealers at once, within your state or anywhere else you specify. This particular service is for ex-military, but there are others. Current marketing trends have already moved well beyond the local dealer, who for years was always the "richest man in town".

A friend (we're in the US) dumped BofA for USAA and is very happy. And on the rare occasion he gets a paper check, he can deposit it via a UPS store

A friend (we're in the US) dumped BofA for USAA and is very happy. And on the rare occasion he gets a paper check, he can deposit it via a UPS store

See https://www.entropay.com/
Disclaimer: I'm biased as I was one of the founders!

This looks like a great service - the best that I've seen in this topic, among those that don't require an existing account at a specific bank.

Here are several other pre-paid card services that are designed for youth accounts, but can be used as a plain pre-paid card as well:

• PayJr
• Allow Card
• Prepaid cards of various kinds directly from Visa, supported by at least 30 different banks (see drop-down lists on site)
• USAA Federal Savings Bank (requires USAA membership - really, really worth it if you qualify)

From TFA: "In most cases, funds are in the customers account immediately."

in the customers account != available for withdrawal.
You may get credit for the funds when interest is paid, but you can't remove the funds until the issuing bank clears the check.

See USAA's information on deposit@mobile
Specifically the FINE print: "Deposits may not be available for immediate withdrawal."

One of my favorite ideas (though I'm not with USAA): https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_utils/McStaticPages?key=usaa_mobile_iphone_main

https://www.usaa.com/inet/ent_utils/McStaticPages?key=bank_deposit USAA Has been doing this already and even has Iphone app

Wrong! I've hadd the USAA Deposit@Mobile app for my Android My Touch phone for a while now. Depositing a check by taking its picture works great.

USAA already allowed check deposits by scanner, so this really isn't anything new. But mix anything with IPhone and it makes the Slashdot homepage. Sigh.

USAA's site is all https and provides an immediate redirect if you type http://www.usaa.com/ for example.

Right this second, Washington Mutual's site https://www.wamu.com/ does the exact opposite, it redirects me back to http:///

It annoys me, but not enough to withdraw my cash. I just hit log in with the fields blank to get to the SSL page and then actually log in.

USAA's site is all https and provides an immediate redirect if you type http://www.usaa.com/ for example.

Wachovia's site is as the article describes and only gives you https after login. I wondered about it myself and so began going to the site by manually specifying https://www.wachovia.com/ -- this works and gives you SSL for the entire browsing session. You may want to type it manually every time, though it would be nice if all banks made their sites HTTPS only.

This really worries me, since I use USAA for a lot of my insurance and banking.

i have no fees, free checks, free atm transactions, cash back on card purchases, and rebates of foreign atm fees... the catch? you have to be ex-military or a (former) dependant of someone.

USAA

And I love my paypal account too

If you're in the military or have a relative in the military I'd highly reccommend USAA as an insurance company. They're not really out to make a buck - in fact, they send you a check at the end of the year refunding some of the money that you've paid them, based on their profit this year.

I've only had to file a claim once and it was for my renter's insurance, but they were just great. The auto insurance is similar.

While on the topic - check out their free checking accounts where you can use any ATM in the country and they pay you for the service fees that those ATMs charge you.

Assuming that you're military, you should consider checking out USAA. Spent 3 years in Germany myself and never had to go to Community Bank except to use the ATM a few times. (and USAA refunds the ATM fees!) Between them, finance/cashier's cage on base, the one at the BX/PX, and my Dresdner bank, there was never a need for Community. YMMV.

Insurance policies "make you whole" after some unforseen circumstance occurs. Your car insurance covers your liabilities in the event of an accident or other event. It does not fix your broken timing belt or leaky radiator.

Mine does. Switch to a different bank. Market forces will take care of the rest.

my bank, USAA Federal Savings Bank has no atm fees, regardless of who's atm you use, and they refund the fee that the owning bank charges! (up to a certain limit) If you meet their qualifications (current or former military, or their family), I reccomend that you check them out.

USAA has excellent browser support. I mailed them a few weeks ago about a rendering problem with Mozilla/Galeon, and it was fixed within a few days. The bug didn't even prohibit use of the site, it just made certain menus not work, so that navigation was more difficult.

Unfortunately, not everyone can become a member; see the URL for more information.

"PalPal democratizes taking credit cards"

First off, I just have to say how I laughed at that title. That's like saying Lenin democratized Russia. Replacing one oppressive regime with another doesn't change anything. PayPal just makes sure everybody is oppressed evenly.

"Best of all, the fees were only $0.30 plus 2.9% per transaction, with no monthly minimum, terminal fees, etc. like with a standard credit card processor. This page [paypal.com] at PalPal shows the comparison."

That's all well and good, but my problem (well, one of them at least) is that they charge per-dollar to begin with. For most normal bank transactions, you are charged per-transaction, not per-dollar, and it's only with credit cards do we see this baseless pricing racket put in place. I mean, it't not like transferring $100.00 requires ten times the amount of bits to move through the wire than $10.00.

On top of that, it takes them several days to transfer money to my checking account, but they can take it from my account "instantly?" Why does it work that way? Maybe so PayPal can skim a little interest off the transaction on top of the transaction fees? Charging me twice, are they?

I live in Louisiana. My bank is in Texas. When I sell things on eBay, often times when a person mails me their check and I mail the check to my bank, it takes less time to get my money than it would have taken through PayPal.

"To me, this means that accepting credit card payments is not just a privilege of those who can "qualify" at a bank, but available to anyone with just a painless web signup. And the fees are less too."

The problem aren't the middle-men who set up the transaction services, the problem goes much higher than that, rooted in the oligopoly that the credit card industry has become. Look at the recent legal troubles Visa and MastarCard are finding themselves in.

"If PayPal can ever get its customer service act together, it will really give banks a challenge."

It will be a cold day in hell before most banks can challenge my bank as far as I'm concerned. And PayPal has a long way to catch up with normal banks.

Just as an example, most banks don't make you sit through click-through ads before you can access your account. If that's not outright contempt for their customers, I don't know what is.

I have so much more respect for Citibank and c2it at this point that it's not even funny. Seriously. Large uber-corp offering a better service at a better price than some dot-bomb start up. Go figure.

"They don't
have all the nice tools, but for now the price is
right!"

From the fine print:

"When sending money by c2it internationally, c2it will charge $10 per International Check and $15 per International Direct Deposit. ...

In addition to the transaction fee, any difference between the foreign exchange rate given to you and the foreign exchange rate received by c2it will be kept by c2it. Please see "Fees, Limits, and Availability" at the bottom of any page for details."

On the other hand, my bank doesn't charge me for deposits in foreign currencies. Period. I've received personal checks and/or domestic money orders from Canada, the UK and Australia to name a few and the only extra resource of mine it cost was a little extra time waiting for the deposit.

While the domestic stuff is free, I'm a little wary about that as well. I can just hear all the Citi telemarketers calling me now...

Okay, maybe you can borrow someone else's paddle. Was any of this purchased recently? On a credit card with nice automatically warranty protection? Perhaps your home owners/renters insurance covers such an accident? (Mine would.)

Qwest and UUNet I can do without, but Sprint has some darned nifty services (Sprint ION, if it ever gets out the door). That, and us USAA members get all sorts of discounts from Sprint (EarthLink, long distance, PCS, etc.). So my current solution to that problem is to send a letter to USAA (who seem very privacy-oriented) and asking them if they really want to associate with a company that has such a reputation. I figure they can put more pressure on Sprint to change their ways than I can.

Since they are a full service company, you can see tons on your accounts page. For example, I see my car loan, savings, checking, visa, brokerage account, and mutual accounts balance on one page. I also regularly download my main account transactions into Quicken. It is super easy to buy an sell securities and transfer money between most accounts. Check your eligibility