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The Linux Platinum Card: taken at better stores everywhere
DocSavage was the first to write with the news that The Linux Fund plans to offer a Linux credit card. Interesting-if they can get 100,000 subscribers, then they will have about 2 million dollars to throw at developers and projects.
Well I do pay most of them electronically, now that my bank (BankBoston) allows you to do this from Linux (via 128-bit strong Netscape)
They do electronic funds transfer with some of my cards, however there are a few that they don't have set up, and I think if you pay these online, BankBoston snail mails the payment to them. I'd rather mail it myself than wait for the bank to do it.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
My AAA Financial Services card was great, 12.9%/No Annual Fee/No late charges/no telemarketers.
But it was managed by PNC, and the sold it to MBNA as the poster above mentions.
As for the rest of the cards I have, none of them are great. I like my AT&T Universal Mastercard because of the calling card feature, but I think that got sold to Citibank.
In short credit cards in general are a scam. Should you own any... yes, you need them for some things, but don't carry a balance when you can help it. But they have all sorts of dirty tricks to make you pay more...
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Every now and then, I get a credit card with a very low interest rate (under 4%) for a period of 12 months. Whenever I get one of these, I transfer another loan (like my car loan) to that credit card. The interest rate is easily lower than the rate on my savings account, so I actually make money by borrowing.
This the advice my parents gave me when I turned 18 and got my first credit card. I've followed it for 12 years since, and I've never had a problem.
What kind? I've used a debit card to rent them before (A mastercard, but it should make no difference) I didn't run into trouble.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Check out this article on affinity credit cards before you jump in.
You were a moderator with 5 points. You should have read the moderator guidelines before you did any moderating
I've had credit cards do this for me as well. I tried to get the $25 dropped for the $1.57 incident, they refused. This was Capital One bank BTW. They did eventually drop the whole $50 after I closed the account. But the aggrivation they put me through leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
so now I have two cards at 9.9%. I just called up and complained and threatened to cancel my card.
Why'd you complain about that?
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Good idea
Would like to see the extended to the UK (I know MBNA have an operation over here as I used to have one of their cards). Guess it's time to hassle them directly.
M
That's what debit cards are for. I don't use my credit cards anymore now that I'm out of college and make enough not to, but I still have the balances I ran up during college, and I'm working to pay them off.
I agree the telemarketer harassment sounds pretty crappy. But not everybody does that, I don't think I've ever gotten an unsolicited call from my card companies.You're lucky. I took the day off from work yesterday, and had two of them!
If you are still not convinced, here are two more things that Credit Card companies do that irritate me:
1) They modify their agreements (terms of use) anytime they feel like at, and despite the name, you don't have to agree.
2) With some, if you close the account, they'll raise your rate on your remaining balance. Some will even charge you a fee for closing the account!
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
If you take his estimated 100k cards and 2 million
in profit then you are each giving 20 bucks a year
to support linux. Why not just send 20 bucks
to linus and not deal with all the interest. You
are gonna pay at least hundreds in intrest if you
keep a balance. There are cards lower then 12.99
out there with no anual fee. Is there a REAL non
profit org setup that helps linux expand and grow?
I would be all willing to donate to a real non
profit org that has a track record of doing good
things for linux.
It states right in the article that this guy is a
for profit company that is looking to make a
decent living off this card. Yes he is gonna fund
some projects but I am sure less then a million
would make it to those. And thats less then 10
bucks a year..
Something to think about..
Mike
I used to bank at a bank called Merchant's Bank which got bought out by First Fidelity (which later merged to form First Union). After FF took over, fees went up, conveniences were lost. I eventually left for a different bank (Corestates). Guess what? FU bought them too. I moved out of the state just before that happened though.
I've never dealt directly with FU (except for a Student Loan), but friends and family still do, and many of them are switching to other banks because they hate it.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Unfortunatly, it is usually the credit card company, or at least they are doing it in the name of the CC company ("Hi, I'm Pam calling from Citibank...") doing the telemarketing, not third party telemarketers, I don't know how such a feature would affect this.
1. Never end a conversation with customer service regarding late fees like the situation above without speaking to a supervisor.
I actually did this with Capital One, the supervisor refused to remove the charge, even though the late balance was only $1.57
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
The going rate these days for interest bearing accounts is about 3% or less. Credit Cards often charge 21-24%. I'd rather lose the 3% than pay the 24%.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Argh... you're right. I just remembered: a few weeks ago, I opened a new account at an independant video rental store because I was sick of Blockbuster's censorship. One of the things they asked me for was a "real" credit card, and they didn't want my debit card. So I just handed over the rarely-used VISA and then forgot about it.
I guess I better rethink tossing the "real" VISA. Thanks for the reminder. *grumble*
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Have a Sloppy day!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
You may not realize it, but for every transation you make the place you use your card is charged a small fee. Generally this fee is not passed on to the person using the card (accually its passed on to all the customers in the form of higher prices). Anyways a percent of that fee, and probably also a percent of all interest, goes to the linux fund. They estimate that about 2 million dollars will be collected in these funds if there are about 100,000 users. Wow personally that surprises me that the average credit card user would have atleast 200 dollars in fees and interest in the average year (200 dollars in assuming 100% of fees and interest goes to linux fund).
Ok -- I actually traded a list of Mastercard numbers (kidding!) :)
At least no one has griped about the price on the motherboard/processor yet....
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I had the exact same problem with MBNA telemarketers. It got pretty rediculous. I called MBNA and told them I wanted the calls to stop or I would cancel the card. It worked -- the calls stopped.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I really wish they would have had an artist create their credit card.
There's nothing worse than handing someone a poorly designed credit card when you go to charge something. Especially when you are at a restaurant or an expensive store.
I don't know what's worse, that faded out brown penguin with the cheezy platinum logo in the upper right or the blue card with the funny offset box.
Maybe I'm nit picking. There are some pretty nice looking credit cards out there, but they are hard to find with a decent rate.
MBNA actually makes some pretty full color deals of Hawaii and what not. They also make cards for several other companies that are quite pretty, the Garfield one is surprisingly well done as is the Gateway Computer one.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Overclocked Celeron Processor and Motherboard -- $125
Old IBM keyboard bought at a garage sale -- $2
Mail-order installation CD -- $6
Having a complete system running Free Software -- priceless
/* I can't BELIEVE I was the first guy to use this gag on this article! */
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I had a card through AAA (using PNC bank). It was great, 12.9%, no telemarketers, no annual fee, even no late payments!
But... They just sold their operation to guess who? MBNA. I just got a new modified *agreement*. (Gotta love that), and the BS has begun.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
For one, my parents didn't have money, so I couldn't call them everytime I needed some cash, like many of my fellow students did.
For another, I had a car that broke down a few times, I needed to get to work, but didn't have enough cash to fix it, so I had to charge it.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
And I'll bet that they use the lead time between when you sign up and when they receive your letter to sell your name to those greedy telemarketers, too
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
The sad thing is, if you use your Linux card to buy MS products, Bill will earn more money from the transaction than the Linux fund will!
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Venture not further for here ye be dragons!
If you "Apply Online" personal information like your bank account numbers, annual income, and SSN are submitted unencrypted across the Internet.
A financial institution that does not use crypto by force of habit can not be trusted with my money.
It's encrypted. According to the page source, the form gets sent to:
c ept_form.pl
https://al.webapply.com/cgi-bin/app_listener/ac
The last thing I want is another credit card, I don't care if it has Tux on it or not. I am sick of dealing with the credit card companies.
It's not bad enough that many of them charge over 21% interest, if your payment shows up a day late (thanks to the postal service), BANG! $25 Late charge. I once had a card with a balance of $1.57, I paid a little late, and they charged a $25 late charge. I called them and complained, I got another bill stating that the late charges were up to $50! They charged a late charge on the late charge even though it 1) wasn't yet late. 2) The original balance was paid.
They will constantly try to get you to buy "credit protection" which is nothing more than a scheme to increase your balance each month, since the interest + the cost of the protection will often be greater than the minimum payment.
If you have cards, you are guaranteed to constantly get harassing phone calls with offers that are supposedly too good to be true. Tell them that you aren't interested, they keep on, hang up on them, and they call back saying "Sorry sir, there must've been a problem with the line."
You think you are being smart and get a "low interest" rate card ( = 12% ). Guess what? Sooner or later the bank that issued the card will either sell it or merge with another bank, and your interest will go up. My wife had a card that went from 12% up to 24% because of this.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
HA! That will change! All my "low 12.9% APR" cards eventually changed hands (banks merged or sold their cards to other banks/institutions) and the interest rates went up to 21% or more.
Of all the comments I've ever posted, this is definately one of them
Oh wow, do I feel stupid.. Well I just woke up, yea, umm that it. Accually I have an automatic 2 points. I probably don't deserve it, but in general I write good comments that get moderated up. Anyways $20 dollars is not to much to expect as this is a per year estimate. If the linux fund only got the fees from credit card use, I can imagine that on average (the big spenders increase this average greatly) $20 seems reasonable. And I honestly don't see why this card can't receieve 100,000 members as there a very large community that will get just about anything with a pengiun on it :) I'm personally very tempted to get one.
This sounds very cool, but what if we get a Beowolf cluster of these Linux platinum cards together? Imagine the power that twenty of these cards could provide when working together. Don't buy at the shopping mall... buy the shopping mall!
If you are Canadian, try doing the same. Their e-mail is: fund@linuxfund.org
h tml).
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I think that your new LinuxFund.org credit card setup with MBNA is a grea idea to allow me to support Linux development.
However, it is only available in the US. MBNA Canada also has an "affinity marketing program" - it includes things like NHL hockey and non-profits like Ducks Unlimited (see http://www.mbnacanada.com/english/cards/affinity.
Is there any chance of getting a similar credit card to be issued by MBNA Canada?
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Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
Other cards to avoid:
:-).
Providian Bank -- did the same to me as MBNA did to A.C. above -- sent a card at low interest rate, then at 1st late payment (caused by slow postal service in my rural community at the time) hiked the interest rate to 22%. I payed it off and cancelled it immediately.
Fleet -- got an advertisement in the mail. Reading the fine print, they do the exact same thing. One of my other credit cards recently got bought by Fleet. After getting the runaround with their customer service department while trying to get a fraudulent charge removed from my bill (I am about to mail their company president a copy of "Knock Your Socks Off Service" to give to the service department manager), I am in the process of cancelling them too.
Anybody have a NON-ripoff credit card company? I'm running out of folks to cancel
-E
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