Banklady.com

Startup attempts to protect consumers from medical bill overcharges

medicalbillremedyappThink of this new startup as an accountant for your medical bills. If you think you don’t need one then think again as their are many reasons you need someone to look them over.

Here are a few reasons you need an outsider to look over your medical bills:

    A majority of doctors don’t explain the cost of recommended procedures.
    One-third of Americans with medical billing issues are forced to skip their medicine or cut pills in half.
    65% of Americans with trouble paying medical bills skip the dentist
    Medical billing issues are much more common in southern states.
    7 of 10 Americans with medical bill problems must cut back spending on food, clothing, or basic household items
    20% of all credit reports are marred by unpaid medical debt.

[Read more…]

Citibank Bonuses: $400, $600 for Checking & Savings

citibank600bonussmCitibank Promotions are available nationwide with cash bonuses worth up to $400. They just require you to open eligible checking accounts and meet certain requirements like using a promo code and maintaining a minimum balance. If you don’t live near Citibank branch you want to find then check out our alternative bank bonus list here.

Citibank Promotions:

  • Promotion Links:

[Read more…]

Former Wells Fargo Employee wants you to Close Your Account

closeyouraccount-wellsfargoKevin Pham, a former Wells Fargo employee made a Facebook post has been shared over 4,000 times to raise awareness over the bank’s latest scandal. He asks customers to back up their words with action unlike John Stumpf the CEO of Wells Fargo. He created a Facebook event to coordinate a “National Close Your Wells Fargo Account” day, so we all can send a clear message to not just Wells Fargo but to all banks. That they will no longer be able to make millions by defrauding the American people without suffering consequences.

If you do plan to close your account you may want to consider a smaller bank or a credit union or this will happen at any other big bank.
[Read more…]

5,300 Employees Created 2 Million Fake Credit Card & Deposit Accounts at Wells Fargo

5_300_wells_fargo_employees_fired_over_2_million_phony_accounts_-_sep__8__2016Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees who created over 1/2 million credit card accounts and over 1.5 million deposit accounts…without customer knowledge or consent. You better check your bank statements if you have one with Wells Fargo. Most of us know the bank for our mortgage loans they bought from other lenders who they now control. The headlines are coming in about Wells Fargo and they are speaking of the people fired. Oh, just 5,300 people. Are you kidding me? What is going on over at Wells Fargo who we trust with our mortgages – you know home ownership…

Well Fargo fired 5,300 employees related to employees that are stealing from the bank and its consumers which is almost 2% of their 268,000 employees. Wells Fargo employees submitted applications for 565,443 credit-card accounts without their knowledge or consent. Probably for bonuses. Bank employees opened up over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized.

“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

Wells Fargo will pay $185 million in fines plus $5 million to refund customers. That’s about $2.50 refund per bogus account. This could be the end for Wells Fargo as we know it. Although do you really think this is not going on at Chase or Bank of America? I wonder if Pam Codispoti, President of the Mass Affluent business for Chase Card Services and formerly of American Express, who spoke today on Bloomberg Business has looked into this issue. My take is that employees are looking for that bonus and with the consumers information they can easily apply for a credit card without someone’s consent and reach that bonus.

If you are affected by this then let us know what phony accounts were opened in your name and by what bank. Also, let us know how the bank reacted to your situation.

Are Margin Loans the Payday Loans of Stocks?

What You Need to Know About Margin Loans
When investing, an individual can choose to operate a cash account or a margin account. With a cash account, the account holder buys stocks with his or her own money and is limited by the amount of money in his or her account. When an individuals buys on margin, he or she puts up some of the money to make a purchase and borrows the rest.

Example of a Margin Loan

Let’s say that a broker offers a 50 percent margin. This means that to buy a $100 stock, the buyer pays $50 of his or her own money and borrows the other $50. At some point, ideally after you sell a stock that has increased in value, you repay the loan plus interest.

Pros of a Margin Loan

The best reason to buy on margin is that you have more buying power. Typically, a broker will give you a margin of 4 to 1, which means you can trade $4 for each $1 that you have in your account. If a stock grows in value, your return is higher because you put up less of your own capital. For instance, if you paid $1,000 for $1,000 worth of stock in a cash account and you finished the day with $1,100, that would be a 10 percent gain. However, if you bought $4,000 worth of stock with that same $1,000 and the stock went up 10 percent, you would make a profit of $400. That would be a 40 percent gain on the money that you actually put up yourself to make that purchase.

Cons of a Margin Loan

A big downfall with margin trading is that you could lose more than you risked if the stock declines in value. Additionally, just as your gains are larger when stocks appreciate, the losses are amplified as well when you trade with a margin account. You also have to pay interest on the borrowed funds as you would with any other loan product. Finally, if the equity in your account drops below the minimum required amount, you could be subject to a margin call. This means you have to deposit additional money or risk having portions of your portfolio liquidated.

Who Offers Margin Loans?

Most major brokers offer margin loans assuming you have enough capital and want to trade with margin. Examples of those who offer such loans include TD Ameritrade, E*Trade and Fidelity. While Charles Schwab doesn’t offer margin trading, Options Xpress, which is operated by the company, does offer them.

Trading with a margin account carries risks that may not be suitable for all investors. Therefore, you should only trade with cash unless you can afford a potential margin call or are willing to accept the potential pitfalls that come with such a trading arrangement.

While margin loans may be good for some you should really check out the interest rates on these products as they have higher rates. One person called them the payday loans for stocks. So be careful out there investing with a loan with either a credit card or one of these options.

Facebook, Instagram & Social Media Money Scams To Avoid

facebooklottoscamWe have all at some point at least learned once not to just click on any email when it says it’s from Yahoo or a password reset to a site. At least we hope you check every link carefully that comes in your email as such. Now that most of our time has turned to Social media so have the hackers and scams from deep within the dark world wide web.

Cyber criminals can get to you easy on social media especially on Facebook. With more than a billion users, Facebook has become an easy way for scammers to rip off as many people as possible at once in a variety of different ways. These hackers and scammers are getting smarter and more innovative posing as the people running contests or freebie sites to find a way for you to reveal your personal information or send them money.

You need to know how to spot some big scams that are making the rounds and how to protect yourself. Here’s a few Facebook and social media scams to watch out for:

If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. That same rule of thumb applies to Facebook and every other social media site, email chain etc. Any promise of a outrageous return on a small investment is probably a scam! If someone is messaging you on Facebook or Instagram claiming to be the owner of a contest or freebie site then contact the page you follow and see if that is the actual person. Most likely it’s a fraud. Just recently a friend who owns a freebie site told me about how a friend of theirs was messaged from a person on Instagram using the logo of the site on their page making it believable. They had claimed they were Paula Abdul trying to get that person to send in information and money. They would not give their phone number at first and when they did it was a Google Voice number that could not be traced easily. People actually fall for this and think they can send money to this person online who seems trustable then they never get anything back in return. [Read more…]

Simple and Easy Ways to Invest Money Starting with Pocket Change

Acornsinvesting

Investing these days is much simpler than it was in the past and is not always a one-size fits all for everyone. Mainly because as the market has grown people have different strategies, different goals with small vs. large amounts to invest in risky or conservative investments.

We have put together a list of ways to invest that are simple and do not require a huge amount of money. You can actually just invest pocket change to a few dollars each time.

These are different ways to invest that are not the norm compared to a retirement plan at work such as a 401(k) or 403(b) where your employer is in charge. These plans normally only deal with a brokerage and plan the employer choose. These are great for tax advantages and investing in your future especially due to the employer matching. In addition to your employer plan or if you do not work a traditional job and work from home you need ways to invest your money without all the brokerage hassles.

Acorns is a free mobile app with plans for a web-based application. This app allows you to automatically invest your digital spare change beginning with $5. You basically give the Acorns app permission to round up your purchases on debit or credit cards and then invest the difference by automatically pulling it out of your bank checking account.

[Read more…]

$100 Bonus for SoFi Personal & Student Loans with Lower Rates and No Fee

sofibankingNew borrowers who refinance a student loan or take out a personal loan with SoFi will receive a $100 bonus.

SoFi is the “anti-bank”. An up and coming non-bank lender that connects students and recent graduates with alumni and institutional investors via school specific student loan funds to refinance student loans at lower rates than traditional options can provide. It works by the alumni and institutional investors receiving a financial return, and the borrowers getting rates that are lower than those provided by the federal government.

We have researched hundreds of loan companies and SoFi is one of our favorites with some of the lowest rates. They have strict credit criteria and target people with good jobs, good income, a proven ability to manage a budget and good credit history. This is something that can save you money.

Get $100 to Refinance Your Student Loan with SoFi.
In order to earn the $100 bonus, you must sign up for SoFi through this link, proceed all the way through the funding of your loan, and become a SoFi Refinance Community Member. [Read more…]

How 35+ Small Banks turned into Just 4 Big Banks

Wallstreet and banking have been a big political issue on the Democratic side with Bernie Sanders winning against Hillary Clinton. Mainly because of issues the United States of America is facing such as “Too Big to Fail.” When you think of something that is too big to fail that would be one of the big banks such as Chase or Bank of America.

It started out as 37 Banks then became 4 banks in Just 2 Decades. From 2009 to 2013, only seven new banks were formed. “This dramatic reduction in new bank charters could be a concern for policymakers, if as some suggest, the decline has been caused by increased regulatory burden imposed in response to the financial crisis,” the authors of the Federal Reserve paper write.

Competition from small banks has dried up as a result. A study by George Mason University found that over the last 15 years, the amount of small banks in the country has decreased by -28%.

Big banks, on the other hand, are doing relatively quite well. There are now 33% more big banks today than there were in 2000. Check out these charts that really tell the story:

small to large banks into one big bank

Big-4-Banks-Oligopoly

Use Bitcoin Anywhere VISA Is Accepted

Bitcoin_Anywhere_VISAThe Shift Card for Coinbase users in the 24-states in the U.S. can spend bitcoin anywhere VISA is accepted. This is the first time a U.S. Bitcoin debit card has been issued. Other countries have had Bitcoin debit cards besides the U.S. This could really grow the Bitcoin base.

Users can use their Bitcoin Shift Cards to do online and offline shopping at more than 38 million merchants worldwide. Instead of merchants online such as Overstock it’s now possible to use bitcoin to buy gas, groceries, and goods at mom and pop stores.

The Shift Card supports Coinbase and Dwolla accounts. You can add both accounts to your app and keep track of all the transactions on the go. At this time, there is no annual fee or transaction fees.

How To Get A Bitcoin Shift Card?
1. Connect your Coinbase account at the shiftpayment.com website. If you are new to Coinbase read more about it in our review.
2. The Coinbase users need to provide their address along with a $10 issuance fee, paid in bitcoin.
3. Your Shift Card will arrive in the mail soon.