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Worst credit card issuers: gettin’ quantitative wit it! Plus a money sale at OfficeMax

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I thought I’d revisit the issue of credit card issuer quality, the reason being that I found this CFPB complaint database and thought it would be fun to run the numbers. The database lets you sum complaints by issuer, so all I summed up the total credit card complaints this year through May 31.

Obviously, large issuers will have more complaints, so to level the playing field I divided the complaints by each issuer’s outstanding credit card receivables (as of mid-2011, but close enough for our purposes, with the GE and Amex numbers coming from their 2012 annual reports) to come up with a complaint index. This isn’t meant to be any authoritative statement on how good or bad issuers, it’s just a check to see what the data shows us.

And here’s what it shows us:

complaint index

And what do you know? Capital One and Citi are once again in the discussion! Joining them is Barclays, which doesn’t surprise me too much based on grumbles I’ve seen about them in various forums. Chase and Bank of America come off fairly well, relatively speaking. And keep in mind that HSBC’s credit cards are now part of Capital One.

MONEY ON SALE: Through June 15, OfficeMax is giving you $10 off a gift card purchase of $200 or more. As you might have guessed, folks at Flyertalk are reporting success in buying more than one Visa gift card per shopping trip. The T&Cs do not prohibit this, so have at it!

SPEAKING OF MONEY SALES: Frequent Miler is a fan of money sales and other good deals, and he’s launched a new feature on his blog to list hot deals.

DOOMSDAY PREPPERS IN THE CLEARANCE BIN: Courtesy of The Reformed Broker. (H/T: The Big Picture)

Woo hoo! Cheap eats!

 

How to park for free at the airport! And why an 850 FICO is a bad idea

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HOW TO PARK FOR FREE AT THE AIRPORT: You may recall a discussion of renting your stuff out for fun and profit a while back. In a similar vein, Frugal Travel Guy tells you how to get free parking at the airport:

Flightcar is a new service that offers free parking to those who are willing to rent out their vehicles for the duration of their trip.

Parking is free regardless of whether the vehicle is rented out or not. If it is rented, the owner is paid $10 per rental for compact cars or $10 per day for large/luxury vehicles.

The service is currently available at Boston Logan, San Francisco international, and will be expanding to other airport locations nationwide.

They also insure your car as well. I suppose if you have an old beater, this would be an attractive option, not so much if you have a really nice car. It’s an interesting business model, and hopefully they can make it work.
THERE IS A NEW ANGRY BIRDS CREDIT CARD FOR SOME REASON: In an effort to meet the nation’s insatiable demand for mobile video game-based financial products, Rovio has teamed up with UMB to offer the Angry Birds Platinum Rewards Visa:

Awesome designs! Big rewards! Free game download*!

Rovio and UMB have teamed up to bring you the awesome Angry Birds® Visa® Platinum Rewards Card. Personalize your card with your favorite Angry Birds character – and enjoy a ton of great rewards and benefits!

Unfortunately, the website gives no information whatsoever about the allegedly great rewards. Perhaps it uses the UMB rewards system? But if you look on that site, there is no information about rewards either, unless you log in, which you can’t do if you don’t have a UMB card.

The Angry Birds Credit Card! It’s got great rewards… but you’re just going to have to trust us on that!

I’m angry about the lack of rewards information

WHY A PERFECT CREDIT SCORE IS A BAD IDEA: This Forbes contributor is out to achieve an 850 FICO:

Two years ago, I began an every-other-day ritual of checking my credit score. And that ritual gave birth to a mission: I’m shooting for 850, the perfect score.

Al Bingham, author of The Road to 850, is quoted in the article with some interesting thoughts:

According to Bingham, a perfect 850 may not even be possible.

“The highest I’ve ever seen was an 847,” says Bingham, who tracked 1,500 credit scores for several years while researching scoring systems. Sprauve says that when FICO examines credit scores, they do so in ranges, so even if someone did have an 850, they’d never even see it.

So, you may ask, why bother?

“It’s a pride thing,” Bingham says. “Everyone wants to have achieved the highest score possible. When I encounter people who have an 820 or 830, they’re always trying to get their credit score higher. It’s a challenge to them. I haven’t come across anyone who has a very high score and just says, ‘It doesn’t matter any longer, I’m high enough.’ ”

820 is way too high. The highest credit cutoff I can remember seeing for good mortgage rates is 760–anything beyond that is gravy. Your FICO score is an asset, and if you’re at 800, it’s an underutilized asset. Apply for a few more credit cards! Bring that score down a bit and score some sweet bonuses!

The whole point of having a good FICO is so that you can use it to get stuff you otherwise couldn’t get it. An 850 FICO is like a Porsche with 0 miles–sure, it’s pretty, but what’s the point?

Amex’s no-fee business cards have some good deals for consumers

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I was at Lowe’s yesterday and noticed a brochure for the Lowe’s Business Rewards Card from American Express. I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on credit cards the last several years, but this one had somehow escaped my attention, so it’s a good time for a review of the Amex no-fee business cards.

(Disclaimer: I have no business relationship whatsoever with Amex and receive no compensation for any of this. I’m just a credit card nerd.)

They don’t have flashy sign-up bonuses and therefore don’t get much attention, but these cards offer some superb spending rewards–and you get access to Amex’s OPEN savings network without having to pay the annual fees that come with the better-known Platinum, Gold, Green, Delta, and Starwood cards.

Here’s a summary of what the cards offer; details follow.

amex business cards rewards

Lowe’s Business Rewards: 3% back on restaurants, office supplies, and cell phone providers. No stated limits on the rewards. Rewards take the form of points which can be exchanged for  various gift cards. It looks like the points are usually worth around a cent, though it’s hard to tell because Amex’s rewards site for this card was down as of press time.

SimplyCash: True to its name, this card offers pure cash back, including a juicy 5% back at office supply stores. Note that the office, cell, and gas rewards are capped at the first $12,000 of spending in each category.

Costco TrueEarnings: 4% back on gas for the first $7,000 each year, and no limit on the restaurants and travel.

Blue for Business: Earns Membership Rewards points. There’s a consumer version of this that earns MR points as well, but with this one you get MR points for travel, plus a 30% annual bonus on points earned, which makes this card superior to its consumer version. This card also comes with a 10,000 point bonus. Note that the 2% for travel only applies to travel booked through americanexpresstravel.com.

Note that all of these cards get OPEN savings discounts. OPEN is Amex’s discount program featuring various merchants of interest to business cardholders. For example, you automatically get 10% off purchases of $250 or more at officemax.com with an Amex business card. Combine that with the 5% bonus offered by the SimplyCash card and you’re looking at considerable savings on office supplies. Here’s a list of the OPEN savings deals.

A new blog, a new Citi trick, a new 2% card, and the dark side of prepaid debit cards

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NEW BLOG: A poster on Fatwallet Finance just left a 9-5 finance job for a job as a traveling circus accountant. It’s an unusual career niche, and he’s started a blog about his adventures called Working for Peanuts, so why not check it out and give a new blogger some encouragement? And here’s the FWF thread that launched the whole thing, “Financial Considerations for Joining the Circus”, which is one of the better FWF titles.

REDEEM THANKYOU POINTS FOR AMAZON AT ONE CENT PER POINT: Speaking of Fatwallet, you may remember that Citibank recently devalued the Amazon redemption option in its ThankYou rewards program. But several posters in this thread have reported success redeeming their ThankYou Points for Amazon gift cards at the generous (by TYP standards) rate of one cent per point by picking up the phone and calling.

ANOTHER 2% CARD: Just in case you want another 2% card in the wake of the demise of the 2% Priceline Visa, the FNBO ExtraEarnings card gives 2% on everything for the first 12 months.

THE DARK SIDE OF PREPAID DEBIT CARDS: Prepaid debit cards are popular among people looking to earn miles or points, but in at least one case they’re also a form of prison currency:

One brand of cards — Green Dot — is so ubiquitous that it has become part of the lexicon on the inside. The recent federal indictment of two dozen inmates and corrections officers in an alleged Black Guerrilla Family corruption scandal at the Baltimore City Detention Center notes several instances in which suspects refer to “dots” in transactions.

…U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein said Green Dot cards have become the primary source of payment among gang members and other inmates in the city jail. Using a simple code number to make transactions makes the cards hard for authorities to detect, he said.

“Once a person has a Green Dot account number, people can add money to the account in many ways without anyone being able to trace it,” he said.

Green Dot Corp. is just one of many providers of this type of card, and there is no allegation that the company has done anything illegal.

The California-based company declined to comment for this article. Its website says millions of customers use its products to access banking services such as ATMs and online bill payment. The company collects identifying information about account holders, which according to court documents helped the FBI locate a suspect’s home in the BGF case.

Such cards, like phones and many other outside conveniences, are banned among inmates. No cash is allowed at the Baltimore jail.

According to court documents from the recent federal indictment, inmates would receive text messages on contraband phones containing 14-digit codes linked to Green Dot “MoneyPak” cards sold in stores.

No word on how many ThankYou points the inmates accumulated before Citibank shut them down.

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