Reasoning Theorems of Success

The Discover Gas card is a great card for anyone to apply for if they like spending money to earn money. With the Discover Gas card you can earn up to a full 5% in cash rebates for purchasing gas. A card holder is also eligible to earn up to 1% of cash rebates with the general purchases made. These rebates and the amount you receive depend on how much money you spend using your Discover Gas card.

The guidelines include: if you spend $1,500 on general purchases you will receive a .25% cash rebate for gasoline purchases, between $1,500 and $3,000 dollars spent will give you a .5% rebate and over $3,000 dollars spent will earn a full 1% cash rebate for gas purchases. A great detail to remember is that there is no yearly limit on how many cash rebates you can earn and they never expire as long as your account is active!

As well as this great reward program you will find that the Discover Gas card also offers you as the card holder a great deal of platinum benefits. You are eligible to earn the many different types of travel insurance, auto rental insurance and many different types of fraud protection and security that can occur on travel and from home.

Unfortunately, a down side to the Discover Gas card is the use of the Two Cycle Average Daily Balance method to determine the card holders finance charges. This method is slightly more costly than the more commonly used Daily Average Balance. This slight downfall in the card’s characteristics is made up with the 0% APR rate for the first year and the no annual fee.

The Discover Gas card is great for anyone who spends a lot of time driving and a lot of money on gas. The more you use your Discover Gas card, the more cash rebates you will earn to spend towards your gas.

The traditional credit card is a great tool for making purchasing easy for both the retailer and the customer. But in this drive to be simple, there have been questions about the security of the system. In Europe, more transactions are being placed with the use of smart cards. And with all of their advantages, this might be something that the United States should begin to consider.

What is a Smart Card?

A smart card looks just like a regular credit card, but instead of the magnetic strip on the back of a piece of plastic, it has a tiny microprocessor underneath a gold contact pad. It’s a small computer that stores all of the information that a retailer might need.

This microprocessor allows the main computer host to ‘talk’ with the card to get the information that it needs. And unlike the traditional magnetic strip, it’s much more difficult to remove or steal information from a smart card. Many thieves can actually buy cheap equipment and get information from the magnetic strip on a regular credit card, but not with a smart card.

How is this safer?

Because your information can not be gathered from a smart card without your authorization, your financial information as well as personal information is safe. In fact, this is the same technology that is used in satellite TV so that you can get the channels that you have paid for. Without the payment, the host won’t ‘talk’ to the smart card.

Other applications include health benefit cards (in Europe), government identification, security systems, electronic cash, banking, wireless communication, and credit cards.

The cards can also be used with a smart card reader when you are making purchases over the Internet to further insure that your information is safe and secure. Simply attach a reader to your computer and create your own ‘cash’ register.

Smart card readers can also be found in vending machines and cellular phones.

With a smart card, you don’t have to worry about your credit information each time you want to make a purchase and you don’t have to worry if you lose the card. You will still report it as stolen, but the thief will not be able to do much with it since he or she won’t know the information that is contained on it and how to release it.

0% balance transfers offer great short term savings, free up money to pay down debt quicker, and can ultimately save consumers hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in interest over their duration. However, the very best 0% balance transfer offers on the market only last 15 months. For many, this is not enough time to completely eliminate their credit card debt and they are faced with a decision: pay the new regular interest rate or transfer their balance again. For most, a fixed APR balance transfer credit card never enters their mind. However, this balance transfer offer is often the best option for many credit card users.

First, let me explain a 0% balance transfer worst case scenario. An acquaintance of mine thought he could save a few thousand dollars in student loan interest by transferring his balance to a 0% APR credit card. The student loan had a fixed APR of 7.99%. He figured he’d save $1600 the first year on his $20,000 loan, then transfer the remaining balance to a new 0% APR credit card the next year.

What he didn’t realize was that its not always that easy to get approved for a new 0% APR credit card year after year, especially when you have a high amount of credit card debt. When it came time to transfer the $18000 left on his credit card, he was only able to get a $2000 0% balance transfer. He was stuck with $16000 of credit card debt with a 12% interest rate and the clock was ticking on his other $2000 in debt. Instead of a comfortable fixed APR of 7.99%, my acquaintance got stuck in a credit card nightmare.

Fixed APR balance transfer credit cards provide consumers with a much better way to pay down long term debt such as student loans or car loans at a set interest rate. Currently, some credit card companies are offering fixed APR credit card rates as low as 3.99% for the life of the balance. A rate such as this is lower than many student loan and car loan rates, and can provide consumers savings of 3% or even 10% on long term debt each year.

A fixed APR balance transfer is also a good option for individuals with high credit card debt considering a second mortgage to pay off their high interest credit cards. For example, a 3.99% fixed APR may be lower than a second mortgage’s interest rate and it wouldn’t involve costly refinancing fees. More importantly, however, is the fact that a fixed APR balance transfer doesn’t remove equity from your home.

0% balance transfer credit cards offer consumers great short term savings. In the long run, however, a fixed APR credit card provides a viable, interest saving option for those looking to reduce higher interest loans and credit card debt over a period of more than 12 to 15 months. Imagine how much better off my friend would be if he transferred his $20000 balance to a 3.99% fixed APR credit card instead of getting greedy with 0% APR credit cards.

Before I tell you how to dispute, you should be aware that the deck is stacked against you.

Here is how it works. You send in a dispute to the credit bureau. They are supposed to send your dispute to the creditor for verification. The creditor can either verify it within 30 days or the bureau must delete the item. Once deleted an item cannot be reinserted without the bureau notifying you in writing that it is doing so.

The reality is far different from what the law requires. The credit bureaus, instead of contacting the creditor and presenting you evidence, simply does a record check to make sure the computers at the information furnishers says the same thing as their computer does.

It doesn’t matter what evidence you furnish the credit bureau, they will reduce your entire argument and any documentation into a two digit code.

With that knowledge you might ask why bother? But often the creditor just doesn’t respond and you get a deletion. Besides, you gotta start somewhere.

There are several things to remember when disputing an item on your credit report.

1. Never use a credit repair sample letter. You see them all over the web and they are worthless. You already know that your letter will be reduced to a two letter code anyway.

2. Always make them prove it. Your stock credit file entry dispute should say something to the effect of “I have no knowledge of this account”. In fact, that is all it needs to say.

3. Keep excellent records. Send all letters certified. No need for return receipt so save your money. It is a fact that the credit reporting agencies violate the law every time they do a dispute. Being able to prove that will give you surprising leverage in removing some items.

4. Never accept even partial ownership of a credit file entry you intend to have deleted. Technically, it’s not really collectable unless a court grants a judgement against you. So make them prove it to a judge.

5. Collection agencies are scum. There is no other way to put. They violate the law and harrass you in effort to extort money that you do not owe them. Never provide them any information and never give them a nickel.

Before you ever send the first credit report dispute, you should learn as much as you can. You can easily make a mistake early on that will render the account in question almost undeleteable.

Darell became neccessarily educated and experienced in the field of credit repair. He is living proof that credit repair is possible and seeks to help everyone else get their life back. Check out his free site at http://www.rylansreviews.com/credit/creditrepair