Debt, Credit Card & Consolidation Current News Digest

American Express will stop deducting monthly fees on gift cards that go unused after a push from complaining customers, the company announced Wednesday.

Vanguard Primecap Core: (VPCCX) Return since 12/01/08: 47%

When you take back a gift you received and the money is returned to the giver, are you owed another gift? Money’s Ethicists weigh in.

Make the best move for your retirement plan: why you should rollover to an IRA right away.

I felt a little guilty when I realized I still had to get moving on consolidating my various 401K accounts into a rollover IRA. You see, I was once a former independent technical consultant (one of those “traveling” or “freelance” engineers during the dot com years who had jumped from one employer to another), who had chased numerous short term projects with the help of various headhunting agencies when the job market was hot. I had not only left a trail of legacy code in my wake, but also amassed a collection of minuscule 401K accounts tied to a variety of plans and invested in a variety of funds, discount brokers and institutions. Each account is far from significant, but taken together — well, they represent the bulk of my retirement funds!

I had been meaning to roll over these funds at some point (I’ve only been partially successful). But life has taken over, causing this task to slip in priority. Well I just caught this video which has now lit a fire under me: I’m going to have to get serious about this! Watch this and you’ll see what I mean:

Click this link or the image below to watch the video.

The expert here echoes what I’ve already known for a while but have not really taken as seriously as I should: that once you’ve left an employer, it’s never a good idea to keep your money in their 401K plan. Once you leave a company, you are faced with several options on how to deal with the money you’re keeping in your employer-sponsored retirement plan:

• Keep your money where it is (this is what happens by default).
• Move it to your new employer’s retirement plan.
• Roll it over to an IRA.

Of course, you can simply take the money out to do what you want with it but this is obviously a very bad idea.

The best move you can make? I agree with the advisers here who say that you should move your money into a rollover IRA as soon as you can. This way, you will have full control and access to your money without issues. It’s a hassle to do the paperwork perhaps, but it’s much more convenient when you’ve got full freedom to deal with your retirement money however you’d like. I’d like this post to be a reminder for all of us with stray 401Ks to do that rollover asap. Now all I have to do is practice what I preach.

Saving For Retirement? Best Move For Your Retirement Plan

Finjan, an internet security firm, has discovered a new Trojan horse virus that steals money from your account. Your typical phishing or virus will steal your login credentials and send it to a thief, who either sells it or empties your account. This new virus, called URLZone, will steal your credentials but also steal money from your account, all the while displaying a fake balance when you login. How much it steals depends on your much is available, it only steals enough not to trigger a bank’s fraud detection systems.

At the moment, URLZone can only infect Windows systems using Firefox, Internet Explorer 6, 7 & 8, or Opera web browsers. Computers are infected when you open an e-mail, click on a website distributing malware, or visit an infected website using one of those browsers. When you visit a targeted bank, and it’s thus far been limited to German banks, the trojan transfers money without you even knowing.

This is the first Trojan Finjan has come across that hijacks a victim’s browser session, steals the money while the victim is doing online banking, and then covers its tracks by modifying information displayed to the victim, all in real time, Ben-Itzhak [chief technology officer at Finjan] said.

This is scary.

Banking Trojan steals money from under your nose [CNet News]

(Photo: hendricksphotos)

New Bank Trojan Virus Steals Money from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

No.

Your credit score is a number calculated from the information in your credit report. Your credit report will contain information about your loans, other credit obligations, and negative actions in public record (bankruptcy, collections, court judgments). It actually contains absolutely no banking information so closing, or opening in most cases, a bank account does not hurt or help your score.

In some cases, your credit score might be hurt if you open a bank account. The most common case is if you open a checking account with overdraft protection. Since the bank may be giving you a short term, the overdraft protection, they may do a hard inquiry to see how credit worthy you are. If you are concerned, always ask the bank if they pull your credit and whether it’s considered a hard inquiry or soft inquiry.

So does that mean my recent rash of bank account closings will have no effect? Not necessarily. As you may remember in my post about checking your specialty reports, there is a ChexSystems report that collects information about your banking activity. Banks may see my activity, frown upon it, and deny me a bank account in the future. Is that enough to stop me from simplifying my finances? Not at all.

Does Closing a Bank Account Hurt Your Credit Score from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Toyota announced yesterday that they would recall 3.8 million cars in the United States in what is the largest ever U.S. recall. The removable floor mats can cause the accelerator to stick and push vehicles to speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour. Toyota is working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for a fix.

They advise that you remove the floor mat on the driver’s side immediately.

The following vehicles are affected:

• 2007-2010 model year Toyota Camry
• 2005-2010 Toyota Avalon
• 2004-2009 Toyota Prius
• 2005-2010 Tacoma
• 2007-2010 Toyota Tundra
• 2007-2010 Lexus ES350
• 2006-2010 Lexus IS250 and IS350.

Their advice, if the car is accelerating out of control, is to step on the brake pedal with both feet, then try to put the car into neutral and switch the ignition to accessory power (where only the radio is on). Don’t turn off the power or the steering wheel will lock up. If you have a start/stop button, like in the Prius, you can hold the button down for three seconds to shut off the engine.

Toyota to recall 3.8M vehicles over floor mats [Associated Press]

(Photo: alexdixon )

Toyota Recalls 3.8M Cars for Floormat Issue from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

The U.S. gross domestic product shrunk at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the second quarter of the year, far slower than in the preceding quarter and less than previous estimates had predicted.

Unsecured debt consolidation loan - Debt consolidation loans … fair-News.de (Pressemitteilung) A number of lenders offer bill consolidation services which bunch together a number of parent or student loans into a single one. …

Palm Pre App Catalog to use credit cards for purchases Pocket Gamer.Biz One of the most important aspects of application stores is their billing method. The mobile platform has survived quite happily by adding … and more »

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