Founded 1983: Liberal Mindset; Conservative Morality

December 3, 2012July 31, 2015

Schwab Investment Checking vs. Fidelity Cash Management

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, I realized access to our money was pretty important. Our local bank branch was down, and without power, for over 10 days. Sure, there were other branches to visit and online banking to exploit — but when it came down to it — as Mark Twain sort of said, “If you’re going to put all your eggs in one basket, you better have a pretty good basket!” — I knew I had to build a better basket.

Continue reading → Schwab Investment Checking vs. Fidelity Cash Management

November 8, 2012

Why I Canceled American Express Bluebird and Opened a Brokerage Account Instead

On October 9, 2012, I was high on the promise of American Express’ Bluebird prepaid card and “bank account.” By November 2 of the same year, I had enough, as I mentioned in a comment on my original Bluebird review:

Bluebird is majorly sucking. On Oct. 31, during Halloween Sandy, we received an emergency email from Bluebird support that my wife’s account had been locked for “security reasons.” We decided to spend precious battery time in the middle of a power outage to call and find out what was happening. It turned out someone else was trying to login to her account and instead of locking THEM out, AMEX locked out my legitimate wife from her account! Madness! Terrible security. Why punish the innocent party by making them call in and go through a 15-minute security test when we aren’t the ones causing the login problems?

Just now, we received another freaking email from Bluebird about the same issue! My wife’s account is locked for security reasons! She hasn’t tried to login to her account for days! I’ve been trying to reach AMEX support for 30 minutes. Lines into the Philippines tech support center on this Sunday are clearly not working. What a hassle!

I’m thinking we will have to cancel our Bluebird account.

Today, I made good on my promise and canceled my Bluebird account over the phone — unlike AMEX Serve, Bluebird accounts cannot be canceled online — and the only reason I waited a few days to pancake Bluebird was because I first needed to zero out my balance with an Automated Clearing House (ACH) withdrawal to my bank account, and Bluebird, unfortunately, takes many days to process any ACH transaction.

Continue reading → Why I Canceled American Express Bluebird and Opened a Brokerage Account Instead

October 9, 2012

AMEX Prepaid Twins: Bluebird and Blue Serve

There’s big money to be made in the transparent and low-fee prepaid card niche and American Express is going nuts in on this untapped market by partnering with WalMart on the newly revived Bluebird prepaid card:

BENTONVILLE, Ark., Oct. 8, 2012 – Walmart and American Express today announced the launch of Bluebird, an alternative to debit and checking accounts designed to help consumers better manage and control their everyday finances. Bluebird has been developed for the tens of millions of Americans who are looking for advanced capabilities such as deposits by smartphone and mobile bill pay, fee transparency, and no minimum balance, monthly, annual or overdraft fees. Bluebird puts the power back in the hands of consumers and will be available next week online at www.bluebird.com and in more than 4,000 Walmart stores.