Whether you are trying to protect an individual account from being compromised, or whether you are trying to limit the damage due to a breach at some other company, there are some things you can do to protect your online accounts as much as you are able.

Be Careful of What Information Your Share in Public

One of the issues with passwords these days is that it is fairly easy to get information about likely password combinations with the help of publicly available information. Your blog, a social media profile, or other information online can provide clues to your likely password. Don’t build a password around information that is easy to obtain or guess from looking at the information you share online. Your kids’ or pets’ names, birth dates, names of parents, where you went to school, the year you graduated, and other similar information can be found online, or clues to the answers can be found fairly easily. Don’t use this information when creating a password.

If you want to come up with some truly difficult passwords, create a system that appears random, or use a password generator. Random.org can help you create a truly random password with no connection to your life events.

Change It Up

Don’t use the same password for all of your accounts. One of the techniques used after the PlayStation Network was hacked was to go to different web sites and try the same username and password combination. If a hacker gets your password from one database, all of your accounts are compromised if you use the same password. Change it up by using different passwords for different accounts, and by changing your passwords every few months.

Use a Cheat Sheet

In order for this to work, you need to omit some of the information, or create a clues to help you remember the password without giving it away. This can help you avoid problems if your cheat sheet falls into the wrong hands. Another method of “cheating” is to come up with a system. Use your favorite literary character, or use the first two letters in each word that makes up the title of your favorite song. Throw in a number, and create a method of mixing upper and lower case letters. Then, change something about the password to reflect which account it’s for.

For instance, I might use Scotland the Brave, with the number 73, an underscore and the second and fifth letters capitalized as my system. My Twitter password would be Twi_sCth73Br, while my Facebook password would be Fac_sCth73Br. Both look random, and would be hard to guess. But the system would mean that I could remember my passwords.

You can also encrypt your data using a free service like KeePass to protect your password and login information, or use a locked file on your computer to protect the information.

Bottom Line

There is no way to completely protect your online accounts. However, you can make it harder for others to break in, and you can limit the damage when one of your accounts is compromised, preventing unsavory characters from getting into all of your accounts.

(Photo: zebble)

Protect Your Online Accounts from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

As of this writing, the Series I bond are yielding 3.06% APY through April 2012 (fixed rate component of 0.0% and inflation component of 1.53%) while a Series EE bond will yield 0.60% (but remember, they are guaranteed to double after twenty years, even if the fixed rate won’t get you there, but that adjustment doesn’t happen until you hit twenty years).

In our current interest rate environment, with online savings accounts yielding so little, I’m a fan of Series I bonds.

(Photo: karen_d)

Series I & Series EE Bond Purchase Limit Increased to $10,000 Each from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

But as is anything on paper, they’re easy to lose. This is especially true if you’ve moved several times or, in the case of gifts to children, they’re sitting in a folder at your parent’s house. Fortunately, they may be easy to find as long as they are Series E bonds and were issued after 1974 (a small subset, I know, but better than nothing!). The Treasury Department built a Treasury Hunt tool that you can use to look for bonds that have fully matured. Sadly, if they haven’t fully matured or aren’t Series E, the system won’t have it. It’s archaic but it’s the only thing we have and the Treasury has billions in unredeemed fully matured Series E bonds it’s looking to return to owners.

What if you don’t have a Series E bond issued after 1974? You can have the Treasury look for you. This is is the same process you’d take if you found a bond through Treasury Hunt and wanted to claim, replace, or redeem it. Fill out a Form PD F 1048 E and make a claim on it. It asks for issue date, face amount, and bond number but you can file a claim if you are missing some of the information (either way, the Treasury searches for you). At minimum, you need to enter your name and Social Security Number. You’ll need to have the document certified, usually at a bank, and the Treasury will try to find the bonds for you.

Finally, if you have the bond in your possession and you just aren’t sure if it’s still earning interest, check out this list. It will tell you whether or not you should be redeeming it. For example, all Series E and H bonds have stopped earning interest by now and you should redeem them as soon as possible.

(Photo: The.Comedian

How to Find Matured & Unredeemed Treasury Bonds from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

2011 also saw the failure of two internet banks – Lydian Bank, the parent of Virual Bank, and Nexity Bank, a bank I had never heard of. Internet banks have typically been safe from failure, with never a whisper of failure coming from the larger companies like ING Direct and Ally Bank. I still think that online banks are pretty safe from failure (which means you’d be spared from headaches as FDIC insurance covers you quite a bit) and are tough to beat when coupled with higher interest rates.

If you like some trivia, Georgia saw the most failures (23) with Florida coming in second (13). It flipped from 2010 when Florida had 29 and Georgia had 21. We’ll see who pulls ahead for good this year.

Here’s the full list from the FDIC in case you want to play around with it.

92 Failed Banks in 2011 from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

And it has. Some would say that Suze Orman is the queen of the personal finance gurus. She’s one of the few that is truly on the side of the consumer but her new debit card has some people questioning their Suzie love and maybe they should. Has Suzie gone rogue or is this card truly on the side of the consumer?

The Details

Companies who offer prepaid debit cards know that they’re going after the consumer that banks don’t want. Their credit is normally damaged to the point where a normal credit card isn’t an option and they don’t have enough money to keep in a bank account where they could use a debit card linked to their checking account. Of course there are other uses for these prepaid cards but the bulk of the market is subprime customers.

The reason that consumer advocates don’t like these prepaid cards is because they often come with high fees. A couple of bucks to reload the card, a few more dollars in monthly fees, charges to speak with a customer service representative and the ever-present ATM fee. Credit reporting agencies don’t consider debit card usage in to your credit score so having a prepaid card does nothing to help rebuild credit.

Orman’s card costs $3 to purchase along with a $3 monthly maintenance fee. Providing you stay in the Allpoint network and you make a minimum direct deposit of $20 per month, all ATM withdrawals are free. Your first call to customer service is free but after that you’re charged $2 per call. If you ask for cash back when making purchases, you’re charged an additional $2.

In addition, Orman has struck a deal with TransUnion that allows holders of her card to receive their credit report free of charge any time they request it which includes their TransUnion credit score. Although much less useful than the FICO score, this, along with her convincing TransUnion to begin tracking debit card activity, is a customer-friendly service.

The Verdict

You would think celebrities would learn from other people’s mistakes but apparently not. While this doesn’t seem to be something that will ruin Orman’s career, she isn’t scoring big points for the card. This article along with many others seem to illustrate the fact that consumer finance advocates who are generally anti-credit card shouldn’t push a debit card that is less cost effective than simply paying with cash.

We aren’t the first personal finance bloggers to complain about the card. I don’t know if she was the first but Briana at 20andengaged.com drew fire directly from Suze Orman herself for her critique. Phil also drew some heat for his less than stellar review of the card. My friend Jeremy at GenXFinance.com shared his thoughts as well. The consensus of us “idiots” was that it’s a terrible card.

In recent years, Suze Orman has taken some criticism for the many ways she’s found to capitalize on her fame. Her books, increasing television appearances, and now the debit card, in the eyes of some, have tarnished her reputation as somebody interested in giving unbiased advice.

But is that fair? Banks who issue prepaid debit cards have to charge fees because the people using them aren’t keeping enough money on deposit for the bank to make money on those funds. It would be unrealistic to think that a card like this would be fee free and it seems clear that Orman is in a can’t-win position as long as there are fees of any type associated with the card. This article does a great job illustrating why we would rather our celebrities endorse watches than debit cards and the less than enthusiastic response to the Suzie Card seems to illustrate that.

Maybe writing another book would have been a better idea? What do you think?

Why Suze Orman’s Approved Prepaid Debit Card is Terrible from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

To review a bit, reward checking accounts are like regular checking accounts except they “reward” you for following the rules they’ve outlined. If you fail to satisfy all the conditions, you don’t earn the juiced up interest rate, you get the regular, often minuscule, rate. That rate, however, is often better than what you’d get at one of the big national banks, who often offer nothing.

Common requirements are that you sign up for online banking and paperless statements. Many require you to make a certain number of debit/check card purchases, usually ten or more. Some will require some bill payment through their online bill payment system. These are all designed to lower costs (paperless statements) or increase revenues (off fees they make from check card purchases) so that they can offer you increased interest.

Sadly, they’ve fallen on some hard times with the general fall in interest rates. If you thought interest rates at online savings accounts took a hit, you probably haven’t seen the rates of high yield reward checking accounts recently. Depositaccounts.com has a list of the highest yielding ones and the list tops out at 2.01% APY, a far cray from the 5% that was available several years ago. While they’re still offering more than online savings accounts, it’s hard to justify the added hassle for only a small increase in interest.

Do you use a high yield reward checking account? Or do you think it’s too much work for too little gain?

2012 State of High Yield Reward Checking Accounts from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

If you wanted to take advantage of this bonus as quickly as possible (and if you don’t already have a CD there), I think you’re can just open a CD for 3 months for $1 and then renew it with more money and for a longer period. (and I bet Ally Bank wouldn’t really care!)

The best part was that the whole process took just a few minutes using their online chat. I was logged in before I started the chat and all I had to do was confirm my phone number and address. Not bad for a day’s work!

Ally Bank Still Offering 0.25% Certificate of Deposit Loyalty Bonus from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Here is some of the legalese:

You will receive a $50 bonus if you open a Capital One Bank InterestPlus Online Savings (IPOS) account online only, enter the offer code at the time of account opening, and have $10,000 or more on deposit on 1/15/2012. This account must be your first account with Capital One Bank. The deposit will be deposited into your account 4-8 weeks after 1/15/2012 and the account must be open at the time the bonus is credited. The bonus will be reflected on your monthly statement and will be included in your year-to-date interest and year end tax reporting. This offer cannot be combined with any other offers.

I opened one of these accounts under a similar Costco/Capital One promotion last year and have been happy with it. If you are a Costco member, especially an Executive member, then the Costco promotion is better. With an Executive membership you get $60 in bonus money ($20 for Gold and Business) plus a higher interest rate (0.91% vs 0.80% as of today). Finally, the minimum you need to deposit to get the rate and bonus is $5,000, not $10,000.

Capital One Bank $50 InterestPlus Online Savings Promotion from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee,” David Darnell, co-chief operating officer at Bank of America, said in a statement. “As a result, we are not currently charging the fee and will not be moving forward with any additional plans to do so.”

For many customers like me, it’s too late. I’m leaving. I started the process to change my bank a month ago and I’m not stopping – here’s why:

Momentum

I’ve already started adjusting my financial network map to put Ally Bank at its center. All my Bill Pays have been moved over, direct deposits have been changed, credit card payments have been updated, and the only things left are infrequently used things like Treasury Direct account links and how we pay our county water bill.

The hard work of moving accounts has been done and was prompted by a “measly” $5 debit fee. There’s no reason to stop now and certainly no reason to revert back. What will seem kind of funny is that the reasons for doing this aren’t themselves enough to push me to move. It’s the annoyance of a $5 fee that pushed me to move and once I started, I’m not stopping.

Interest Rates

Any online bank will give you a better interest rate on checking, I simply chose Ally Bank because it, at the time, had the higher rates based on a brief look around. Right now, you can get a little under 1% at an online bank for a checking account. A Bank of America, I was getting a big fat zero. It’s not a ton of money, which is why I wouldn’t have switched banks sans the fee, but it’s better to make money than pay it.

As for picking Ally – I could’ve opened a checking account at ING Direct or a dozen other banks between similar rates, a favorable CD termination penalty, and online chat functionality; Ally won out.

ATM Access

I opened a Bank of America account because they have branches and ATMs everywhere. Here’s the ironic part about all this, since many online checking accounts offer ATM reimbursement, they have networks even bigger than Bank of America. Ally will reimbursement all ATM fees. That means every ATM is an Ally Bank ATM. When I opened the account nearly a decade ago, online checking wasn’t readily available and the ones that were available certainly didn’t reimburse all ATM access.

Depositing Paper Checks

Finally, with a brick and mortar bank like Bank of America, you have to deposit checks at the branch or a BoA ATM. With Ally, I can scan the check and upload it. If I don’t have a scanner or if the check doesn’t scan right or if I’m simply too lazy, I pop it into an envelope and mail it to them. I do run the risk of the check being lost in the mail, I’ve done it a few times and it hasn’t happened so I’m happy to keep taking that risk (plus I don’t get that many paper checks).

So as you can see, all of the reasons to switch aren’t enough on their own, it wasn’t until I heard about the potential debit card fee that I realized a sea change was coming. Today it’s the debit fee, tomorrow it’ll be something else. They will have to find a new revenue source and most of those come out of our pockets.

(Photo: beglendc)

Bank of America Cancels Debit Fee, I’m Still Leaving from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

While there are additional headaches involved with being unbanked, the big one is the inability to easily cash checks. With a bank account, you simply deposit the check and go on your merry way. For the unbanked, you have to find and alternative and some of them can be expensive.

Here are a few alternative options:

Wal-Mart

Go into any Wal-Mart store with a payroll check, government check, or tax check and you can get that cashed for a small fee. How small? For checks up to and including $1,000, the fee is a maximum of $3. If your check is over $1000, the fee is $6. The maximum check they cash is $5,000 and you can do it in any checkout lane in the store.

Check Cashing Stores

A few years ago, Consumerist looked at the fees at MoneyGram. I don’t know if they’re representative of the rates at other cash checking places but they’re slightly higher than Wal-Mart and it’s unclear what checks they accept (likely the same government and payroll checks that Wal-Mart) accepts. I’d expect MoneyGram places to be cheaper than smaller check cashing operations.

CheckPoint, with locations here in Baltimore, says they cash a variety of checks other institutions don’t – including personal checks. Most of them are from reliable sources (cashier checks, insurance checks, money orders, etc.) but seeing personal checks on that list was surprising. There was no listing of fees but I’d expect them to be higher than Wal-Mart. If you have an insurance check, you might have to go to one of these operations since Wal-Mart won’t take them. (Payomatic in New York, a similar business to Checkpoint with similar acceptance lists, charges 1.86%, which is a rate set by the Superintendent of Banks).

Grocery Store

Your favorite grocery store may offer check cashing services as long as it’s a payroll check or government check but there are often restrictions. Common restrictions are limits of the check (some will only cash a small amount at first, then the amount gradually increases, etc.) and the fees will vary from store to store.

Issuing Bank

If you get a personal check from someone and you don’t have an account to deposit it in, you might have thought to go to the issuing bank, right? It turns out that those banks will most often charge a fee if you are not a customer. Not only that, but that fee will make check cashing stores look cheap! Two years ago, Consumerist reported that someone trying to cash a Bank of America check had to pay $6. This year, someone trying to cash a Citizens Bank check faced a $7 fee. It’s an option… but it’s going to be the most expensive one.

As it turns out, the worst place to cash a check is at an actual bank. Intuitively, we’d expect check cashing places to be the worst, right? Check cashing stores are often payday lenders who charge exorbitant fees but it’s the banks that often charge the most. For those who are unbanked and need a place to cash checks, the best universal option appears to be Wal-Mart because they are practically ubiquitous and their rates are quite reasonable.

(Photo: stevesnodgrass)

Best Place to Cash Checks from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

At the moment, the lawsuit hasn’t received class action status and right now there are three law firms suing Zions Bank on behalf of Melinda Barlow. Zions is a regional bank with branches in Utah and Idaho but her parent company has banks all over the western and southwestern United States.

Zions Bank Sued in Utah Over Overdraft Charges from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

And there doesn’t seem to be an end in site. The Fed recently implemented Operation Twist. The Fed says that it isn’t a quantitative easing attempt, and that QE3 is by no means assured, but it is still an economic stimulus move meant to lower interest rates. Indeed, Ben Bernanke has said that he expects low rates to continue into 2013. Savers have a long wait ahead.

Strategies for Increasing Your Yield

Since you have a long wait ahead of you, it’s a good idea to change your expectations for what you are likely to receive. But that doesn’t mean you can’t keep looking for better yields. You do have some options when it comes to improving your earnings on your cash. It just might mean taking on a little risk. Here are some of your options:

• Rewards checking: Right now, rewards checking accounts are offering better yields than high yield savings accounts and even many 5-year CDs. However, you have to be able to meet certain requirements. You might need to use your debit card a certain number of times, and you might need to maintain a minimum balance – and there is likely to be a cap on the maximum balance that earns the higher rate. But it can still provide a good alternative.
• Bonds: If you don’t mind some risk, you can invest in bonds. Treasury bonds are considered quite safe. While yields have been dropping, many of these bonds still offer better returns than cash. You can invest in I-bonds or TIPS and keep pace with inflation. You might also consider municipal bonds, which, although they come with higher risk, provide the potential for better earnings.
• Stocks: Now might be the time look for solid stocks that can provide decent returns and weather the current situation. Stocks certainly have the potential to provide greater yields than cash. Plus, if you choose value stocks, or choose dividend stocks, you are choosing stocks considered to be less risky. Dividend stocks can even provide you with regular income that can more than make up for the low yields being paid on cash.

You can, of course, shop around for the best CD rates and best savings accounts rates. Even the best rates, though, are currently sub-par. You might be better off trying something else to earn a little more. If you are serious about increasing your yield, and earning a bit more, you will have to move beyond the more traditional cash products favored by savers. If you are choosy about your investments, you can limit some of your risk. Otherwise, if you stick with CDs and savings accounts, you might find that your earnings are less than desirable.

What Can Savers Do in This Low Rate Environment? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Savers are being, as much as savers can be, crushed. Low interest rates means that we’re getting about a penny per dollar each year in an online savings account – a penny! Lock your savings into a CD and you can maybe get two pennies a year.

So how can you benefit from low interest rates? It’s quite easy… borrow more.

Buy a House

While I don’t actually believe people should be spending more than they earn but whenever you buy a house, that’s basically what you’re doing when you sign up to be a homeowner. Fortunately, interest rates are absurdly low right now. I always look at the publicly listed rates on Wells Fargo to give me a good idea and they’re at historic lows. 30 year fixed loans are just over 4% (they were under 4% just a few weeks ago) and 15 year fixed loans are a bit over 3% for conforming loans. If you already own a house, consider refinancing, especially if you can do it on the cheap.

Curious if rates will go up in the near future? While it’s not a perfect methodology, I tend to look at U.S. Treasury rates for insight. My feeling is that U.S. Treasuries are 100% safe investments that a bank can make so it’s an absolute floor for interest rates. Watching where those rates move can give us an idea if we believe rates will go up or down… but given that and publicly stated Fed policy, I suspect rates will remain stable (won’t go up or down) until there’s a policy change.

Refinance Other Debts

If rates are low for mortgages, it would stand to reason that they are low for other loans as well. If you have any large debts, such as credit cards, try getting a lower cost loan to help you pay it off. 0% balance transfers are a good option though you only get 0% for a year or so. If you can get a personal loan from the bank, perhaps after the 0% offer, you can lock in a lower rate for a longer period of time. Those loans will not be easy to get, even if you have a good credit score, but they will help your financial situation in the long run (and stop accruing credit card debt!).

If you don’t want to go through all the trouble of getting a loan, you could always call the credit card company and ask for a lower rate.

Before you go, I want to make one final point – don’t buy something just because rates are low. Don’t buy a car if you don’t need one, don’t buy a house if it’s not in your plans, and don’t rush to make a decision because you think rates will go up. Your decisions should be made based on other factors, with interest rates being the gravy. And trust me, rates are not going up anytime soon.

(Photo: andrewmorrell)

How to Benefit from Low Interest Rates from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Now Durbin, of Illinois, and Rep. Miller of North Carolina plan to introduce legislation that would force banks to make it easier for you to switch banks. They look to the FDIC’s quick turnaround after bank failures as a model for how this new system would work. Personally, I think this is a great idea but I think it’s a unfair for the government to tell banks they need to implement this. I don’t think they should be required to make moving banks easier.

As it is, it’s not terribly difficult, you just have to keep diligent records. It might not be instantaneous and it will require work, but it’s not “hard.” Putting a man on the moon is hard. Driving to work in the morning during rush hour can be a pain but it’s not hard. Changing banks is like driving to work. Honestly, I think there are better things for our legislators to work on.

Thoughts?

Durbin & Miller Want To Make Switching Banks Easier from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.

Even if you won’t be purchasing a home in the near future, you could avoid mistake later by preparing yourself now. Most people who have purchased a home go in to the mortgage lending market with little or no knowledge of how it functions. We follow the lead of our real estate agent and end up taking their advice on what is the best option for us. We don’t do this in other areas of our life so why do we do it for what will probably be the largest purchase we make?

Let’s change that today. Let’s start learning a little about the mortgage lending market so when the time comes, you’re armed with the knowledge you need to ask the right questions.

What is a no cost mortgage?

First, any time you’re evaluating options such as this, ask yourself the question, “why me?” In this case, why would a bank offer to pay all the fees associated with giving you a loan? Of course, they wouldn’t so those fees must be somewhere and in the case of a no cost mortgage, they’re added in to your interest rate. The lender totals the amount of fees that you would normally pay for the loan and adjusts the interest rate to cover those fees.

A no cost mortgage isn’t completely no-cost. The lender doesn’t pay in to your escrow account, doesn’t pay you homeowners insurance and can’t pay your per diem interest. This is the interest from the date of your closing to the first day of the following month. They can’t pay it because the exact closing date may change after the contract is generated.

Are they right for you?

No cost mortgages are a good idea for some people. For those who plan to stay in their home for a relatively short period of time, it may very well be a good idea. If the house is sold before the fees that are built in to the interest rate are paid, the no cost element of the loan is advantageous for the homeowner. The BEP or break even point is the point of time where the homeowner starts paying more interest on the fees than if they would have paid them upfront. The BEP is difficult to calculate before the loan is finalized but often, the BEP is between four and ten years from closing. If you plan to stay in your home for decades, pay the fees up front.

How to shop for a no cost mortgage

No cost mortgages are more customer friendly than traditional mortgages because shopping for one is easier. Since the lender can’t quote you an interest rate and then later add fees to make more money, they have to quote you their lowest interest rate to remain competitive. This also means that their estimate of the fees has to be as conservative as possible in order to keep the rate low. One study found that no cost mortgages had fee estimates $1,500 lower than traditional mortgages.

While you may be not in the market for a new home right now, take some time to learn about the mortgage lending market so you’re better equipped to get the best loan terms down the road when you’re a buyer. Buyers who go in to the mortgage market with little or no knowledge are at the mercy of the banks and that’s never a good idea.

(Photo: toddwickersty)

Is a No Cost Mortgage Really No Cost? from personal finance blog Bargaineering.com.