vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Some (most) credit cards have a way to get a one-time use number. If that is an available option for one of your cards, that is probably the way to do the very risky transaction. These numbers can be good for only one purchase, or for multiple purchases with a single vendor. This will limit your exposure because they won't have access to your entire account. Also review your fraud protections with your credit card. With the single use number, it won't matter if you use the electronic form or the email. Just make sure you keep the confirmation email or a screen capture of the form.
There are 2 credit unions in the Metro NY area that are open to everyone: You might also want to check out aSmarterChoice.org to see if there are other credit union options based on where you live, work, worship & more.
"Using the card but paying it off entirely at each billing cycle is the only ""Good"" way to use a credit card.  If you feel like you will be tempted to buy more than you can pay back don't use credit. As far as furnishing the apartment, the best thing to do would be to save and pay cash, but if you want to use credit the credit available at stores would be a far better deal than carrying it on a card."
"The only good reason I find to close cards are: it's a card with an annual fee that you don't need.  No point bleeding money each year. churning rewards.  Open card to get bonus promotion such as ""spend $500 in first 3 months, get $200 bonus"".  Close card and open a year later to do that same bonus again if available.  Many cards don't allow you to do this. making room for newer cards at the same bank.  Example, you have 5 Chase Cards and you want to apply for a 6th.  Chase says you have maximized your credit they will extend you.  You close one of your existing cards to get that new card. I have seen that many banks allow you to shift over some over your existing available credit to your new card without having to close them."
"There's a cliche, ""out of the frying pan and into the fire"". I've never had the occasion to use it till now.  I understand some people find they have a dozen cards and struggle to keep organized. An extra percent or two seems worth the feeling of just one payment to make. In your case, 3 checks (or online payments) per month shouldn't push you to a bad decision. Twice the interest? No thanks. Just make the minimum payments on the two lower rate cards, and pay all you can to the highest rate. Do all you can to cut expenses. The only way out of this is to change your habits avoiding what got you here in the first place."
On payWave transactions, the $100 limit applies per transaction, and your daily withdrawal limit doesn't usually apply - it's only for SAV/CHQ transactions and ATM withdrawals, and payWave transactions are counted as Credit transactions. So really, anything in your account is up for grabs. There are a couple of options as I see it. You should see if there's a option to get an old-style Maestro/Cirrus card, with no Visa/MasterCard scheme link. You might need to push for it, but you can probably do it. Failing that, you could see if you can open a linked savings account with no card access, and put most of your money in there, and transfer what you need into your transaction account. Something that may also be of interest: Visa's Zero Liability policy
"A lot of your options depends on the type of debt you have.  If you're single, young, and have lots of credit card debt then don't discount bankruptcy.  It's definitely not an ""appealing"" thought I'm sure, but it's an option.  One thing I did was completely cut myself off from most forms of credit (credit cards and personal credit loans).  I know my weaknesses.  I will never, ever, ever, get another credit card.  I'm probably older than you are and have lived with debt for a long time.  I'm pretty much debt free; at least from debts that are not covered 100% by assets.  It took a long time.  Keep your spirits up.  Maybe try contacting a credit councilor; one of the real ones that aren't paid for by credit card companies.  I've known people that took that route."
"I sort of do this with credit cards. I actually have 4 AMEX cards that I've accumulated over the years. Certain types of expenses go on each card (""General expenses"", recurring bills, car-related and business-related) I use AMEX because they have pretty rich iPhone/Android applications to access your accounts and a rich set of alerts. So if we exceed our budget for gas, we get an email about it. Do whatever works for you, but you need to avoid the temptation to over-complicate."
Put one of your monthly bills on it.  (Utility bill, Netflix, monthly donation to charity, etc.) I have several automatic, recurring monthly charges on my credit card. If you don't have any current monthly bills that you want to switch, contact the Red Cross, or a charity of your choice. They would be very happy to charge your credit card once a month. Alternatively, it might be okay to let it close.
You must understand that not everyone has or can get credit cards. Consider that those who are in the the lowest 20-30% of income tend to have fewer credit cards (or none), and lower credit debt, although some have quite high credit card debt relative to their income.  So you really aren't comparing the same demographics (the population of all income earners, used to calculate average income, and the population of all credit card debt holders, are not the same groups of people). Once you remove those folks from consideration, then credit card usage may still average higher, but accept that it is unusual for people making less than $20K-30K/year to have much credit card debt. You must understand that wealth and income are two very different (although related) concepts. One must note that there are millions of people in the U.S. who have wealth; they have net assets of over $1M (excluding their homes). Many of those folks have assets greatly exceeding $1M. And although it might seem foolish to carry a large balance on their credit cards, they may have quite low interest rates, and simply find it simpler and more convenient to use credit cards in lieu of personal loans.  Suppose you have $2M in net assets, and want to buy a classic car or a diamond necklace.  Charging $30K and carrying the balance until a dividend check arrives may make sense. Understand also that not everyone makes the same choices, or good choices. Carrying a credit card balance may appear like a poor choice, especially when you are not wealthy, or have lower income. But suppose you have a high credit limit across several cards, and you need to handle a short-term financial challenge (car repair, layoff, medical bills, etc).  You might use the credit card to pay for that purchase, essentially financing an extraordinary event over a longer period of time.  And although having a balance of more than 5-10% of your monthly income may seem foolish to some, it may make sense to others. And some people choose to carry balances of 50% to 100% of their credit limit.  Others realize that keeping their credit utilization below 30%, 20%, or 10% of the credit limit is a better plan (both interest rate and risk wise).
Billshrink offers some pretty neat analysis tools to help you pick a credit card. They focus more on rewards than the features you mention but it might be worth a look. If you use Mint, they offer a similar service, too. If you're not already using Mint, though, I'd look at Billshrink as Mint requires some extensive setup. MOD EDIT  Looks like billshrink.com is shut down.  From their site: Dear BillShrink customer, As you may have heard, BillShrink.com was shut down on July 31, 2013.   While we’re sad to say goodbye, we hope we’ve been able to help you be   better informed and save some money along the way! The good news is   that much of the innovative award-winning BillShrink technology will   still be available via our StatementRewards platform (made available   to customers by our partnering financial institutions). Moreover, we   expect to re-launch a new money-saving service in the future. To see   more of what we’re up to, visit Truaxis.com. We have deleted your personal information as of July 31. We will   retain your email address only to announce a preview of the new tool.   If you do not want us to retain your email address, you can opt out in   the form below. This opt out feature will be available until September   31, 2013. If you have already opted out previously, you do not need to   opt out again. If you have any further questions, contact us at   info@billshrink.com. Thanks, The BillShrink/Truaxis Team
See what your current card requires for additional cards.  When my daughter turned 16, and I ordered a card for her, I realized the issuer didn't ask for her social security number, only a name and address.  That's when I also ordered a card with my pseudonym. Which I believe is what you're looking for.  I realize that you prefer no name at all, but any online site where you place an order will require you to fill in that name field .
"One trick is to make all purchases end in a particular number of your choosing, say ""3"". From now on, all restaurant meals,gas purchases, and anything in your control, end them in 3. When you glance at the bill, you can skip these charges, and look carefully at the rest. It's not 100%, as you couldn't easily impact supermarket charges and many others, but it's half of my routine charges."
It's not so much a credit card, but a financial institution's online platform that either provides this functionality or not. The following Canadian financial institutions show an itemized list of pre-authorized transactions (not an exhaustive list):  The following institutions show a total value of pre-authorized transactions: Most other institutions show the available credit (e.g. Chase Financial used by Amazon Rewards), which give an indication of how much you have to spend. By subtracting the current balance and the available balance from the total credit limit, you can get an indication of the total amount of pre-authorized transactions. Example: $1000 - $500 - $400 = $100 is the amount of pre-authorized transactions. From TD's EasyWeb demo (http://tdeasywebdemo.com/v2/#/en/PFS/accounts/activity/chq), it appears that they don't include pre-authorized transactions in the Available Credit. You can verify for yourself by logging in to online banking after you make a purchase and comparing the Available Credit to [Credit Limit - Current Balance]. If it is equal, then they don't include, if it is different (most likely for the value of the transaction), then they do.
"After this happened the second time, I wonder if there could be a ""catch"" on this.  No I mean, what is my bank's real motivation for allowing me to spend more money.  Credit card companies make money in a few ways. By giving you a higher limit the credit card company hopes you will spend more on the card. This immediately gets them more merchant fees and if they are lucky means you will have to carry the balance for a while earning them interest. If they get really lucky you will miss a payment or two earning them some fees. Of course if they let you borrow too much you might never pay it back. So the credit limit is a balancing act. Letting you borrow more money gives them the potential to make more money but also the potential to lose more money. As you build up a history of paying as agreed they feel comfortable lending you more money."
There are some calculators that you can use to figure out the best approach, such as this one by CNN. But in general the rule of thumb tends to be the following: For the purposes of the Best Buy card, I would put it up there at number one so you don't get hit with the deferred interest. No point in giving them more money if you can pay them before the end of the cycle.  Next, I would look at what you have for emergency savings, if you have an account established and that is at a comfortable number than putting the money towards the Citi card might be good, otherwise, split part of the money between savings and the credit cards. If an emergency pops up you don't want to dig a deeper hole because you can't pay for something with cash.
There are three common options for you:
Close the account.  The age doesn't outweigh the fact that you have to pay for the card.  It would be one thing if the credit line was a couple thousand but showing the credit bureaus that you are staying away from the $425.00 doesn't really make them think you are any more trustworthy with your available credit.  Utilization matters when you are staying away from much larger chunks of your available credit (across all cards).
this post offers excellent pointers that can help you choose a suitable line of credit you can use for financing your day-to-day expenses. please help up promote it to all your friends especially to those who are planning to apply for and get secured and prepaid credit cards!
Note that many funds just track indexes. In that case, you essentially don't have to worry about the fund manager making bad decisions. In general, the statistics are very clear that you want to avoid any actively managed fund. There are many funds that are good all-in-one investments. If you are in Canada, for example, Canadian Couch Potato recommends the Tangerine Investment Funds. The fees are a little high, but if you don't have a huge investment, one of these funds would be a good choice and appropriate for 100% of your investment. If you have a larger investment, to the point that Tangerine's MER scares you a little, you still may well look at a three or four fund (or ETF) portfolio. You may choose to use an actively-managed fund even though you know there's virtually no chance it'll beat a fund that just tracks an index, long-term. In that case, I'd recommend devoting only a small portion of your portfolio to this fund. Many people suggest speculating with no more than 10% of your combined investment. Note that other people are more positive on actively-managed funds.
"How about the new Mastercard ""In Control"" card http://www.pivotalpayments.com/ca/industry-news/mastercard-introduces-in-control-program-to-help-consumers-budget-800077802/ You can set budgets at your bank and go between getting alerts when you go over, or completely declined if you are out of money.  There are going to be obvious loop holes and slack in the system, but this system seems like a pretty neat start. Combine this with a bank account that does bill pay and you might have something to work with."
"Usually you need to switch accounts. Lower rate cards usually offer less generous benefits. I'd advise looking at the charts on credit card rates in the back of a magazine like ""Money"" or ""Kiplingers""."
If it's feasible, try to get one card down to zero balance, and preferably one of your cash-back cards.  Then keep that at zero every month (pay it off in full), and use it for your purchases as you describe above. The idea would be to get it so that you are not paying interest on your month to month purchases.  This not only reduces the 20% or whatever that you're paying on that balance, but also the 20% or whatever you're paying on those purchases - remember, a card you carry a balance on charges you interest on those purchases from the current month. If this isn't feasible (if these are all very high balance cards), then I suppose the way you're currently doing it would be okay, though I think you're overthinking things to some extent - but with 80% interest, if that's a significant pile of money, you may need to as clearly that needs to be tackled first.  I think it's mostly better for you to pay your day to day stuff out of pocket and not use your cards the way you are suggesting, but with the 80% loan(s) you may need to. The reason I say it's better not to use your card the way you suggest is that it is difficult to do properly and never get it wrong (i.e., never go over a balance), and it's also leaving you in the habit of using credit.  It doesn't help you budget necessarily, either.  Instead, set up a fully developed budget that includes all of those minimum payments and pay them.  Certainly once you have the > 50% debt handled, I would switch to this method (not using credit cards at all).
There is one massive catch in this which I found out when I went to Nationwide to ask for a loan. I've got a credit card which they kept increasing my credit limit, it's now at something ridiculous - nearly £10,000 but they keep increasing it. I never use that card, when I went to Nationwide though they said they couldn't give me a loan because I had £10,000 credit already and if I reduced this credit this would affect my credit rating and they could potentially give me a loan. I then realised what MBNA had craftily done.  I have two cards with this bank, one with really low interest and the other with really high interest (and a high credit limit) - even though the other card has a zero balance loan companies still see it as money I could potentially go and spend, it doesn't matter to them that I've not spent any money on that card in about 12 months, to them it's the fact that they could give me a loan and then I could go and spend another £10,000 on that card (as you can see extremely risky).   Of course this means that what MBNA are craftily doing is giving me such a high credit, knowing full well that I'm not going to use it, but it also prevents their competitors from offering me a loan, even at a lower rate, because I've already got too much credit available. So yes there is a catch to giving you a high credit limit on your cards and it's to prevent you from either leaving that bank or getting a lower interest rate loan out to clear the debt.
"Parts of what you want are possible, but taken as a whole, you're out of luck. First of all, there is no master database of every cardholder in the country.  The only way to check if information is correct is to ask the issuing bank.  The AVS system is a way to automate doing so, but it's possible to call the bank directly and verbally verify the address.   That means you're subject to the whims of what the issuing bank chooses to support.  Banks that are part of the Visa and MasterCard networks generally only verify the numeric parts (address, apartment number, zipcode).  AmEx can also verify the cardholder name.  But if the bank doesn't have support for validating something, you can't validate it. Separately, there is a ""verify-only"" transaction which some processors support, which will do exactly what you want:  Return AVS values without ever charging the card.  However, processors require you to have the ""approved merchant account"" you don't want to have to have.  Without being a merchant, you shouldn't have access to other people's credit cards anyway.  Would you really want anyone in the country to be able to verify anyone else's address whenever they want? In short, whatever purpose you have for wanting this probably falls into one of three categories:"
"I've just received my first Credit Card statement from HSBC. All I can say is all the information you need is there. It's really easy to pay off your credit card bill just have to read the instructions! Here are the bank account numbers and steps how to set up a standing order (as it was written in my statement): ""Standing Order/ bill payment Pay a fixed amount to your HSBC Bank Credit Card using the following information: Type of Card Card     ------------------------  Number Begins   ----Account Number MasterCard: HSBC Bank and Welsh --- 543460 ----------------29004734 Visa: HSBC and Welsh ---------------------454638 ----------------09003649 Gold Visa ---------------------------------------494120 ----------------69005161 Remember, if payments are made using the wrong card details, sort code or account number, they may be delayed or not applied."" hope it was helpful"
"There are a lot of funds that exist only to feed people's belief that existing funds are not diversified or specialized enough.  That's why you have so many options. Just choose the ones with the lowest fees. I'd suggest the following: I wouldn't mess around with funds that try and specialize in ""value"" or those target date funds. If you really don't want to think and don't mind paying slightly higher fees, just pick the target date fund that corresponds to when you will retire and put all your money there. On the traditional/Roth question, if your tax bracket will be higher when you retire than it is now (unlikely), choose Roth.  Otherwise choose traditional."
I had a good half dozen of these with various amounts, none of them quite enough to make a purchase anywhere and, like you, I didn't want them to go to waste.  If there is at least $1 on the card, you can use it to buy Amazon eGift cards, which is what I did. It's not as nice having actual cash, but for me it was the next best thing. You can also use them to sign up for free trials for subscriptions. If you forget to cancel, then you're saving your normal credit card from being charged.
"Do not store credit cards on your servers! You will get into HUGE trouble if they get stolen.  Instead, the whole credit card transaction should be done in a ""frame"" on a web that is handle by a credit card processor you chose. Once the transaction is finished, you get a code for the credit card number (masked credit card number) that no-one can convert back to a credit card number (except the processor).  When you need to charge more or give refund, you use that code to tell the processor what credit card to make the charges/credits to."
"Your biggest risk with a vendor like this is not that your Credit Card Number will be stolen in transit, it is that it will be stolen from the vendor. I agree with @mhoran that using a one-time number is the best plan, provided you have a bank that offers such numbers.  Bank of America calls it ""Shop Safe"" while Citibank calls it ""Virtual Account Numbers"".  I think Discover card has something similar, but less useful, in that they aren't really one-time use, and I think American Express discontinued their service.  AFAIK no one else offers anything like it.  If you can't get a one-time number, then I was going to suggest buying a Visa gift card, until I put together the fact that you are making a purchase in Asia and the gift cards are not authorized for international payments (due to PATRIOT act restrictions).  Visa does offer the V.me service which might help, but I doubt your vendor participates (or would even be allowed to participate) if they don't offer a secure order form.  You can open a pre-paid Visa card account, which is probably what I'd do. You can buy pre-paid Visa cards the same way you buy Visa gift cards, the difference being you have to register the pre-paid cards (thanks, PATRIOT act) before you can use them.  But it's not that big a deal to register one, you just fill out the online form your your SSN etc and you're good to go. Load it up with enough money to cover your purchase and the FX fees and then cut it up."
Someone mentioned sign up bonuses but only mentioned dollar values. You might get points, sweet, sweet airline points :) which some might find compelling enough to churn cards so they always have a few open.
Department store cards will appear on your credit report and is often much easier to get approved for. All my friends that have applied for a Macy's card have always been approved. If you are new to the country, department store cards are a great way to build history. Target and Nordstroms are two other department stores to look at. Target is my first suggestion since they carry every day items and will be easy to consistently put charges on the card to build credit history.
If you want to ensure that you stop paying interest, the best thing to do is to not use the card for a full billing cycle.  Calculating credit card interest with precision ahead of time is difficult, as how you use the card both in terms of how much and when is critical.