Personal Finance Nearly lost entire house downpayment to a scammer: Verify your wires! |
- Nearly lost entire house downpayment to a scammer: Verify your wires!
- $37,500 sudden hospital bill, my options?
- 737 Credit Score, can't get a loan or apartment anymore because of a "serious delinquency" that was actually only 2 missed payments that I never knew about before the CC company just up and closed the account.
- Does it make sense going to a community college for two years and then transfer?
- Kanopy: Your (possible) cure for Netflix - Free, paid for by your library
- How I Negotiated to Double My Raise
- Do many people out there buy more house than they can comfortably afford?
- 30yo, making 55k with little savings. I want to prepare for the future. What can I do?
- Chase Bank and JPMorgan merged and added in a binding arbitration provision to the account terms. You can reject it.
- A credit card for an 18 year old
- How do you deal with financially illiterate family members?
- Hospital Refused To Allow Dispute of Bill
- I have a pretty low interest rate on my $30k of student loans - should I pay them off as fast as I can, or invest?
- Renting place, just received a letter about property tax
- [27, USA] Opened a "Roth Contributory IRA" and deposited $2,500. Now what? Am I understanding this correctly?
- Recommendations on a Visa or MasterCard with good rewards to be used as a non-primary card?
- Was sent a job offer, but the insurance doesn't start until Sept 1st. Is this normal? What would I do in the mean time?
- Current Job is Kind of slow. Looking for ideas to make extra money while working a full-time job.
- Can a credit card debt payment be reversed?
- I (23) need $5,000 for my last semester of college. Is there a decent place to get a loan without a co-signer?
- Have 20k in available credit across multiple credit cards. Thinking of doing a $3500 balance transfer on a 21 month 0% APR CC that would max out the card. Would this hurt my credit?
- Former employer paid me after I left. I tried to do the right thing and quickly reimbursed them, but now I think I got screwed.
- Removing a cosigner from my Discover card
- What options to convert 155k HeLoc variable rate loan at 6% into something with a more favorable rate.
| Nearly lost entire house downpayment to a scammer: Verify your wires! Posted: 29 May 2019 02:20 PM PDT I narrowly avoided being scammed out of the entire amount of my house downpayment by a fraudulent email that looked very similar to an email that my lawyer would send. It looked so good, all the right details where there. I was even talking about the last closing details with the lender this morning. I scheduled the wire but then realized my "something is fishy" internal alarm was going off. I called the lawyers office and confirmed that the account number on the wire transfer information was not their account, and that they hadn't sent me wire instructions. The scammer had nearly every critical detail about the house closing in the "Closing Disclosure". The right "From:" name on the email, but I noticed that the email address was not from my lawyer's domain. Once I confirmed that this was a scam, I had a VERY tense few minutes calling the bank to try to stop the wire transfer from completing. Thankfully I got the wire canceled before it was sent. I learned a very valuable lesson today. Never wire money without calling the main office to confirm, even if all the details look correct in the email. If that wire had gone out to the scammer, the house closing would have to be canceled, and I would be out major money. Once a wire has left the building, it's gone. Now I get to investigate and escalate a MAJOR breach of information somewhere between my lawyer and the lender's office working on this file. Turns out the Disclosure form they sent me was the EXACT disclosure form that my lawyer shared with the bank yesterday... So something is breached. Verify your wires. Listen to the little voice that says "something is fishy". FUCK, that was close guys. Edit: Also locked my credit for the time being. I asked the lender if they need it again and they said no. Edit: I know it wasn't my email that was compromised because they used a document I hadn't received up to that point. It was only sent between the lender and the lawyer. I also use the best email security I know how to: 2FA with Authenticator (not sms), one time codes in my safe if I ever lose my phone, strong unique password that I rotate regularly and is managed by 1password. [link] [comments]  |
| $37,500 sudden hospital bill, my options? Posted: 29 May 2019 05:01 AM PDT edit: to clarify, they charged $37500 for the 1 week in the hospital. the additional surgery would be another $50K-75K. I posted this but didn't get much response so trying again with much less detail...
My options that I am exploring are:
I am currently leaning towards #1... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 06:21 AM PDT So about a year and a half ago I switched banks. Set up all my auto pays again. Everything was fine except my one credit card. For reasons no one can figure out, the auto pay never worked. The money came out of my account and then..... nobody knows. The CC company (which I'd never had issues with before in like 10 years) says they never got it. It was 2 payments, 3 max. I never received a letter or a call or an email about these missed payments. Just a letter out of the clear blue sky that my account was closed for delinquency. When I called like wtf, they said my account had been closed for non payment and there was nothing they can do. That's the ONLY blemish on my credit and only dropped it to 737. I am now apartment hunting. I've been denied now 7 times because it comes up as a "serious delinquency, bankruptcy or judgement". Is there anything I can do? I mean it WAS a delinquency but I never knew and it was 3 payments out of 10 years with this card. [link] [comments]  |
| Does it make sense going to a community college for two years and then transfer? Posted: 29 May 2019 08:03 PM PDT I want to start my education this year, and I am looking to see what could be best for me and my situation. Have anyone done two years a CC and then transfer to an University? Any advice? Would love to see what people think, could really help me out. [link] [comments]  |
| Kanopy: Your (possible) cure for Netflix - Free, paid for by your library Posted: 29 May 2019 12:48 PM PDT It occurs to me that many might not know about Kanopy. If you have a library card, you might already have a login. Try it here https://www.kanopy.com/. Kanopy has all kinds of new films, Indy films, and documentaries. A great option for those who are looking to cut the Netflix cord. [link] [comments]  |
| How I Negotiated to Double My Raise Posted: 29 May 2019 06:29 PM PDT This story might not be widely applicable, but hopefully it will be encouraging to some. I took an unusual approach to negotiating a raise, that may provide some insight into facts you can bring to the negotiation table. The Backstory I am an engineer that just got my professional license 6 months ago. I am now what's called a PE. That typically means I'm due a raise, but how much that raise will be varies widely depending on where you work. When I first found out I passed the exam, I approached my boss about how it would affect my compensation. He said I would get a 10% raise, but he wanted to delay it until my end of the year review in December when we typically get cost of living raises. That meant it was effectively an 7% raise since we get cost of living raises of about 3% every year anyway. I said I was fine with waiting because I was disappointed with the raise they were offering anyway, and I figured I would use that time to gather information and apply for other jobs to negotiate from a better position. That didn't end up working out. I didn't want to apply for jobs too early which meant I waited too long. While I had one offer of an interview, it was too late to be helpful in this process. What I did do was research other salaries for similar positions to mine. Here are the three things I found most helpful. The Data
The Conversation(s) I started the conversation off back in October by bringing the big disparity between my wage and public employee wages to my boss's attention (the first data point above). I didn't ask for anything, I just brought the salary range to him and told him how surprising I found it. To my surprise, he took it very seriously. He took me out to lunch, and we discussed my future with the company, promised to talk it over with the other company owner, but I didn't get any concrete promises yet. I found out later that it was because my co-worker had just given his resignation on the same day. He was quitting for a public-sector job at the local city-owned utility, and getting a raise in the process. I didn't say anything again until early December, trying to get some traction on other offers, but I knew they were going to be talking to the accountant about end-of-year stuff soon, so I decided to go ahead and ask before it was too late. I sent them an email asking for a sit-down conversation about my compensation. I sent them a spreadsheet with all the above salary data. The next week, I was sitting down with the two company owners at lunch. I went over all the data that showed convincingly that I was underpaid. Overall the conversation went very well. We went back and forth on a few sticking points, but I had good data to answer all but two of their concerns which I'll mention later. We all agreed that I had performed well and exceeded expectations, so it was not a question of my performance but my market value. While I didn't directly threaten to leave, I did talk about how I didn't want to have to "job-hop" to keep my compensation fair. The goal was to convince them that they would either have to give me a raise, or eventually replace me, possibly at an even higher rate. We had a couple brief follow-up conversations over the next two weeks while they were deliberating. The Sticking Points One big sticking point was bonuses. We get around an 8% bonus every year, and I didn't have any concrete data on public-sector bonuses. I knew they got an "annual bonus" too, but I had no idea how much, and if I was honest, I'd probably guess it was small. I had asked for a 20% raise, instead of the offered 10%. I pointed out that I had shown that for my pay to be equivalent to the hourly pay I'd get at the County, I would need a 40% raise. So I need a 20% increase to my base salary, and I'd like to work toward earning a 20% bonus instead of 8% by doing more marketing while keeping my billable hours the same. This took the bonuses out of the conversation completely since no one wanted to make promises about that, and we went back to only discussing base salary. The other big sticking point is that they talked to the manager at another big consultant in the area and they had the same pay range for my position as they did. This was a bit of a problem because despite searching high and low, I couldn't find good pay data for private sector positions. I tried glassdoor.com, but they estimated that I should be paid $1,500 per year, so obviously their tool didn't have enough data for my position. It's possible that wage stagnation over the last decade really has put the private sector behind the public sector in compensation, but either way, I don't care what other private sector employers are paying if I could get one of half-a-dozen posted public sector jobs and be paid more to work less. Fortunately, I knew that the other consultant they were talking to also just lost several employees to public-sector jobs and they were struggling to replace them. So my reply to this point was simply that we shouldn't compare ourselves to a company that's struggling with hiring and retention. This seemed to land well because they never brought that point up again. The Resolution After three months of discussions we finally sat down and my boss agreed to the exact raise I had asked for, 20%. I still plan to do more marketing so that at year-end next year I can begin discussing bonuses that would bring my compensation in-line with what I'd earn hourly at the County, but for now, this was a real victory, especially because I've never negotiated compensation before. It took patience, good data, a good relationship with my bosses, and alignment of the right circumstance, but I'm glad I fought for it. [link] [comments]  |
| Do many people out there buy more house than they can comfortably afford? Posted: 29 May 2019 06:36 PM PDT I ask this because I've recently made an observation. First, some backstory... My husband and I are in our mid 30's, and we are of the mindset of saving as much as we can. We refuse to charge credit cards, share a car that we own outright, and aren't frivolous spenders. We just bought a $275k house even though we would have qualified for a house of up to $400k with our current combined income. We wanted to stay under 300k because a) we had enough saved up to put down 20% for that range, and b) we're at a juncture where we're open to having a baby, so we wanted to buy a house we could comfortably afford on my husband's income alone to account for me taking some time off or possibly scaling back to just part time work. As all of you homeowners know, buying a new house is a pretty consuming experience. As a result, it's been one of the primary topics of conversation with our friends because two of them (and their respective partners) have also recently bought or are under contract on new homes. We also know several acquaintances/coworkers/etc who have also bought within the past 5 years or so. Something I've noticed is that 3 of the 4 aforementioned couples have all bought homes in the $440-480k range. I, of course, don't know the details of their financial situations, but based on their occupations, I can't imagine that their respective household incomes are beyond $150k, if even that. I mean, one of my friends got laid off and works short-term contract gigs and her husband is in medical device sales (which I've heard brings in lots of money, but I'm not certain how much), but they both have car payments for relatively new cars. One of my other friends who bought a $440k house last year is a high school science teacher and her husband works at Lowe's and does occasional general contracting work on the side. As someone who values having financial wiggle room, I just can't wrap my mind around this. So, this brings me back to the question posed as the subject. I mean, maybe these people have way more money beyond their paychecks, but 3 of 4 couples my age? I'm not so sure... [link] [comments]  |
| 30yo, making 55k with little savings. I want to prepare for the future. What can I do? Posted: 29 May 2019 05:40 PM PDT Recently I've got a new job and now I'm making 55k at my job, and 20k with my side freelance business. My employer contributes 8.8% of what I earn on top of my salary to my retire account but since I've just started working with them I only have about 3k retirement with them. I max out my Roth with Vangard for the past several years and it has $32,000 in it currently. I have about $30k in savings. I'm feeling a little behind as I've been traveling and working freelance for the past 10 years and now I want to really get serious financially. I live quite below my means most the time. Rent and bills is $650 a month. (Share house) Groceries is $80 a week. (I food prep decently and eat quite a bit) I do eat out several times (~$30 a week. Total) No car, I do probably drink more than I should and occasionally splurge on travels or going out to see music. (Id say $400-500 a month on fun) I'm working on a budget to cut out unnecessary spending. No debt of any sort. Thinking about buying a >$5000 car at some point. I was barely saving over the past few years and now I want to get serious so I don't fall behind. What should I be doing to save up to buy a house, invest, retirement fund, kids college fund, etc...? Edit: Food budget. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 02:45 PM PDT The arbitration provision essentially prevents you from taking the bank to court or participating in any class action lawsuits against them. If you have an account with JPMorgan Chase, check your mail or email for a notice about the merger. It should have info inside on how to reject the agreement. Edit: this will close your account. Thanks to the person who pointed this out when it's not in plain English from the bank! [link] [comments]  |
| A credit card for an 18 year old Posted: 29 May 2019 06:46 PM PDT Turned 18 a couple months ago, and my parents told me to get a credit card and start building a credit score. Does it matter which card I get? I'm not planning on using it for anything other than bus passes and phone bills. I'm looking at a TD Rewards Visa Credit Card, which gives 5000 points (basically worthless, $20 travel credit) with a $500 limit. Is this card okay? Is there something better I should go for? Also, I know how to be responsible with spending. I won't be stupid with a credit card. Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| How do you deal with financially illiterate family members? Posted: 29 May 2019 11:07 AM PDT TDLR; Family suck with finances and might need significant help down the line. How do you balance helping out loved ones without drastically compromising my own financial situation? My family absolutely sucks with finances. My dad recently retired with $80k in his retirement account. My mom works, making $65k a year and will probably retire within the next 5 years. They still have a mortgage to pay off, 2 cars to pay off (newly purchased BMW and Toyota), and 2 kids they're supporting financially (one in his mid 30s, and a teenage girl going to college in 2 years). Once my mom retires, I don't know who will be financing their lifestyle. My older sister is secretly in financial ruins with over half a million in debt, but she keeps up appearances living in a gigantic 5 bedroom house ($350k mortgage), 2 luxury cars (~$75k in car loans), student loan debt (~$100k), and credit card debt. She has a newborn baby and another one in the making. She's a stay at home mom with a husband that supports her. (He makes $90k). My parents have gotten her out of terrible financial messes in the past. She had also stolen my identity when she was younger, racking up nearly a quarter million in debt under my name and set me back a good 7 years. My brother works a minimum wage job with no real savings or retirement plan. I'm also afraid that my little sister will have a warped view of money and end up being bad with finances as well. Me? I have no debt at all. Student loans fully paid. Car fully paid. Renting an apartment. Live well below my means. I work in a niche that has a high income potential (electrical engineer with data analytics, AI, and microcontroller experience within the utilities space). 401k, HSA, IRA, ESPP, personal investments account, and high yield savings account. Currently saving up for my first house. I'm doing quite well for myself, and my entire family knows this. I've already bought my older brother a *new* car, and I've already promised my parents that I'll pay for my little sister's college expenses. (I made a deal with her that I'll pay a certain percentage and have her pay the rest... just so she has that burden / stake to NOT mess around while in college.) I've already made peace with the high possibility that I'll be taking care of my parents when they can't take care of themselves. However, I'm afraid that I'll be shouldering an even bigger financial burden and compromise my own financial well being in the process. [link] [comments]  |
| Hospital Refused To Allow Dispute of Bill Posted: 29 May 2019 10:00 AM PDT This is my first time posting here so sorry if I mess up submission rules or don't include relevant information. About a year ago in July I woke up in a hospital after making some questionable decisions drinking. It was extremely dumb and I have some consequences for that which I understand, but there are some major problems I experienced with billing afterwards. Upon receiving an itemized receipt and checking the codes with my healthcare providers cost estimator, I saw I was SEVERELY overcharged. Diagnostic tests estimated to cost around 60-100 dollars at a hospital normally were on my bill for about 1000-2500, with multiple tests. The overall bill charged to my insurance for a one night stay in a bed with an IV was over 10,000. My copay was over 3000. I called the billing department 3 times over the time from August to November asking about what steps I could take to contest the bill and they said they would send an audit form to my address. Each time I never received the form and called back. I got caught up in university and didn't pay attention for a while but called again in February with no followup and then again in March. A few weeks later I received a form in the mail that said my audit request would be arriving in the next two weeks, and then never did. It's important to note I also asked specifically each call that my bill would not be sent to collections since it was under review and they confirmed it would not. I confirmed my address with them multiple times, asked if it could be sent digitally or to a different address, and each time I was told this was not possible. I have not had contact with the billing department since March. I know I probably should have been more persistent and followed up, but I was caught up in the stress of finals and finding a summer job and it left my mind for a while. Today I woke up with a voicemail from a debt collector informing me that the bill had been sent to collections. The only thing I can think to do now is threaten to take the hospital to small claims court. Any advice on what steps to take now, government bodies to contact for assistance, or any other information would be greatly appreciated. This is my first experience with something like this and I really don't know what to do next. Update: My insurance negotiated cost was actually down to 4000 from the original 10000 the hospital billed since thankfully I was in network. Still exorbitant for just an overnight stay, a few basic diagnostic tests, and an IV but I guess that's the ER. The bill couldn't be pulled back from collections but I have 45 days before it shows up on my credit report and I called them and should be able to settle for at least 30% less, making my final personal bill around 2000. Maybe I did this wrong in the way I went about trying to contest, but sheesh healthcare is expensive. My insurance also told me the chance the hospital would change prices in pretty low, and since I didn't go much higher than my deductible it wouldn't have changed my out of pocket much anyways. Thanks for all of your advice so far, I think my best bet is to just settle with collections and hold a grudge against that hospital :) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 06:48 AM PDT Details: I graduated college in 2017, currently making $65k a year and have been paying $500/month on a 20 year plan with a $277/month minimum. The interest rate is 4.125% and I currently have around $30k left to pay. I'm trying to decide if it makes more sense to just pay the minimum every month and put the difference towards investing (which I know isn't a ton but still). Lots of people say that for lower interest rate loans, it's better to invest for a higher return. Does it make more sense in this scenario to pay off fast, or just go forward paying the minimum since it's not such a high balance / interest rate to begin with? Thanks everyone! [link] [comments]  |
| Renting place, just received a letter about property tax Posted: 29 May 2019 03:40 PM PDT Im 20 years old and can speak and read english but legal papers are always tough for me to understand but from what I can tell in the last page there hasn't been a property tax payment since 2013 and the letter says "Summon (Tax Sale)" I called my landlord and he says that he deals with them every single year. We've been living here for a couple months only and my family is scared that the house will go up for sale and we'll have to move, my landlord says that thay wont happen but I don't know if I can trust that, should I he worried? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 07:58 PM PDT I'm late in the game, I know, but I'm finally starting to save for retirement. However, I'm still totally confused how a Roth IRA works... I opened one up and was tempted to put in the limit of $6k but ended up just putting in $2,500 for now because I have no idea what I'm doing. I tried opening up a Vanguard account, but it kept saying it didn't recognize any of my information. So I tried Charles Schwab and it worked instantaneously. I use the free online calculators all the time and they make it sound as easy as putting in money every year and it grows. But it's looking like a Roth IRA is basically just an investing account? So I need to invest in stocks (while contributing up to $6k/yr) and if I invest in the right stocks I should get about 6-8% interest from stock prices? I'll get downvotes for this, but it seems like a really stupid method to save for retirement by investing considering how volatile the market can become at any given time...but, I guess it works? ... How is a normal Joe Smoe like me supposed to know what stocks to invest in? I only know Apple, Amazon, Netflix, etc... Side note - I also have a "5-year High Yield CD" that I opened in 2014 with $2,300 in it at 3%. I'm not totally sure how to withdraw this money and put it into my Roth IRA since I'm nowhere near the 59 1/2 year mark. How much would the penalty be if I withdraw anyway? [link] [comments]  |
| Recommendations on a Visa or MasterCard with good rewards to be used as a non-primary card? Posted: 29 May 2019 09:32 AM PDT My husband and I use a gold Amex as our primary card and love it, but for certain places (small restaurants, Costco etc) they do not accept Amex and I'd like to have a backup for when I'm not carrying cash. Right now I have a Capital One Venture that was great when I initially got it for the sign on points but now I don't want a second annual fee card. Any suggestions? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 08:26 AM PDT |
| Current Job is Kind of slow. Looking for ideas to make extra money while working a full-time job. Posted: 29 May 2019 01:51 PM PDT Hello everyone. I am currently working an office job that makes 75k a year. It has been very slow where some days I really don't do much at all. Instead of surfing reddit/youtube I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how I can make extra money by doing something online? I tried stock trading/ day trading and I am not a big fan. I also don't have any unique expertise such as programming. Just looking for ideas some people have. I was thinking about starting an eCommerce store on Amazon but haven't progressed with that at all. [link] [comments]  |
| Can a credit card debt payment be reversed? Posted: 29 May 2019 06:12 PM PDT I have a friend who accidentally paid the wrong card that still had a balance with his savings and is there a way to get it reversed? With fees? This is with Citi by the way, appreciate any help. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 06:10 PM PDT Thank you in advance for any advice l, I really do appreciate it I have a score of 710. I'll be working full time (classes all online). I'm working full time at $15 an hour rn Thoughts? Also- this is for a July and I'm 99% sure the FAFSA deadline passed [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 04:36 PM PDT Currently have a 4.5k balance on an AMEX CC that is running out of it's 0% intro period in 2 months. Plan is to pay it down to $3500 and transfer it to this 0% APR CC, then set up auto payments. Current credit score is 780. Would this majorly hurt my credit maxing out a card even though my total available credit utilization is under 30%? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 06:09 PM PDT Hello, r/personalfinance. I'm hoping you guys can help me understand what is happening here. I'm going to give you all of the background, because I'm not exactly sure what is and is not relevant. Basically, what happened is my (former) employer overpaid me at the end of last year, and I think I'm getting screwed. After I left the company, they issued a pay check for $900. Here's the breakdown of the $900: Fed Withholding - $88.87 They asked me for a check for $831.15, which I paid already because I was ready to have it done and over with. But now, after weeks of waiting, checking in, begging, and checking in again, they've finally sent me my amended W-2, and it's showing adjusted amounts for SS Wages and Medicare Wages, but not for Federal Wages. When I input the new numbers, I get no additional tax refund like I expected to. So, by my reckoning, I'm now out $189.17 for their mistake. I know I shouldn't have written the check before digging into the numbers, and that now I may just not have a way to fight it. But the more I crunch the numbers, the more pissed I get, and I wanted to see if maybe there was something I wasn't understanding, or an idea about how I could get things made right. At the very least, I shouldn't have had to pay for insurance that I couldn't even use, since I wasn't an employee anymore, right? [link] [comments]  |
| Removing a cosigner from my Discover card Posted: 29 May 2019 06:06 PM PDT In order to build credit while I was a college student, I opened a Discover card with a relative as a cosigner. It's been five years since then and now that I've built my credit score up and am able to pay off my own debts, I wanted to remove them as a cosigner on the card so that our credit scores wouldn't be linked together anymore. I tried calling Discover to have them removed but was told I would have to close the account and open a new one. The only problem is that Discover is my only credit card and I would then lose all of my credit history, which I'm sure would damage my score. Does anyone have any suggestions on what my options are now? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 May 2019 05:59 PM PDT I currently have a Home Equity line of credit at Chase which I used to remodel my second home at a cost of 165k. The construction has finished and we've rented out the place yielding 6k rental income. We've allocated 5k per month towards payment for the Heloc however at 6% variable rate it will still take years to pay off. I've heard of people refinancing their mortgage to include the remodel amount however the mortgage is at a 3.25% and I doubt we can keep it if we did refi. Anyone know what options there are for getting a better rate for the remaining balance on my Heloc? What would something like that be called? Who would I contact for that? [link] [comments]  |
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