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maryellencarter · 4 years ago

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So for about ten days now I've been playing around with the budgeting app Mint (along with a Google Sheets yearly budget template and a lot of manual work with a calculator, a calendar, and a succession of blank Google Docs because that's just the kind of person I am), and so obviously I have some Thoughts.

* I picked Mint because it's the budgeting app all the financial reviewers talk about, because it's run by Intuit who also own TurboTax so I knew their security and interface would be good, and because it does not come with built-in shaming over any of your ~unnecessary~ purchases.

* Mint is a free app which makes its money by offering you sponsored ads for financial products it thinks you might like, and getting paid by the advertisers when you accept one of the ads. The most intrusive location for these ads is on your dashboard, feed, whatever you want to call it, where the ad tile is required to be the third tile down and cannot be shuffled to the bottom or turned off.

* (There is also a desktop browser version, Mint.com. I have poked it very slightly but couldn't get it to do anything useful. More on that later. I don't remember noticing how the ads are arranged there.)

* The app's general design is very sleek and intuitive, what I'd expect from the parent company of QuickBooks and TurboTax. Other than the intrusive ad tile, it lets you rearrange everything however you want.

* Mint is designed around importing transactions from your bank account for you to do budgetary stuff at, so obviously security is really important, which gives Intuit an edge up on the competition because I'm already used to trusting them with my tax returns. It only seems to sync new transactions during banking hours, which for someone like me who does most of their shopping on Sunday is kind of frustrating. It also won't let you edit or recategorize a transaction till it's finished "processing" a day or two down the line. I don't know if these pitfalls are common to all budget apps but it would probably make sense if they are.

* One thing Mint does that's incredibly handy for me is it lets you put all your recurring bills in one place and even sync them with your phone calendar. I actually had to turn off the phone calendar sync because it was alerting me constantly on the day before payday when I couldn't do anything about the bill that was due on payday, but if you can find the setting to change the alert frequency it might be useful. And having a nice chronological list of what the fuck is due when, is extremely helpful to my brain, because previously I was trying to remember everything in my head and I kept losing bills.

* Going down my tiles as I have them sorted in the app, I don't have much to say about that list of transactions itself, except that you can recategorize them and split them into different categories -- which is handy if the rent included $105 late fees which you don't want befuckening your future averages, or if you bought groceries and also a barbecue lighter at Walmart, to take two recent examples.

* You cannot, unfortunately, rename or edit categories. On desktop only, you can supposedly add categories, but you cannot then use those categories in any of Mint's other functions, which really defeats the purpose. And their ideas of what categories you might need are pretty... idiosyncratic, not to say WASPy, so e.g. I'm currently categorizing Patreon income under "Reimbursement" because the other options were things like "Investment Income" and "Returned Purchase". And transfers to my savings account can either be "Credit Card Payment" or "Transfer for Cash Spending".

* (I suppose I could put my savings under "Investment: Deposit" or something similarly grandiose, but that seems like... a lot for the 31 cents rounded up from getting a pizza at Little Caesars.)

* Anyways. So then, after the obligatory ad tile, comes a nice colorful pie chart of my spending for the month, which I can open up and tab through to look at all the categories. I saw one finance blogger saying you should use the Miscellaneous category for some things rather than getting too granular, but I like seeing the little individual entries for my haircut and my cloth mask and my pharmacy copay. (That last one's going to be a more substantial pie slice now that I can actually afford to start taking most of my meds again. Turns out my prescription for diabetic test strips expired, though, so I have to get ahold of my doctor and get a new one sent over, and I'm looking skeptically at the copays. :P I've been ignoring my diabetes since January, it can wait a little longer till I'm financially caught up from COVID.)

* I can see list-style breakdowns by category and merchant, too. This is one of the few places in the mobile app that my income shows up, other than the actual paycheck transactions. The desktop version has some more places to budget projected income, but the handling is clunky as hell.

* Next up is the tile where I've been spending a lot of my time, Budgets. This is your basic "envelope method" where you create, say, a budget for haircuts and another one for groceries. Each budget has to be for one of Mint's pre-created categories, and when you have a spending transaction in that category, it puts the expense against that Budget. The desktop version has you also creating a line item for expected income in Budgets, and then becoming stroppy when you attempt to adjust parts in the wrong order, so I prefer the app which simply tells you e.g. that you have spent $900 of an allocated $1000 with an airy unconcern for whether the $1000 has arrived in your bank account yet.

* My single biggest frustration with Mint is that you cannot create Budgets based on user-created categories, nor can you delete, rename, or even collapse categories in the list. So if I go to create a new Budget for, say, "Housewares" to account for the $1 barbecue lighter I finally bought (I have large hands and a tall jar candle that has burned down farther than I can reach, okay, it was a necessity), then I'm stuck scrolling all the way up and down past "Investment: Capital Gains" and "Kids: Child Support" before finally settling on "Home Supplies" because it doesn't really seem like a "Home Furnishings".

* After Budgets comes Accounts, which just shows me my current net worth across all my accounts. I actually unlinked my savings account because it was confusing the hell out of me to see a 31-cent transfer out of checking paired with the same 31-cent transfer into savings, so this doesn't show me anything I can't get through my bank app, but if I had current credit card debt or non-retirement investment accounts it might be more useful.

* (I have not linked my 401(k) to Mint. I haven't even figured out how to get into my 401(k), either before or after it transferred to a different handler a couple months back. I feel like those are problems for a later time than "okay how much groceries can I buy and still pay the rent".)

* On the desktop version of Mint, you can also put things like your car in under your net worth as Property. I tried that, found that I both did not believe their Kelly Blue Book valuation at all (it didn't have any option to take into account "was totaled two years ago and looks it but still mostly runs") and that I find it extremely stressful to have non-liquid property listed as part of my net worth. Interesting to know. You learn all sorts of shit about yourself when you try to manage money.

* Next there's a tile that attempts to break down my "cash flow" by month. It doesn't seem to have noticed the Paypal transfers on which I was largely subsisting for the three months it was able to pull from my bank account, even though they show up fine in Transactions, so it's deeply confused about whether my cash flow is Healthy or Unhealthy. For now, with my acquisition of a second paycheck for August, it seems to have settled on Healthy. I might turn that tile off though. It doesn't really... offer much, I guess?

* I have turned off the tile that shows me my free credit score. That's a problem for a much later me. Right now I have more urgent problems, like catching up on my deferred car insurance and my deferred cell phone bill and my deferred healthcare deductions.

* You also can't turn off the tile for the Mint "Life Blog" or the one asking you to rate the app, but at least they sit at the bottom of the app as you scroll down.

* The desktop version also has an entire segment not found in the app, for "Goals", where you can supposedly put in your outstanding debts and figure out payment schedules for them. It sounds really good in principle, but I found that section of the site unworkably glitchy, on both laptop and iPad; I couldn't even get past the screen where you try to first enter one of your debts, as it required me to choose answers from two dropdowns neither of which would actually do anything. I was able to get an estimate from the "saving for a rainy day" goal, anyway, by putting in the amount of a debt and telling it I'd like to save up that much money in a year, but that's nothing I couldn't have done with a calculator and a bit of mental effort.

* Jumping back up to the top of the app, one other thing that does intermittently drive me bananas about the app is, when you put in a bill you get a dropdown where you select how often it should recur, but then it... doesn't recur. You have to manually put in the next occurrence. It's still a handy list of upcoming bills, but I actually had to resort to my phone calendar (which properly handles recurring events) to get a good visual on future months' bills.

* And because there is nowhere to put in your projected income and get a nice projection of "On X date you will have $XX in your bank account", or even better a daily graph of your expected cash flow so that you can see "yeah don't put that $300 in savings you'll need it for rent in two weeks", I've been reduced to, as mentioned above, manual daily projections through the end of the year using my phone calculator, phone calendar, Google Docs, and eventually my damn iPad drawing app (came with a Bluetooth stylus I never got working) because I couldn't find any physical graph paper.

* So. Um. Summary. I guess it's a good app? It's very sleek, it has nice charts and graphs and a good interface. But it thinks you can do a lot more with it than you can actually do. Its main uses for me are probably going to boil down to "stop forgetting bills" (the rolling list format works a lot better for my brain than the phone calendar format, even if I do have to re-enter data every time I mark a bill paid) and "finally figure out how much I spend on food really".

#budget #mint app #app reviews

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insaosick · 2 years ago

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imited is officially registered

ContactSite: medcofinance.com; Email: [email protected], [email protected]; Phone: +442030978900; Office location: London (UK).

General information

Medco Finance Limited attracts beginners with special bonus offers up to 50% of the deposit. In addition, users are offered a thorough analysis and favorable conditions for cooperation. The company provides 24/5 multilingual support in 20 different languages. To contact the support there are phone numbers and email.

Medco Finance Limited is officially registered in the UK (Document No. 07317157). Scanned copies of the certificate of incorporation and platform licenses. However, the site has a legal address. All documents must be checked independently.

Among the main advantages of Medco Finance Limited notes the following:effective trading technologies; low commission rates; a large selection of payment methods; professional market analysis; transparent trading conditions.

Medco Finance Limited has a reviews section on its website. All feedback is positive. However, on independent forums there are different reviews. How to make money with Medco Finance Limited?

Medco Finance Limited offers trading on Native Mobile App, MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5 and Webtrader. After registering, you need to decide on the tariff plan and replenish your account. After that, you will be able to access 17,000+ markets.

There are several types of accounts. The main features are:minimum deposit – from 100 euros; personal account manager; insured trades (from 3 to 15 risk-free trades); fixed/floating spreads; some types of accounts have micro-lot trading, bonuses, insurance and lending, access to a reserve fund, and personal analytics services.

To replenish your account and withdraw funds, you can use Visa, Mastercard, CashU or bank transfer. For additional earnings, you can join the affiliate program. To find out the detailed conditions, you need to contact the project managers on an individual basis. Summing up

Medco Finance Limited is a brokerage organization based in the UK. We did not find legal confirmation of legality. Reviews are different, traders could not agree. Have you already cooperated with this broker and are ready to share your personal experience? Post reviews and tell the truth. folder_openTags: Medco Finance Limited, Medco Finance Limited review, Medco Finance Limited scam Post navigation Previous post Previous post Nadex CFD(nadexcfd.com): Reviews-SCAM Next post Next post Doto(doto.com): Reviews-SCAM 1 CommentP Pete FRAUD! In one word! They promise you millions and will tell you “how does the future millionaire feel”. Just to deposit more money! To withdraw money from your Medco account, you need to deposit the same value into your account, e.g. Revo… (this is one of the withdrawal options) to make a “mirror money transfer” (after talking to Revo… this method of transfer is considered money laundering” So once you’ve deposited all your savings into your Medco finance limited uk account (and that’s what hungry experts are asking you to do), you’ll have nothing on your account and you want to withdraw the money you’ve earned, you won’t be able to afford to withdraw it! !! Such a millionaire you will be! And the next two withdrawal options are a parody! Bank of Cyp… for each amount withdrawn you have to pay about 33% of the value from your pocket. So if you have £10k-11% commission on your account, simple calculation! almost 50% of your deposit! So if you would like to withdraw your deposit the next day for any reason, you have already lost 44% of your money! as tax fraud! No control over the money you earn! Because the payment must be approved by an expert and an accountant. You can’t just withdraw your money whenever you want! you have to ask for it! The third option is to pay tax, which the accountant does not recommend for obvious reasons like tax fraud, so they only give you 2 options. There is one more thing worth mentioning, namely the “webinar for the poor”, in which the host urges the “poor” to take a loan! Then the expert suggests you take 30-50k£ and if you are wondering because you are not sure it starts to rule! “And he says that you are wasting his precious time” just like Mr. Markus my expert! The account is billed once a year! If you would like to withdraw from Medco services earlier, even if you paid £ 100, it costs £ 500 to close your account and if you do not pay, they will threaten you with special services, court and I was threatened with deportation!!! after which they will ignore your emails and any contact attempts (great experts won’t tell you about this when you create an account, they are only interested in the money you have!). If you would like to start with a small investment and work your way up, you are not profitable for a hungry expert and Medco. Your money, savings, loan from which you were persuaded and more in my eyes forced is not safe in their hands. In the end, it will turn out that you are a tax fraudster and you launder dirty money. The only winning earner millionaire will be Medco and you will be left with a loan to pay off. So learn from someone else’s mistakes and don’t let yourself be DECEIVED!

Below we will explain to you why you should not open an account with this broker. Blacklands Finance Limited is not a regulated broker. This means that it is not licensed to provide financial services in any country. Unlicensed brokers are not supervised by government bodies therefore they are not trustworthy. So you better stay away from this broker because it is anonymous and can disappear with your money at any time. We also checked online forums and found only negative comments from users who were unhappy with this broker. Users have complained that they cannot withdraw money. Based on these user reviews, it looks like Blacklands Finance Limited is a broker that is trying to scam people out of money, which is why we once again warn against investing through their brokerage platform. How do such brokers work?

Usually they call clients and persuade them to make a deposit. They are really good at this - promising unrealistic investment returns just to get you to deposit money. If they succeed in getting you to make your first deposit they will then call you all the time and ask you to deposit more money. Do not believe anything they say it is all a lie. Such brokers employ several people, usually foreigners, to make it cheaper. They obtain the phone numbers of potential victims and then the employees have the task of calling as many people as possible. They swindle them out of their money and then disappear without a trace. They cannot be contacted by phone, email or chat. Often the broker's website also stops working after some time.

If you want to start investing, we recommend that you open an account with a legitimate broker. You can check the list of regulated brokers here. Best Brokers 2023

One of these regulated brokers is RoboForex which is licensed to provide financial services in the European Union. Here is why you should choose RoboForex broker:ECN Broker 20+ Industry Awards 12000+ Trading Instruments CFDs on Stocks - Over 11700 companies Licensed and Regulated Broker Tight Spreads as Low as 0 Pips No extra fees apply Minimum deposit - $10 Leverage up to 1:2000 Bonus $30 / 120% Negative balance protection Fast withdrawals with no extra fees 99% of orders executed in less than 1 sec. Over 800000 clients from 169 countries Over 500000000 trades executed with zero requotes or rejections, ever Retail client funds are insured up to €20,000 by the Investor Compensation Fund Social trading - CopyFX system gives copiers the option to copy all of the currently open trades of the copied trader

For example, brokers regulated in the European Union are required to provide all clients with protection against negative balance and keep their money in segregated accounts. They should also regularly report open and closed trades to the relevant financial regulators. But most importantly, clients are covered by compensation funds - so even if a licensed firm becomes insolvent, its clients can claim compensation - usually up to €20,000 per person. How can you get your money back?

If you have already deposited some money with Blacklands Finance Limited, you should request a withdrawal immediately. However, it may turn out that the broker will not want to return your money to you. Don't worry, if you made your deposit with a Visa or Mastercard there is still hope. Credit cards provide you with the option of a refund, or chargeback. For example, Visa and Mastercard allow chargebacks within 540 days of a deposit to people who have been victims of investment fraud. Chargeback is a complaint procedure initiated by the bank upon receipt of a report from a payment card customer. So if you want your money back you should contact your bank as soon as possible. The same applies to transfers of money via online payment systems. Some of them allow chargebacks and some do not. Regardless of which online payment system you used to make your deposit, you should contact customer support immediately and ask if there is a possibility of refund. If you have made a bank transfer there is no possibility to make a chargeback. All you can do is write an email to Blacklands Finance Limited making it clear that if they don't refund your money you will go to the police. There is a chance that they will get scared and you will get your funds back. You can also write a complaint to the government agency that regulates financial institutions and brokers. They will take appropriate action. We also warn against paying in cryptocurrencies. Firstly, your payment will remain largely anonymous - you never know exactly who you're sending cash to, but more importantly, your transaction will be final - once you've made your payment, there's no going back. Conclusion

Blacklands Finance Limited is not a broker we can recommend because they are not licensed to provide financial services. We also found some negative comments on internet forums. Your money is not safe so it is better to stay away from this broker. Remember to always check reviews and comments about a company before you send money to someone, no matter if it is a forex broker, cryptocurrency exchange or any other company.

If you have been scammed leave a negative comment below to warn other users against investing with this broker.

Read our Empire Swiss review to see why we do not recommend this broker for trading. Just to clear doubts, this is an empireswiss.com review. If you have any questions or need advice about the withdrawal process, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Who are they?

After taking a look at their website, it shows that they do not fall under any regulating agency. That is a MAJOR RED FLAG!! That should be enough for you NOT to invest with them. And they also work with websites that offer “Automated trading software” which is another red flag, as these kinds of websites are notoriously famous for scamming schemes.

So Empire Swiss is just another unregulated forex broker, which means the customers are not protected, and it is highly likely they will get away with your hard-earned money and there will be no regulating agency to hold them responsible.

In today’s forex market flooded with scam brokers, traders must tread every online financial trading company carefully. You must be particularly aware of shady brokerage firms like Empire Swiss that are anonymous, do not hold any trading credentials, and provide poor services based on deception.

If you have come across the Empire Swiss broker, you will soon realize how fraudulent this company is. So, continue with our Empire Swiss review for more information about this investment scam.

On top of that, we seriously recommend you not invest in the fake brokers BCH Advance, iToroStocks, and WiseFXPro. Do not trade with these unlicensed brokers if you want to save your money! Broker status: Unregulated Broker Regulated by: Unlicensed Scam Brokerage Blacklisted as a Scam by: N/A Owned by: N/A Headquarters Country: Australia Foundation year: 2022 Supported Platforms: Web Trader Minimum Deposit: 2,500 USD Cryptocurrencies: Yes (Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple) Types of Assets: Cryptocurrencies, Forex Maximum Leverage: 1:100 Free Demo Account: No Accepts US clients: No

How does it work?

Usually, unregulated forex brokers work in the following way. They will call people to persuade them to make the initial minimum deposit while trying any conceivable method in order to make that happen. They will offer deals that sound too good to be true like we will double your initial deposit or you will make $100 per day easily. Please don’t fall for anything they say!!! It is a SCAM! After making the initial deposit, people get transferred to a smarter scammer, called a “retention agent”, who will try to get more money out of you.

Withdrawing funds

You should submit a withdrawal request ASAP because your funds are never safe with an unregulated broker. And here is when things get tricky.

If you want to withdraw your money and it does not matter if you have profits or not, they will delay the withdrawal process for months. If they delay it for six months, you won’t be able to file a chargeback anymore and your money is gone for good. It does not matter how often you remind them or insist on withdrawing your money, you will NOT get them back. And if you signed the Managed Account Agreement or MAA, which is basically authorizing them to do anything they want on your account, they will lose all your funds so there won’t be anything to request anymore.

How to get your money back?

If you already deposited your money with them and they refuse to give your money back, which is very likely to happen, don’t worry, it might be a way or two to get your money back.

First of all, you need to keep the emails as proof that you have been requesting the money back from them but they don’t give it to you, or they delay the process for too long, with the intention of not refunding your money.

The first thing you should do is perform a chargeback! And you should do this right away! Contact your bank or credit card provider and explain how you were deceived into depositing for a trading company that is not regulated and refuses to give your money back. This is the simplest way of getting your money back and is also the way that hurts them the most. Because if there are many chargebacks performed, it will destroy their relationship with the payment service providers. If you haven’t done this before or you are not sure where to start or how to present your case to your bank or credit card company, we can assist you in preparing your chargeback case. Contact us at [email protected] but do not let your broker know if you have read this article or are in contact with us.

What about wires?

If you sent them a wire, there is no way to perform a chargeback on a wire. For this step, you need to raise the fight to a different level. Tell them that you will go to the authorities and file a complaint against them. That will get them to rethink the refund possibility. Another thing you can do is prepare a letter or email for the regulating agencies. Depending on the country where you live, you can search on google to find the regulating agency for Forex brokers in that country. After that, you can prepare a letter or an email describing how you got deceived by them. Make sure you show this letter or email to them and tell them you will send it to the regulating agency if they don’t refund your money. If you do not know where to start, reach us at [email protected] and we will help you with this step as well. Is Empire Swiss a Licensed Forex Broker?

Forex trading is a heavily controlled industry by financial regulatory agencies closely cooperating with governments and ensuring that every broker complies with relevant legislation.

When a phony broker like Empire Swiss doesn’t state its headquarters or any information about the company’s registration, it is hard to determine its jurisdiction. This is done with the purpose to cover up the fact that it is an unlicensed and unregulated business.

The only info about Empire Swiss available on its website is a telephone number, which is an Australian phone number according to the dialing code. That brings us to the assumption that this broker might be based in Australia, which is one of the most stringent jurisdictions.

If it is the case, it is impossible to be a legitimate broker without being authorized by the Australian financial authority, ASIC. Not unexpectedly, Empire Swiss is not licensed under this or any other financial market regulatory agency. Why Is Trading On a Licensed Broker’s Platform Preferable?

Unlike unauthorized brokers, certified companies can be trusted with money since they adhere to a strict code of conduct – especially forex providers regulated by top-level supervisory bodies like the Australian ASIC, British FCA, and German BaFin. For example, ASIC’s eligibility conditions stipulate a broker maintain a minimum operating capital of 1M AUD and keep its and traders’ money separated (segregation of funds).

Additionally, traders of licensed brokers are protected by indemnification programs run by supervisory agencies. For example, ASIC covers traders with a 100,000 AUD indemnification in the event of a broker’s bankruptcy. On top of that, legitimate companies implement a range of risk management measures to mitigate trading risks, such as offering negative balance protection (a trader can lose more than deposited), cooperating with first-rate banks, providing reliable trading platforms, and ensuring propitious trading conditions. So Is Empire Swiss a Decent Broker or a Scam?

Empire Swiss is an anonymous and unregulated broker running online trading scams and cheating traders from the UK, Canada, Australia, the US, and Sweden. What Trading Software Does Empire Swiss Offer?

Speaking of the Empire Swiss portal, a trading platform available here, it is a web trader with limited functionality. This unscrupulous broker claims that its web trader fits the needs of both beginners and experienced traders. However, we are dubious about that since it has generic functions that can’t ensure profitable trading.

As far as that is concerned, your best option is the latest trading programs – MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, and Sirix – providing advanced tools such as expert advisors, stop loss, fast execution, unlimited pending orders, copy trading, and more.

Make sure you leave reviews about Empire Swiss on other sites

Another way to hurt them and save other people from falling victims is to leave bad reviews on other sites, and describe shortly what happened. If you have fallen victim please leave a review and a comment on this site in the comment section. Also, when these people change their website they tend to call the old clients, so if they call you from a new website please write it down on the comment or let us know by contacting us. That would be really appreciated by us and families all over the world. Also if you get phone calls from other companies please put the name of these companies also in the comment or send it to us. We will expose them too.

Empire Swiss Review Conclusions

Making the Empire Swiss review is actually a pleasure for us, and we hope to save as many people as possible from losing their hard-earned money. A good rule of thumb is to carefully review all the Forex companies and any other company for that matter before you perform any transaction. We hope that our Empire Swiss review has been helpful to you. If you have any questions or you need advice about the withdrawing process, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

If you like to trade please do it with a trustworthy, regulated broker, by choosing one of the brokers listed below.

Warning: Low score, please stay away!

It has been verified that this broker currently has no valid regulations, please be aware of the risk!

Empire Swiss unconvincingly claims to be a “world-leading broker” with years of experience and numerous awards. The low quality of the website, the conflicting information and the missing credentials suggest that these boasts cannot be true. Fact-checking quickly reveals that Empire Swiss is indeed just another scam website trying to cash in on the hype around cryptocurrencies and the general public’s ignorance about financial markets. Broker name Empire Swiss TRUSTED? UNREGULATED SCAM BROKER 100% Regulation No Minimum Deposit $1 Leverage 1:200 Trading platforms web Available assets forex, indices, shares, bonds, energies

CUSTOMER REVIEW – Identity Hidden Empire Swiss is a scam broker, I have deposited 8500 USD and made a profit of 4000 USD in a day. this scam broker is not giving me a withdrawal and today dated 27.04.2021 they have blown my account intentionally so cannot ask for a withdrawal. this totally B Book broker without liquidity bridging( there is no bank with this broker) How to get your money back?

If you already deposited your money with them and they refuse to give your money back, which is very likely to happen, don’t worry, it might be a way or two to get your money back. First of all, you need to keep the emails as proof that you have been requesting the money back from them but they don’t give it to you, or they delay the process for too long, with the intention of not refunding your money.

The first thing you should do is perform a chargeback! And you should do this right away! Contact your bank or credit card provider and explain how you were deceived into depositing for a trading company that is not regulated and refuses to give your money back. This is the simplest way of getting your money back and is also the way that hurts them the most. Because if there are many chargebacks performed, it will destroy their relationship with the payment service providers. If you haven’t done this before or you are not sure where to start or how to present your case to your bank or credit card company, we can assist you in preparing your chargeback case. Just contact us at [email protected] but do not let your broker know they you read this article or that you are in contact with us. HOW DOES THE SCAM WORK

The idea of passive income is increasingly attractive to more and more people. The Internet gives the impression that making money through investments in the financial markets is more accessible than ever to non-experts. But the online space is full of scammers who lure inexperienced wannabe traders through flashy advertisements and fake testimonials from satisfied clients. However, these fake brokers don’t really invest the money you give them – even though they very confidently assure you that you are generating great profits and should invest even more.

But when you try to withdraw some of your supposed winnings or deposit, it turns out to be impossible. Scammers will tell you that a sudden change in the market has wiped out all your money, or point you to vague clauses in the Terms and Conditions that require a huge minimum volume traded. The victim of such a scam may also be surprised by hidden fees and taxes amounting to tens of percentages of their funds.

Holding fraudsters accountable is difficult because they operate through uncontrolled and unregulated offshore companies. In addition, scammers require that you provide them with a copy of your ID and proof of address so that they can claim that all transactions were voluntary and agreed upon by both parties.

REASONS WHY Empire Swiss is a completely Fake, Unreliable and scam forex broker?

A guarantee of success and/or large profits – Empire Swiss scam broker

Nothing about the market, specifically the forex market, can be guaranteed. This market is influenced by too many factors that can change at any moment. So if someone is boasting of guaranteed profits or specific results, they are peddling a scam.

No substantial proof or background information on Empire Swiss

It’s very easy to come across pictures of charts showing profits. Scammers are savvy and they will only show profits and not losses within a period of time. In worse cases, they may even show charts from demo trading accounts that aren’t even a reflection of real trading. Do not base your decision to work with someone or purchase a product based on this or any other limited information. Ask for background information and full disclosure of the profits and losses. If they refuse or remain vague, it’s probably a scam.

Unsolicited marketing techniques

Unsolicited and persistent marketing is typically a sign of fraudulent behaviour. If you find yourself being pushed to purchase a product or service with little information and time, it may be an attempt to scam you. Be particularly cautious if they begin to ask for personal information that can be used for things like identity theft. If it feels uncomfortable and pushy, avoid it.

Empire Swiss Review Conclusions

Making the Empire Swiss review is actually a pleasure for us, and we hope to save as many people as possible from losing their hard-earned money. A good rule of thumb is to carefully review all the Forex companies and any other company for that matter before you perform any transaction. We hope that our Empire Swiss review has been helpful to you. If you have any questions or you need advice about the withdrawal process, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

EmpireSwiss.com is an unregulated broker which targets innocent traders and steals the money they deposit. They also resort to using fake DMCA takedowns in order to hide negative posts and review them. As a trader, I strongly recommend anyone avoid EmpireSwiss.com at all costs. If they have to resort to such cheap and ugly tactics for creating a fake reputation, then they definitely can’t be trusted with your money. How EmpireSwiss.com Scams People

This post will expose exactly how the Empire Swiss scam works and why you should not open an account with this broker. They are not regulated by any financial authority in the world. In simpler terms, they are not licensed to provide any financial services in any country on the face of the planet.

Unlicensed brokers are not permitted to operate legally, thus they cannot be trusted. YOu should stay away from them as they can disappear from the internet at any moment and run away with your money. See also Joshua Twelftree: Forcing Himself On Bumble Date?

There are also no details about the owners and executives behind EmpireSwiss.com, this is a big red flag because essentially gives the actual owners immunity from being held accountable by their victims.

On online forums I found only negative press on EmpireSwiss.com, users complain about not being able to withdraw their funds and struggling with bugs on the website.

EmpireSwiss.com usually call potential victims and promises them big returns of investments on their investments. All they want is for the target to deposit money into their platform. Once that happens they keep upselling the victim until they leech the most amount of money possible. They even show a fake increase in value but when the victim tries to withdraw their money, they are shown an error.

Brokers who scam masses often swindle their victims and disappear without a trace. You cannot contact them via phone or email once they run away with your money as all these lines of communication are shut down by teh scammers. See also Paramveer Singh

I’ve lost a lot of money to these scammers and I hope no one else falls victim to their heinous scam. Fake Reviews On TrustPilot & SiteJabber

These scammers have made dummy accounts on Trustpilot and Sitejabber in order to scam more people. They posted fake 5 star reviews on these platforms and are blatantly abusing them.

They use these reviews as social proof to scam actual people. The victims don’t realize that these reviews have been written by the scammers themselves and get fooled.

Do not trust their ratings on Trustpilot and Sitejabber.

Read our Empire Swiss review to see why we do not recommend this broker for trading. Just to clear doubts, this is an Empireswiss.com review. If you have any questions or you need advice about the withdrawal process, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Who are they?

How does it work?

Withdrawing funds

You should submit a withdrawal request ASAP, because your funds are never safe with an unregulated broker. And here is when things get tricky.

If you want to withdraw your money and it does not matter if you have profits or not, they will delay the withdrawing process for months. If they delay it for six months, you won’t be able to file a chargeback anymore and your money is gone for good. It does not matter how often you remind them or insist on withdrawing your money, you will NOT get them back. And if you signed the Managed Account Agreement or MAA, which is basically authorizing them to do anything they want on your account, they will lose all your funds so there won’t be anything to request anymore.

How to get your money back?

If you already deposited your money with them and they refuse to give your money back, which is very likely to happen, don’t worry, it might be a way or two to get your money back.

What about wires?

Make sure you leave reviews about Empire Swiss on other sites

Another way to hurt them and save other

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jacobhinkley · 7 years ago

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Basepay Enables Users to Pay with Cryptos at 40M Locations After Integration with Apple Pay and Google Pay

Cryptocurrencies are continuing gaining their popularity, nevertheless, ways to conduct crypto payments are still limited. Though today it is still rather difficult to meet a retailer who will be ready to accept cryptocurrency payments, we can already notice some signs of positive changes.

Basepay has wowed the crypto community announcing that they are going to make Ethereum payments available in more than 11 million locations. Moreover, users will have a possibility to connect their virtual Basepay cards to Apple pay and Google pay.

Online crypto payments will be supported as well which means that in total nearly 400 million retailers will benefit from this new move of Basepay. Making Ethereum payments closer for such a great number of retailers and clients is a real milestone for the entire industry.

Basepay’s virtual cards will connect to Apple® Pay & Google® Pay to enable crypto spending online & in 40,0000,000 locations globally. Basepay is the first to combine virtual cards, crypto loans and a decentralized exchange in one app. @SatoshiLite #litecoin #LTC #LitecoinNation pic.twitter.com/l4dGKzdQ88

— Basepay.io (@BasepayApp) May 10, 2018

Basepay team has very optimistic expectations, nevertheless, the real impact will be seen not immediately. The target release is planned to take place in the fourth quarter of the current year, nevertheless, usability will seriously depend on the location and operating system of a mobile phone.

As usual, Android users will get access to the app earlier, while Apple users will have to wait longer as it always happens so when it is necessary to approve a new application. In the situation with apps that deal with cryptocurrencies, this tendency is quite noticeable.

Nevertheless, namely technological issues are not expected to become barriers while regulations in different countries may have its serious influence. Not every government support cryptocurrency.

Moreover, there is still no any well-established regulatory framework in the majority of the world’s countries. But it is supposed that popularity of such apps as Basepay can boost a process of development of necessary guidelines which would open new horizons for cryptos.

But we should highlight that though Basepay team expects to achieve great results, their way won’t be easy. Speaking about the United States, it is impossible not to mention that getting money transmitter licenses is really a big deal.

But the team has a professional whose task is to speed up this process in accordance with all requirements and norms. Nevertheless, the company may face with similar obstacles in other countries as well.

Though the project itself looks like a very promising one, the Ethereum community members are rather cautious about it as a number of unreliable and even suspicious companies in the sphere is constantly growing. And one of such examples is a situation with Litepay startup that was said to launch wallet and debit card services but was unexpectedly shut down.

As for Basepay, the company plans to introduce spending in all crypto wallets and to launch an API.

Basepay will use Stellar Network’s base layer protocol that was designed to ensure cheaper and faster money transfer. This network provides a possibility not to calculate any additional fees for computation. The network has its coin named Stellar (XLM) that is currently traded at $0.35 according to CoinMarket Cap.

Issuance of its Stellar Asset through the Stellar Decentralized Exchange is also among the further plans of Basepay. But currently, there is no detailed information regarding this asset.

The post Basepay Enables Users to Pay with Cryptos at 40M Locations After Integration with Apple Pay and Google Pay appeared first on CoinSpeaker.

Basepay Enables Users to Pay with Cryptos at 40M Locations After Integration with Apple Pay and Google Pay published first on https://medium.com/@smartoptions

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chetuinc · 5 years ago

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5 MUST-HAVE FEATURES FOR A SUCCESSFUL BANKING APP

CORE Banking Features

CORE banking, or centralized online real-time exchange banking, is a back-end system that processes transactions and posts updates almost immediately.

Thanks to avant-garde banking software, all kinds of services are available across multiple channels such as mobile devices, the internet, and ATMs.

Here are some capabilities of service-oriented CORE banking:

New account enrollment and existing account management.

Deposits and withdrawals.

Loan management.

Interest rate calculation.

Customer relationship management.

Introductions to new financial products.

Record maintenance.

CORE banking software can be specialized for retail banking, wholesale banking, or securities trading.

Mobile Check Deposits

This feature may seem like the stuff of science fiction to people who still bank the traditional way, but consumers are increasingly comfortable with it. Mobile check deposit, also known as remote deposit capture, is becoming one of the most sought-after features in mobile banking.

Mobile deposit involves scanning a check’s digital image and transmitting it to a financial institution.

The most obvious benefit is that it saves time. You don’t have to drive to a bank branch or credit union and wait in line for an available teller.

It takes just a few minutes to endorse the check and snap front and back photos on your banking app. The deposit information goes directly to your account, and funds are usually accessible within a day.

Customers love the convenience. You can deposit a check from your workplace or in your pajamas from your breakfast bar at home.

If you worry about security or privacy, rest assured that images of your checks are not stored on your phone. Also, the app quickly notifies you that your deposit was received in good order.

Financial institutions save money and manpower on every single check that doesn’t have to be processed and stored in an old-fashioned way. Most don’t charge for the service, so everybody wins.

Peer-to-Peer Payments

According to a survey conducted by U.S. Bank, paper money is declining in popularity. Fifty percent of respondents said that they only carry a little cash if they carry it at all.

Peer-to-peer payments might also be called person-to-person payments or simply P2Ps. In any case, harried waiters splitting checks for parties of 12 are a thing of the past.

P2Ps transfer funds from your bank account to someone else’s. The money is deposited safely, securely and instantly in most cases.

Sending or receiving money is simple:

Open your banking app.

Select an existing receiver, or enter the name of a new one.

Select text or email for sending notification of the transfer.

Specify the amount.

Provide your personal debit card ID number.

Review the details, confirm, and send.

If you’re on the receiving end, you’ll get a text or email notifying you that someone has sent money. Click on the message, provide your bank account details, and choose to receive the money.

Many third-party vendors provide the same service, but using your own banking app that you’re already familiar with is far more convenient. The banking app requires your personal ID number, and the bank oversees the transfer. There’s no guarantee that third-party services are secure.

Furthermore, unlike many third-party vendors, most banks don’t charge a fee for the transfers.

Bill Payments

Paying bills by check is time-consuming, inconvenient, costly and environmentally unfriendly. It’s not especially secure either. Checks get lost or stolen in the mail system. They get misplaced and buried under paperwork in the recipient’s inbox.

There are special advantages to the bill-pay feature:

You can schedule email or text alerts.

When various monthly bills are almost due, you’ll get timely reminders.

You can schedule a one-time payment or recurring payments.

This feature reduces the likelihood of late or skipped payments.

For amounts that vary, such as utility bills, just pay as you go when you’re alerted. For things like mortgages and auto loans with fixed installments, set up recurring payments. The funds will automatically withdraw from your account each month when the bills are due, so you’ll never miss a payment.

It’s worth mentioning here that you can also set up a one-time payment or recurring payments to a linked savings account

Payments process almost immediately.

If you remember a random bill at the last minute, you can usually get your payment in under the wire. It depends on the bank, but many process payments in a few minutes or within a day.

You can better monitor your bank balance and spending.

Remember that mobile banking happens in real-time. You needn’t worry about forgetting to record a check in the checkbook or making an accounting error that results in an overdraft.

On your banking app, what you see is what you get. The bill-pay feature is especially useful for joint account holders. The left hand always knows what the right hand is doing.

Security and Fraud Alerts

Security and privacy are heavily emphasized in bank software development. Banks must ensure that their platforms are safe, that sensitive data is protected, and that all input into the app is verified.

Many have heightened security features like touch ID and face or voice recognition. Iris scanning is another advanced technology.

There’s no denying that fraudsters get savvier every day, but so do software developers. Systems monitor thousands of transactions per second to prevent fraud. If suspicious activity is detected, you’ll be the first to know.

Chetu Has Solutions

Since 2000, Chetu has remained on the cutting edge of bank software development. Our expertise and unwavering commitment to our clients are evident in all our custom mobile banking solutions.

For more information, visit our banking software page.

#banking #softwaredevelopment #softwae #technology

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russellthornton · 6 years ago

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How to Make Life Easier: 20 Steps to Go from Exhausted to Effortless

Life is tough. Work sucks. Responsibilities are exhausting. Not to mention bills and traffic! Now is the time to learn how to make life easier.

We all know that life is hard, and it is only getting harder. The older you get the more responsibilities you have. So, learning how to make life easier is what you need today.

And as you get older the bills pile up, you need to see the doctor more often, pay for car insurance, worry about the planet and the state of our nation. It is no wonder you are looking for ways to make life easier.

Why is your life so hard?

Before you figure out what needs to be done in order to make your life easier, think about why your life is so hard. Do you feel stressed and overwhelmed? Are you constantly in a bad mood?

Do you hold grudges? Are you lonely? Are you worried about your financial future? Before you try to learn how to make your life easier in every way, start with the hardest parts of your life and work from there. [Read: Life quotes to motivate you to a better life today!]

How to make life easier

Life does not always have to be so hard. We all have bad days, but you can learn how to make your life easier. And it isn’t that hard to do. It may take a little getting used to though.

With so much ease, you might be looking for a challenge.

#1 Make lists. I know, I sound like your mother. But, mom does know best. It has been proven that making lists and crossing things off adds to a more productive schedule.

This can be something as small as making a list of household chores or major goals for the year. What helps me is a list on my phone of all the things I need to do like make a doctor’s appointment, pick up eggs, and return something.

I consistently check it throughout the day and when I can delete a row and see the list get smaller I feel accomplished. [Read: How to be happy and life life to the fullest]

#2 Stay organized. Having clutter pile up around you leaves your life in literal and figurative chaos. If your living space or workspace is messy, your mind is messy. Start with clearing out what you know you don’t need. You can start with something small like your cupboards or handbag. *I’m talking about that CVS receipt from 2014*.

Take baby steps to get organized. Put everything in an order that will make life easier for you. Once you start working in an organized space it will be easy to keep it that way and easier to get everything done. From work to cooking dinner, knowing where everything is and where it goes makes it all easier. [Read: 10 tricks to help you get your life together]

#3 Make a plan. If spontaneity is your thing, great. But, having a plan for some parts of life makes things a lot easier. You can clear out your weekend and be spontaneous then, but try to plan out day to day errands and chores so that when you do want to go on an adventure you come back to a relaxing space.

You don’t want to come home from a spontaneous trip only to have a load of laundry to do, a full grocery list, and three past due bills piling up.

#4 Be early. Things get in the way, but aiming to show up early makes life easier. Leave 5-15 minutes before you know you have to leave. This gives you extra time in case of traffic or an accident. It also makes you less anxious about being late.

And when you get somewhere early you have time to relax and get a coffee or use the bathroom. You won’t have to sneak into a meeting and sit in the back, you’ll be fully prepared and prompt.

#5 Save money. Being bad with money makes your life a lot more difficult than it has to be. And saving money is a hard thing to do. You work for your money, you should be able to do what you want with it.

But knowing you have a cushion of savings just in case is a peaceful feeling. Knowing that you don’t have to panic when a big expense unexpectedly arrives will make the harder parts of life a lot less stressful. Save 10-15% off each paycheck if you can. Put it in a savings account that you don’t see when you log onto your bank’s website.

You’ll know its there, but seeing it will make you want to spend it. You can also have your bank round up all the money you spend to the next dollar and transfer the difference to your savings. That means next time you spend $3.43 on a coffee, $.57 will go into your savings. And it will add up. [Read: Brilliant yet simple ways to save money]

#6 Stay in touch with the people you trust. When life gets hard, we can recede from our social lives. We get tired and stay home. I know. When I’m overwhelmed, I stop texting people back because it is hard to deal. But make sure you keep in touch with the important people in your life.

Your family and closest friends are those for a reason. Having them to vent to, spend time with, and just know that they are there makes all hardships worth it.

#7 Make a budget. And stick to it. If you want to know how to make life easier, remember that saving is one thing, sticking to a budget is another. It isn’t as easy as downloading an app or doing something once a month. You have to get all your bills together and do some math.

Figure out how much you make, how much you spend on necessities *rent, food, insurance, etc.*. Calculate how much you’ll be saving per pay period and figure out how much you can realistically spend on luxuries like clothes shopping, Netflix, Amazon Prime, going out to eat, and buying gifts.

#8 Be polite. When you are having a hard time, it is easy to lash out at people. Everyone from your mom to your mailman and even the poor guy trying to sell you solar panels on the phone gets an earful.

But, maintaining as much politeness as possible in every situation will keep you levelheaded, keep things from getting worse, and keep others in a good mood. No matter how frustrated you might be at a cashier or waiter, remember this is only a small portion of your day. Your energy will be put to better use somewhere else. [Read: 7 instant hacks to calm yourself down that work like a harm]

#9 Be respectful. Along with being polite, respect goes a long way at work, at home, and even on the train and at the store. When you show consistent respect to everyone around you, they show it back.

And having people respect you is always better than having them fear you or pity you. Respect is a powerful thing to have and an even more powerful thing to give. [Read: Nice things to say to others and make the world a better place]

#10 Tip well. If you are a crappy tipper, you are not only ruining someone’s day, but you could be lessening the money they bring home to feed their family. All workers in the service industry deserve to be tipped accordingly. In many instances, that is all the money that person brings home.

If you frequent establishments like a restaurant, hairdresser, or even a dry cleaner tipping well will encourage the workers to make you a priority. They will also respect you which will make each interaction that much easier.

#11 Exercise. Whether you are a gym goer or prefer taking a brisk walk at the park, do it. Exercise is vital for your health. I’m not saying you have to jog every morning, but just make sure you are getting some sort of physical workout throughout the week.

Being in shape is not just about appearances, it is about how you feel. And when you feel better, everything is better.

#12 Drink plenty of water. The same goes for water. Did you know that when you are thirsty, your body is already dehydrated? Drinking enough water keeps your skin and your mind clearer.

Stay hydrated helps you eat better, gives you more energy, and makes you feel less sluggish. And when all those things get together, you’ll be unstoppable.

#13 Go to the doctor. We all dread the doctor. Whether it is the GYN or the dentist, it sucks. But it is far worse to have to make an emergency appointment when something is wrong than to go in for your annual checkup when everything is good.

Maintaining your current health is a lot easier than reversing an issue that could come up later. If you just suck it up and do these things your life will be easier, trust me. Just get it over with. That way it won’t be weighing on you.

#14 Let go of small inconveniences. Life becomes harder than it has to be when you let every little inconvenience get to you. Someone cuts you off on your way to work so now you’re in a bad mood. Then your lunch order is wrong so you are more annoyed. And by the time you get home your day feels crappy and never-ending.

But your entire day could have gone better, or at least felt a lot easier if you let those little things go. There is no such thing as a perfect day. So letting these little annoyances just float away will help maintain your good mood and make everything else run smoother. [Read: How to take care of yourself emotionally]

#15 Get rid of dead weight. If I haven’t said it already, life is hard. And having people in your life that only bring anger and frustration to your life make it that much harder. If you have a friend that you went to school with that brings you nothing but unhappiness there is no reason to keep her in your life.

It may seem cruel or harsh, but life is too short to put energy into relationships that don’t bring anything positive into your life. [Read: 17 bad friends you should unfriend from your life]

#16 Spend time with family and friends. As you move away from those relationships that are dysfunctional, make the extra effort for those relationships that make your life worth living. Your family and friends are the ones you want to celebrate the good days with.

So by making sure you see them as often as possible, you are reminded what life is all about and why you go through the hard stuff, which makes it easier.

#17 Don’t care what other people think. This is a doozy, but we all spend so much time worrying about what others think. It is human nature, but if you can let go of that, at least some of it, everyday tasks will be so much easier.

Don’t worry you are coming off too abrupt at work, say what is on your mind. Waiting until the time is right could make you seem timid and someone else might swoop in because you didn’t just go for it. [Read: All the amazing reasons why following your dreams is always worth it]

#18 Limit your social media use. Social media was a great invention. It brings people from around the world together. But it can also be toxic to your happiness. We tend to compare ourselves and our entire lives to what other people post about, which isn’t really their entire life either.

It can be a poisonous cycle. So as much as you love scrolling through celebrity posts and aesthetically pleasing meals, if you want to learn how to make life easier, remember to take time to actually live your life, not just watch others live theirs.

#19 Focus on what makes you happy. This seems obvious, but we all worry about things daily that don’t make us happy. Of course, you have to pay bills and worry about politics. But put your main focus on what truly matters to you and everything will be easier.

When you are happy, your life automatically becomes easy. So don’t let the bad stuff or the boring stuff take over your life. We all have a certain amount of blah things we have to do as adults, but as long as what makes you happy is your focus, your life won’t be too hard. [Read: 13 truths you need to unlock a great life]

#20 Ask for help. We all want to do it all. We want to have it all. And we do not want to be failures or come off as weak. But if you take on too much to prove it to yourself, you overdo it. Having people in your life you can turn to when things get hard is what makes life easier.

And it is not a sign of weakness. In fact, admitting you need help is the biggest sign of strength there is. No one accomplishes their dreams completely alone. Asking for help along the way is what gives us the hope to keep going.

[Read: 13 happy things you need to ensure you have a happy life]

Life does not have to be so hard all the time. You just have to know how to make life easier. Hopefully, these 20 steps will do the trick for you.

The post How to Make Life Easier: 20 Steps to Go from Exhausted to Effortless is the original content of LovePanky - Your Guide to Better Love and Relationships.

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years ago

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/youre-now-officially-stupid-if-you-go-on-holiday-without-one-of-these/

You're now officially stupid if you go on holiday without one of these

You might have noticed them this summer. People looking a little smug as they headed to the cashpoint. A flash of fluorescent plastic at the tills and a small smile to go with it.

These are the people going on exactly the same holidays as you, but paying £40 less for the privilege.

What do they have that you don’t? One of the new breed of travel cards – allowing them to not only get the best rates, but pay no fees at all while spending on holiday.

A new way to pay

Do you actually need any more than a card and a phone? (Image: Monzo)

There are now more than a million Brits with a zero-fee travel card – free to sign up to, these accounts come with a card and an app.

You can use the card, not just free-free, but with about the best exchange rates possible, anywhere in the world.

Money can be transferred as you need it from your existing bank account – and you can even lock in good rates in advance with some of them if you are feeling clever.

They do put a limit on cash withdrawals when on holiday – generally you can only take out £200 a month before fees apply – but that’s literally the only thing they charge for.

The new tools to make you richer

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Share your stuff and make serious money

Oh – and they come with a host of other benefits.

All the main providers give you live updates on your spending, let you lock your card from your phone if it goes missing – and unlock it if you find it again – and have the same level of protection you get from a traditional bank.

They’re also free to put money into, transfer money out of and to spend in the UK – unlike the traditional currency cards from people like Caxton, the Post Office and FairFX.

Oh, and one of them even pay interest on positive balances.

The money they save

It adds up – fast

Every time you use a traditional card overseas, you get charged. That happens in two main ways.

First, a “non-sterling transaction fee”, and then a “non-sterling cash charge”.

Figures from Fight Overseas Fees, a campaign group highlighting the issue, show taking £200 worth of euros out of a cash machine cost £12.50 on a Barclays card, £13.89 for Lloyds customers, £13.95 for NatWest account holder and £14.32 if you’re with Santander.

It doesn’t get much better for spending either. Paying £200 in euros costs you almost as much – £11 at Barclays, £12.89 at Lloyds, £9.95 at NatWest and £14.32 at Santander.

On average, that adds up to £43.51 in utterly unnecessary charges a trip for a family of four, the group calculates. Some banks charge less, but why pay anything unless you have to?

You can calculate exactly how much you’ve been charged here .

OK – so who offers the cards and how hard are they to get?

There are 3 main players (Image: Starling Bank)

There are three main providers that offer free use abroad: Revolut, Monzo and Starling Bank.

They are all free to sign up for, as long as you have a smartphone, and all offer slightly different features.

What they all have in common is fee-free use abroad, no hard credit checks to sign up, the ability to pause or cancel the card instantly if lost, spending notifications and analysis and the full £85,000 protection that you get from standard bank accounts.

Revolut is a pre-paid card – allowing you to load money in advance and hold it in your account either in sterling or a foreign currency. That means if you’re lucky or clever you can lock in good exchange rates before you travel.

Monzo and Starling Bank are – well – banks. So while you can’t load money in advance, you can get an overdraft – although that will mean credit checks.

In fact, Starling Bank even pays interest on money you have in it.

You can sign up to any of them by downloading the relevant app, fill out the forms and you should have a decision in minutes.

There is a waiting list for Monzo, you can frequently get round if you know anyone who has a card already.

Do they really work?

It’s all too good to be true, surely? (Image: Getty)

Everyone we’ve spoken to about using these cards abroad so far is a fan. Take Sara, 30, who signed up a few days before a trip earlier this year.

“I was going to Vegas and wanted a good way of making sure I got a good currency rate. Also – I wasn’t at all sure how much money I would need, and didn’t want to worry about carrying around loads of cash,” she told Mirror Money.

“Monzo was a game changer. The card is accepted practically everywhere, the rates are as good as you’ll see in any exchange, and I could move across a bit at a time as I needed it.

“It’s really easy, as simple as logging into your bank account and moving the funds across. It was great for budgeting too, I could see exactly how much I’d spent and on what.

“It really does make travel money a whole lot easier”

Yara, who used a Monzo card for 3 months while travelling last year, told us the only thing she could think that was a problem was that the updates sometimes to a few hours to arrive – rather than a few seconds.

Secrets of the travel geniuses who beat the system

Are there ANY risks?

Yes. But they’re pretty managable.

Firstly, with Monzo and Starling, you do get credit checked if you want an overdraft.

A rejected application can lower your overall credit score and doesn’t look good for other people seeing your report.

Even a successful application can cause problems – as people applying for a lot of things at once, or whose total available credit is deemed “too big”, can be treated with suspicion.

And that’s before the cost of going into debt.

With Revolut, there are options that cost money as well as the free version. They come with extra perks (such as medical cover when abroad, higher fee-free withdrawals overseas and premium (even metal) cards.

But if you don’t use the perks, you could be left paying for a service you don’t use.

Beating these risks is just a case of being careful when you register – but they’re worth mentioning.

Apart from sign ups, you should be careful about the cash withdrawal limit. If you take more than £200 out in the month, the charges aren’t the cheapest. They’re not ruinous either – but there are more cost-effective ways to get money out.

There’s also no guarantee that they will keep offering fee-free use overseas forever. Monzo, for example, has already cut the free withdrawal allowance from £1,000 a month to £200 and future cuts could happen to any of them.

Finally, as new companies they might not be around forever. While any money you have in them is protected, it would be a pain if they went bust.

But these are relatively small issues.

If you’re careful during the sign-up process and don’t go over £200 a month in withdrawals overseas, it’s difficult to work out what the downside here is.

At worst, you’ve spent a few minutes signing up to something that you don’t use or becomes less useful later on.

At best, you save money on every single holiday you ever take again.

Source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/youre-now-officially-stupid-you-13132486

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demikbrayus · 7 years ago

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Best Online Stock Brokers for Beginners in 2017

This article first appeared on aaacreditguide.com at AAACreditGuide.

Ready to get started investing but not sure where to start? We’ve compiled a list of the top brokers we recommend for 2017. Catering to both seasoned and beginning investors alike, there’s someone on this list for everyone. Whether it is customer service, affordability, or platform versatility, each of these brokers shines in its own way.

Vanguard

Perhaps one of the best brokers for low-cost investing, Vanguard is frequently utilized by buy-and-hold and retirement investors with high account balances.

Its expense ratios on index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are quite below the national average, so it is the go-to broker for long-term investors.

Retirement-minded investors can find a lot of resources with Vanguard through its website. They list safe and healthy investment options that promise long-term growth, and it gives helpful hints on where you should prioritize your time and energy if you’re just getting started.

They also have a sophisticated program that can estimate when you’ll be able to retire and can help calculate your monthly expenses (sudden or otherwise) once you do.

If you have some money to invest, you can save by choosing Vanguard. For accounts with at least $50,000, trades only cost $7 regardless of how big they are. When the account hits $500,000, trades only cost $2. When the account surpasses a million dollars, many trades become free.

Want to make active trades? Keep looking.

If you’re an active trader and don’t have nearly that amount of money laying around, however, Vanguard isn’t the best broker. It doesn’t have any software to support its traders (meaning there aren’t any trading tools or platforms to utilize).

Also, investors who frequently trade (say, more than 25 times a year) are penalized with fees (assuming, of course, they don’t have $1 million invested with Vanguard).

Motif

Motif Investing is a great company to go with if you are an ETF investor, looking to invest in IPOs, are an impact investor, or you are looking to buy fractional shares of stocks.

Monthly subscriptions range from $4.95 to $19.95 a month and it costs $4.95 per share and $9.95 per motif.

What are motifs?

They’re essentially value-themed categories you can invest in, like healthcare, green investing, or recent IPOs. If you’re interested but aren’t quite ready to commit, Motif offers a free one month trial to Motif Blue. Currently, there is no account minimum, but if you want to invest in a motif they require a $300 minimum to get started.

Unlike Vanguard, Motif has a decent web presence. Its mobile app, for example, allows users to track and benchmark motifs, peruse newly added motifs, and offers a user-specific news feed created for each investor.

One of the best things about Motif is that it allows investors to trade in dollar increments (also known as fractional shares). So if you have a bit of money you would like to invest, but don’t have enough to buy a whole share of a company, you can invest what you have.

Lastly, if you would like to buy foreign stocks, Motif offers its investors American depository receipts. These ADRs are traded in U.S. Markets, are issued by U.S. Banks or U.S. based brokerages, but they represent individual shares in other countries. This makes them great in helping investors get their feet wet (pun intended) with companies overseas and will help them truly diversify their portfolios.

TD Ameritrade

TD Ameritrade is considered by many investors to be one of the best resources for both beginning and advanced investors.

It offers portfolio building advice, has over a hundred commission-free ETFs, and provides great trading platforms (mobile and PC) — all while not requiring an account minimum for its customers.

TD Ameritrade also has a program online for beginners called Web Platform which is extremely useful. Here newcomers can select their trading ‘skill level’ and their level of education, and TD Ameritrade will help the investor build a properly balanced portfolio, including:

ETS

Stocks

Bonds

Mutual Funds

If you like to do your own research before doing any kind of investing, TD Ameritrade also provides its investors with a lot of free resources. Customers can stream CNBC news for free, access market ‘heat’ maps and real-time trading quotes.

They can also communicate with a community of specialists that are available to chat in person or over the phone about investment options and ideas. Ameritrade is one of the few companies these days that offer this kind of service.

Part of its success comes from its ability to delegate. Every quarter TD Ameritrade relies on Morningstar, an independent investment research firm, to compile a list of mutual funds that offer no-transaction-fees. This rather large list hits 45 investment categories and is given out exclusively to Ameritrade customers.

Robinhood

Robinhood is aptly named, offering commission-free stock and ETF trades.

Not just some of the time — all of the time.

On top of this, Robinhood doesn’t have an account minimum. If you want to get started trading, there’s no reason to wait. However, unlike Motif, Robinhood doesn’t offer fractional shares, so you’ll need to have enough disposable income to buy at least one share of stock or ETF.

Robinhood has a great mobile app team. It’s so good there’s no reason for you to ever hop on a PC. It takes five minutes to setup, and only an hour for them activate your account. Seem long? By industry standards, it is pretty darn fast. (Keep in mind this is a trading account, not a twitter account you’re setting up.)

When you transfer $1,000 to Robinhood, it is available immediately for you to invest. If you upgrade to Robinhood Instant (a free upgrade), any proceeds you make from selling stocks or ETFs can be immediately used to buy stocks or ETFs elsewhere.

Don’t like the hassle of transferring money back to your bank account or vice versa? You can set up your account so that money is transferred to and from automatically whenever you want. Once a week, once every two weeks, and so on. For as many perks that Robinhood offers, this one is just the icing on the cake for many users.

Due to popular demand, some of its features do having a waiting list, such as Robinhood Instant. Sign up on day one so you can take advantage of this upgrade as soon as possible.

Ally Invest

If you’re a seasoned investor, you may never have heard of Ally Invest, but its newness to the scene shouldn’t make you discredit it.

In 2016, Ally invest bought out TradeKing, and has only recently emerged into the brokerage game. That said, it’s quickly become very clear that everything that was great about TradeKing has only gotten better. Ally offers automated portfolio management and forex trading. There is no account minimum, commissions on trades are $4.95.

Are you a frequent investor?

Ally Invest offers discounts to members who trade 30 or more times per quarter. At that point, the fee drops down to $3.95.

Whether you use a PC or a smartphone, Ally has a great online platform for its users. Trade fast, get current, 24-hour quotes and data, make your own unique dashboard, and get a diverse set of trading tools at your disposal.

Here are some of our favorite helpful features:

Profit-and-loss calculator

Maxit Tax Manager, which informs you of any changes to your taxes based off of trades

Probability calculator to tell you of the likelihood of your desired targets for each share

Worried about trading from work? Don’t be. Ally Invest’s web platform doesn’t require you to download anything. Simply log in and you are ready to trade. Considering everything they offer online, this is quite an achievement in and of itself.

Scottrade

Online platforms are great, but what about talking with actual human beings? Scottrade has about 500 offices across the country where you can actually go inside and speak with a knowledgeable investor.

Don’t have the time for that? Talk with someone over the phone or chat with them online. They have a staggering 1,000+ consultants that work every day of the week, that you can speak with almost any time of day.

It actually offers such good customer service that another company is working on buying it out: TD Ameritrade. It’s not finalized yet, but when it happens, it could be good news for members. Can you imagine the resources of TD Ameritrade coupled with the customer service of Scottrade? That said, Scottrade still has a lot of aces up its sleeve until the buyout happens. Let’s talk about them.

Like many of the stockbrokers mentioned already, Scottrade does not have an account minimum. Commissions are only $6.95 a trade. When you deposit $10,000 or more into a Scottrade account, you get fifty commission-free trades. Do the math. That’s a bit of money saved right there. Also, in June of 2016, Scottrade lowered its contract fee on options from $1.25 to only $0.70.

Scottrade also offers low mutual fund commissions. It only costs investors $17 to sell and buy no-load funds. For funds that charge a sales load, it only costs investors $17 to sell, whereas it is nothing to buy. How many of these transaction-fee-free funds do they offer, you ask?

A whopping 2,600.

Charles Schwab

There are only a few brokers out there where we can honestly say are well suited for both beginning and advanced investors, but Charles Schwab is one of them. It has the tools to satisfy anyone, no matter their level of expertise.

Are ETFs your thing? Charles Schwab offers over 200 commission-free ETFs. Are you an absolute beginner? Schwab objectively elects what it believes to be the best ETF in every category, so you don’t have to go down rabbit holes of information and research.

On top of this, if you are just starting to build your portfolio, Schwab also offers recommendations based off of your chosen risk tolerance. Take the safe road and know that your money is in good hands.

If you need to speak with a representative, you may do so no matter the time of day, whether via phone or online chat. That said, Schwab actually has a pretty large brick and mortar presence, where you can make an appointment to speak with a representative or attend invaluable workshops.

A downside to Schwab is that they do have an account minimum. While many brokers we’ve discussed require no account minimums, Schwab does require that its investors maintain at least $1,000 with them. If you don’t have that, you can have the minimum waived when you sign up for an automatic monthly deposit of $100.

Fidelity

With low $4.95 commissions per trade, Fidelity is one of the most affordable brokers online, considering what it offers to its customers.

Utilizing top-notch research from over 20 companies, Fidelity provides its investors with some of the best investment advice that money can buy. It could be a lot of information to wade through, but after a few quick questions, Fidelity can match you up providers that resonate with your personal investment style.

Though it’s not considered the best customer support in the industry, Fidelity still offers some pretty sharp service for its customers. Investors can meet with representatives in physical branch locations, as well as attend investor seminars throughout the year for free.

The seminars cover a wide array of topics, such as social security and technical analysis. Plus, if in person doesn’t appeal to you, you can still study and expand your knowledge via webinars.

Looking for a solid online platform? Fidelity is truly among the best.

It offers both PC and mobile support, and if you are an active trader, you can even get real-time feeds displayed on your desktop. Each platform is intuitive and easy to use and provides tools to help you get a leg up on your competition. For those interested, Fidelity also offers a premium tool called Wealth Lab Pro, which offers customizable strategies and 20 years of historical data.

from Credit And Credit Repair https://aaacreditguide.com/best-online-stock-brokers-for-beginners/

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