Photo found on: Pseudo-Funny Screencaps,
From The Simpsons

Masking Credit Card Numbers

Businesses could be failing to protect your private purchasing information. How
safe are your transactions?

How often have you eaten at a restaurant in town, paid by credit card and
noticed on the receipt you’re about to leave on the table that your entire
credit card number is displayed? Anyone who picks up that receipt will have your
private payment information and your signature at their disposal, including the
restaurant staff. Business's should be masking your credit card number so it
shows up with only four legible numbers ie. xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-1234.

January 25, 2007 Re: NOTICE California Legislation Regarding Credit Card Number
Truncation on Receipts

Current laws prohibit a merchant who accepts credit cards from printing more
than the last 5 digits of the credit card account number or the expiration date
upon any receipt provided to the cardholder.

The new law, effective January 2009, prohibits the merchant from printing more
than the last 5 digits of the credit card account number or the expiration date
upon any receipt retained by the merchant, (signed or not signed by the
cardholder), which is printed at the time of the purchase, exchange, refund, or
return.

To help you prepare for this change, we have provided the language from the
amended Civil Code, below.The people of the State of California do enact as
follows:

SECTION 1. Section 1747.09 of the Civil Code is amended to read:1747.09.(a)
Except as provided in this section, no person, firm, partnership, association,
corporation, or limited liability company that accepts credit or debit cards for
the transaction of business shall print more than the last five digits of the
credit or debit card account number or the expiration date upon any of the
following:

(1) Any receipt provided to the cardholder.

(2) Any receipt retained by the person, firm, partnership, association,
corporation, or limited liability company, which is printed at the time of the
purchase, exchange, refund, or return, and is signed by the cardholder.

(3) Any receipt retained by the person, firm, partnership, association,
corporation, or limited liability company, which is printed at the time of the
purchase, exchange, refund, or return, but is not signed by the cardholder,
because the cardholder used a personal identification number to complete the
transaction.(b) This section shall apply only to receipts that include a credit
or debit card account number that are electronically printed and shall not apply
to transactions in which the sole means of recording the person’s credit or
debit card account number is by handwriting or by an imprint or copy of the
credit or debit card.(c)This section shall not apply to documents, other than
the receipts described in paragraphs (1) to (3), inclusive, of subdivision (a),
used for internal administrative purposes.(d) Paragraphs (2) and (3) of
subdivision (a) shall become operative on January 1, 2009.

Your credit score will depend upon the amount of credit cards that you have and how much you have on them. Obviously, if you don’t use your cards you won’t have any credit history, but did you know that having more than one isn’t that bad as long as you use it wisely. Since your personal credit report is determined, by how much credit you have compared to your debt.

Therefore, if you have three credit cards and you keep one for emergencies, one to use for your own use, and then one that you never use you will have a very good credit rating. The key is to have three credit cards. The card that you for daily things should be your lowest credit, so you can build credit but not get out of hand with the spending.

Then you should use a card with medium credit amount as an emergency card. You can keep it locked up, but do not always carry it with you or you are more likely to spend. The longest range of credit should be reserved. If you receive a card and you have thousands of dollars as a credit line, you will want to first accept the account, but make sure there are no yearly fees.

Then you will want to cut up the card for that line of credit. This way you are never tempted to use it, but you have an open line of credit. If would prefer to lock it up in a safe, that is fine too, but you will need to do something so that you never use the card. As long as you keep up with your membership, you should still have the line of credit.

Now that you know the importance of your credit line, you should also know how to be more responsible with them. You should never max out the cards. This will lower your credit rating and you may be paying your cards off for the rest of your life. Try to keep your balance half of what your credit line is. You will want to make sure that you send the payment on time.

If you are late one or twice, your credit will not be affected, but if you get behind every month than you will have some troubles and the credit company will report you. As for the payments, you should try to make big payments. You do not have to pay it off, however, you should pay at least twice the minimum balance. This way you and your credit card company will have a good solid relationship. If you send the minimum, you will notice that you will end up paying a lot of interest of time.

In addition, you should never charge anything to your card that you cannot pay off within a few months. Always make sure that your balance is well within your paying range. Most credit companies have a fine line in their contracts where they can demand the rest of your balance immediately.

Old Man Pie - Credit Credit card Song "Never Never Never"

This is a song about the Credit Crunch in America. We all need credit cards. Its become a way of life. Here is a catchy tune that's been on the web a while from "Old Man Pie" Please enjoy!

Wasn't that great! Hey it time for a Starbucks..

Lets enjoy one free by using a Starbucks Credit
card.

I'd follow her anywhere.....Starbucks is ok with me!

Let’s have a look at the scenarios:

US spending in Iraq


Fact: Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $600 billion of US taxpayers' funds were spent in Iraq. President Bush has requested another $200 billion for 2008, which would bring the cumulative total to close to $800 billion.

$800 billion wow...what if that was spent through a credit card?

If the Starbucks Duetto Visa card was used that would mean that 1% of all the spending could be accumulated back as Starbucks rewards. 1% of 800 billion is 8 billion dollars for coffee. That’s a lot of free coffee. How much coffee well …..a lot. And since Starbucks annual income ending September 07 was reported just a little over 9 billion dollars it would mean Starbucks giving away almost as much coffee as it sold. Would Hillary Clinton choose this option for her military spending?

“Starbucks Participates in Clinton Global Initiative
Starbucks chief executive officer Jim Donald participated in the first-ever Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) last month.” Story here

What if the Hilton American Express Card was used? Let’s see Hilton and American Express is giving away 3 Hilton Points for every dollar charged to the Hilton HHonors Visa card. $800 billion divided by three is around 2400 billion reward points. They say if you redeem about 10000 points you get a free night. So that’s 240 Million nights of accommodation. Let’s divide that by the 2900 Hilton Hotels for 82758 night’s accommodation at each hotel. With 365 nights available, Hilton better have at least 266 rooms at each hotel just for US Government Rewards.

I wonder if you can book the Clinton Suite at the Hilton with these points?

General Motors and Visa offer a Rewards Credit Card. They like Starbucks also offer 1% back on purchases. With a quick calculation, if GM didn’t impose any maximum reward application, that would be $8 billion in vehicles. At an average of $2500 saving per vehicle that’s a handy 3.2 million vehicles that taxpayers may be missing out on receiving a discount for. In 2007 GM sold 3.8 million vehicles in the United States meaning the government could discount every GM vehicle owner $2000.00 on their last years purchase.

The republicans appear to be driving GM vehicles. Mike Huckabee drives a 2007 Chevrolet Tahoe and a 1995 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. John McCain drives a Cadillac CTS. For the democrats I think John Edwards still has an old 1994 GMC truck.

I could give you example after example of rewards for military spending from Disney rewards, Airline, Hotel, and Merchandise. The list goes on. Even if the US Government can’t charge a new fighter plane or two to a credit card, US Politicians can all put their personal expense funding through rewards cars. And that’s a lot of Free Coffee!

I wonder what the effect on the economy would be if the US Government used Reward Credit Cards for Military Spending. What do you know?
 

Hi. Welcome. Here on Credit Snacks news blog we will keep you up to date on Card offers, letting you know what we recomend in the latest credit cards.