Forum Highlights: ID Theft, CD Specials, RFID Credit Card Dangers

This is another post to highlight a few noteworthy forum posts. This is intended to help readers who may not regularly read the discussion forum. It will also give me a chance to recognize and give thanks to the DA members for their contributions to the website. I've listed a few recent forum posts on topics that I think may interest DA readers. If you don't see your username mentioned this time, keep posting and you will likely see your forum thread mentioned in my future highlight posts.

1. Personal Story Of Identity Theft And Fraudulent Credit Card - Thanks to lou who described how he was hit by ID theft and credit card fraud. His credit monitoring service came in handy, and he was able to prevent any loss. However, it cost him 6 or 7 hours of dealing with the credit bureaus and filing a crime report.
2. Dangers of New RFID Credit Cards - Thanks to Shorebreak for posting a link to a video report about how crooks can easily steal account numbers from these new RFID credit cards.
3. Washington Federal's 7-mo CD Special - Thanks to pearlbrown for reporting on this 7-month CD special with a 1.00% APY ($1K minimum). Branches are located WA, OR, ID, UT, AZ, NV, TX and NM.
4. Oritani Bank's 1.02% Checking Deal - Thanks to stormdog123 who reported on Oritani Bank's checking account special which offers a 1.02% APY guaranteed until 1/2/2014. The bank has branches in Northern New Jersey.
5. 5% 12-Month CD $1K Max at CCCU - Thanks to cumulus for posting on this new-member CD at Christian Community Credit Union. As cumulus notes in the thread, there are some important caveats with this deal: $1K maximum deposit and ASI-only deposit insurance.
6. Dangers of Depositing Cash into an ATM - In a bank review of Alaska USA Credit Union, hmsteele describes the problems he had after he tried to deposit cash using the credit union's ATM.
7. Dangers of Safe Deposit Boxes - In this thread I link to a story about a woman who loses her heirlooms in her Wells Fargo safe deposit box. Make sure you regularly check your safe deposit box contents.
8. Dangers of Online Transfers and Not Reviewing Your Accounts - Thanks to pearlbrown for posting on a UK woman who lost $36K due to a mistake in setting up a regular online transfer and due to not regularly monitoring her accounts.
9. Refinance Trade-Offs - Thanks to 51hh for posting on an article describing refinancing trade-offs. Also, thanks to rosie43 for pointing out in this thread about the good home equity and mortgage deals available at credit unions like PenFed.
10. Signs You’re Living Beyond Your Means - Thanks to klink for posting on an article describing 8 signs that you're living beyond your means. Most savers of this site probably don't show any of these signs, but you probably know people who do.
11. How To Find 2013 Form 1040 ES - Thanks to paoli2 who posted help for those who have to estimate their 2013 taxes and don't want to wait until later this month.

Discussion Forum Tutorial

If you like a simple blog format, you can view the forum using this link. This page shows the latest featured threads in an expanded format that shows the first post of each featured thread. Click on the title of the post to view any comments for that post or to leave a comment. Unlike the blog, the forum requires you to log in before you can comment.

You can get to this Featured Threads page by using the forum menu and clicking on the "Featured Threads" link. Then click on the "Posts" link below the menu. I actually prefer the "Threads" view which shows just the title of the posts along with the number of comments or posts for each thread.

I'm the one who gives a thread "featured" status. I try to select those that I think are most interesting. The "Latest Threads" link in the forum menu will show you all of the threads including ones that haven't been marked as featured. The "Latest Posts" link will show you the latest forum comments.

Posting to the Forum

If you find a noteworthy bank deal or some interesting financial news, please consider posting this information in the forum. This can be done in 3 steps:

1. You have to be logged in to post in the forum. If you have never registered, just click the "Register" link on the top right of a DepositAccounts.com page. Note, you don't have to be logged in before you write your post, but it's required before the post can be submitted.
2. Find the appropriate subforum. Start at the top of the forum and click on the appropriate topic.
3. Click the "New Threads" button at the top of the subforum page, and follow the instructions. For the subforums that are specific to a particular bank, you first have to identify the bank. When you get to the message box, you can start typing your information. Note the icons at the top of the message box. These can be used to format your message. The one I use most is the link icon. This isn't active until you highlight the text that you want to convert into a link. Once the link icon is active, you can click on the icon which will open up a box where you can enter the web address.

Viewing and posting are more complicated in the forum than in the blog, but as I mentioned, this helps keep things organized. For more details on using the forum, please refer to my forum announcement post.