Forum Highlights: Rate Cuts, Hackers Hit CUs and Unemployment Trends

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. Alliant Credit Union Rate Cuts - I reported on the 10-bps rate cuts on Alliant's savings and checking accounts. Alliant had a long history of a competitive savings account. I'm sorry to see that change.
2. New nationally available 3% $15K reward checking - Thanks to 51hh who first posted on the new Kasasa Cash and Kasasa Saver accounts at First National Bank. I did a blog post review of this account, but several readers have documented their experiences applying for this account in the forum thread.
3. Credit Unions Being Hit By DDoS Attacks - Large banks aren't the only ones being hit by hackers that use DDoS attacks to make the websites inaccessible. Thanks to pearlbrown who posted on news about Patelco and University Federal Credit Union being hit.
4. Major deposit withdrawals from the nation’s bank accounts - Another factor that has been suppressing deposit rates is a flood of deposits at the nation's banks. There are signs that may be changing. Thanks to Shorebreak who posted news about a US Federal Reserve report of major deposit withdrawals from the nation’s bank accounts.
5. Emergency Reserve Fund Planning - DA member 51hh posted some useful guidelines and insights for planning one's emergency fund.
6. Job Disappearance - A Permanent Trend? - The Fed is waiting on lower unemployment rates before it starts to hike rate. There are factors that could cause the wait to be longer than expected. Thanks to cumulus who posted news on how new technologies are affecting employment.
7. Check Your Accounts Frequently - DA member lou described how he found out about a $500 unauthorized withdrawal from his bank account. It shows why you need to regularly check your accounts.

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.