Forum Highlights: Ally Cuts, PenFed ATM Cards and Credit Score Bill

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. Ally Bank Cuts Savings Account Rate - I was disappointed in reporting this news of the rate falling to 0.84%.
2. Ten Social Security Mysteries -- Solved - Thanks to 51hh for posting on a MarketWatch article describing social security issues that everyone should learn.
3. PenFed ATM Cards - Thanks to Shorebreak for alerting us that PenFed is no longer in any surcharge-free ATM network such as Allpoint.
4. Some Banks Now Are Too Big To Prosecute - Thanks to me1004 for posting on the news about Attorney General Eric Holder who said some banks are so big that they are too big to prosecute because any prosecution would endanger the wider economy.
5. Paying Your PenFed Credit Card Bill - If you have a financial question that you can't find an answer to, you may want to ask it in the forum. Thanks to klink for asking about using billpay from another bank to pay his PenFed's credit card bill. And thanks to DA members pearlbrown, dunker, rosie43 and Anon456 for sharing their experiences on this question.
6. Help; Credit Score Bill Being Introduced - A bill was introduced in Congress in early March to give you your real (FICO) credit score for free. Thanks to cumulus for posting on this news and for instructing us on how we can help this bill become law.
7. High-Rate Reward Checking Account - Thanks to pearlbrown for posting on the new Kasasa accounts at Community Financial Services Bank. The Kasasa Cash account offers 3.05% APY for up to $20K and the Kasasa Saver account offers 1.00% APY for up to $30K.

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.

Before posting to the forum, please be aware of our forum policy.

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.