The Advice Thread

[oblong]

Anybody use budget software for the home and personal use?  I’d like to formally start doing that. I also think I could probably just fancy up a spreadsheet on my own but I’d like something my wife could use easily.  I don’t care if it costs money if there’s value.  Turning 50 has made me start to pay more attention to these things.  

[Motor City Sonics]

Facebook has locked my account for some reason.    The only way to unlock it is that they want some sort of government ID.   I am NOT giving them any government ID.       

 

Any advice or is it just Bye Bye Facebook ? 

[ben9753]

44 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Facebook has locked my account for some reason.    The only way to unlock it is that they want some sort of government ID.   I am NOT giving them any government ID.       

 

Any advice or is it just Bye Bye Facebook ? 

[Motor City Sonics]

3 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

I will send my license with everything but my name redacted.    If that's not good enough, then bye bye Facebook.   I would just like to know a reason.  

[oblong]

A number I didn’t recognize sent me $50 in Apple Cash.  It wasn’t until then I realized you have to manually set it up to not automatically accept it.  
 

I did some googling and it seems like a scam.  There’s no way to “report” it. Scam is that they steal a card or number and link it to an Apple Cash account and send to you. Then claim it was a mistake and ask you to send it back. You do that.  Seems reasonable.  But when the person with the stolen card goes thru the fraud process and if plays out then eventually they take that money out of your Apple Pay account. Which you already “refunded” 
 

what I don’t get is how they cannot figure out who did it by the person sending the cash. They linked the card to an Apple account.  If they can figure out it was sent to me then can’t they figure out who sent it? 
I deleted the text and reported it as “junk”. They called but left no voice mail.  I’m not touching the money.  If after a few months I still have it then I will buy someone’s dinner. 

[chasfh]

On 4/7/2024 at 2:52 PM, oblong said:

Idon’t care if it costs money if there’s value.  Turning 50 has made me start to pay more attention to these things.

I’m afraid I have no advice about budget software, but I can totally co-sign onto this sentiment. I had spent the first half-century of my life buying the cheapest option possible (or, just as commonly, the second-cheapest option because of a presumed quality boost over the cheapest) just to save money. Once I turned fifty and started realizing I was going to have to start keeping things literally for the rest of my life, I started buying the highest quality stuff almost regardless of price, and I have never regretted that. It took another ten years to get my wife on board with that, and I’ve got her almost all the way there. 

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, oblong said:

A number I didn’t recognize sent me $50 in Apple Cash.  It wasn’t until then I realized you have to manually set it up to not automatically accept it.  
 

I did some googling and it seems like a scam.  There’s no way to “report” it. Scam is that they steal a card or number and link it to an Apple Cash account and send to you. Then claim it was a mistake and ask you to send it back. You do that.  Seems reasonable.  But when the person with the stolen card goes thru the fraud process and if plays out then eventually they take that money out of your Apple Pay account. Which you already “refunded” 
 

what I don’t get is how they cannot figure out who did it by the person sending the cash. They linked the card to an Apple account.  If they can figure out it was sent to me then can’t they figure out who sent it? 
I deleted the text and reported it as “junk”. They called but left no voice mail.  I’m not touching the money.  If after a few months I still have it then I will buy someone’s dinner. 

If you’re going to eventually spend it anyway, why not just spend the money now wherever they accept Apple Cash? Then if it turns out it is someone you know after all, you can dig into your bank account to make them whole.

[oblong]

just so I can play dumb if ever contacted by authorities.  "I didn't see it".

I only use apple cash to pay my barber as it is.  That's every 4 weeks.

 

[John_Brian_K]

On 4/10/2024 at 9:12 PM, oblong said:

A number I didn’t recognize sent me $50 in Apple Cash.  It wasn’t until then I realized you have to manually set it up to not automatically accept it.  
 

I did some googling and it seems like a scam.  There’s no way to “report” it. Scam is that they steal a card or number and link it to an Apple Cash account and send to you. Then claim it was a mistake and ask you to send it back. You do that.  Seems reasonable.  But when the person with the stolen card goes thru the fraud process and if plays out then eventually they take that money out of your Apple Pay account. Which you already “refunded” 
 

what I don’t get is how they cannot figure out who did it by the person sending the cash. They linked the card to an Apple account.  If they can figure out it was sent to me then can’t they figure out who sent it? 
I deleted the text and reported it as “junk”. They called but left no voice mail.  I’m not touching the money.  If after a few months I still have it then I will buy someone’s dinner. 

That last bit is spot on.  The "Accidently sent you money" thing has been around awhile now.  

[chasfh]

If you lose your credit card, don't pull the trigger right away and have it replaced. Put a temporary hold on it instead and wait 24 hours or so just in case.

I played ball last night and when I got back home and into the house, I noticed I didn't have either my credit card (CC) or my driver's license (DL). I went back out to look in the car, I looked in some pants pockets and a couple other places around the house, and they didn't turn up. I concluded I must have dropped them out of a pocket at the field, which was three miles away, and it was 10 at night, so I wasn't going back to look there.

Figuring they were gone gone, I went to the Chase site and requested a new CC. It was easy and fast, but they do close out your account and process sending you a CC to arrive in "5 to 7 business days". I do have Apple Pay so the new CC is paired with my phone, but otherwise, I can't go online and book hotels or anything like that, because you can't find out what the new CC number is until you get the physical card.

This morning, I figured I would go right to the Secretary of State first thing and get my DL replaced. I go to the garage, open the garage door—and there are my CC and DL lying on the ground. They'd been sitting in the alley for more than nine hours overnight. I didn't see them when I went to the car to look last night because the garage door was already closed.

It's a PITA to not have my full CC available to me, but at least I have my DL, because that might have been an entire day waiting for it to be replaced. If I have a choice, I choose to lose the CC over the DL ten times out of ten.

But the point is, had I just put a hold on my CC instead of going right to replace it, I could have lifted the hold when I found it and everything would be 100% normal right now.

[oblong]

My son went thru that last month and that's what he did.  I told him to cancel but I guess he's smarter than I am 🙂

He had a photo of his driver's license saved on his phone, both sides, in case he needed it for a cop.  The MI secretary of State lets you replace a lost/stolen ID online, they just mail you a new one.  THen you can print out a temp copy.

I have a few CC's but I only care one of them for that very reason.  If I lose my wallet I just have to replace 3 things, my license, CC, and Blue Cross Card.  My wife says it's easy being a man because I don't have to carry all the other stuff around but I just reply "If I need one of those other things, I make sure to go into that drawer with my bigger wallet and take it with me.  How often am I going to use my Henry Ford membership card, or my Best Buy CC that I used for no interest financing, or whtaever...."  I think she's just mad that I have the foresight to think about it before leaving.  Men and Women's brains are different.

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, oblong said:

I have a few CC's but I only care one of them for that very reason. 

Good idea I'd never thought of!

[chasfh]

11 minutes ago, oblong said:

My son went thru that last month and that's what he did.  I told him to cancel but I guess he's smarter than I am 🙂

He had a photo of his driver's license saved on his phone, both sides, in case he needed it for a cop.  The MI secretary of State lets you replace a lost/stolen ID online, they just mail you a new one.  THen you can print out a temp copy.

I have a few CC's but I only care one of them for that very reason.  If I lose my wallet I just have to replace 3 things, my license, CC, and Blue Cross Card.  My wife says it's easy being a man because I don't have to carry all the other stuff around but I just reply "If I need one of those other things, I make sure to go into that drawer with my bigger wallet and take it with me.  How often am I going to use my Henry Ford membership card, or my Best Buy CC that I used for no interest financing, or whtaever...."  I think she's just mad that I have the foresight to think about it before leaving.  Men and Women's brains are different.

I also have a photo of my driver's license on my phone, saved in LastPass, but only the front. I need to get the back photocopied and saved as well.

I also tried to replace the DL online but they couldn't find a match for my SS#, Bday, eye color, and ZIP. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't have it, or it doesn't exist, because government web services are notoriously wonky and unreliable. I honestly believe much of it is still on Windows 2000 or even Windows NT architecture. It might well be the last thing they spend our tax dollars on, if any is still available after the general theft.

[Crazy Cat Gentleman]

8 hours ago, chasfh said:

LastPass

LastPass has had way too many breaches for my comfort. I switched to BitWarden years ago, which at the time seemed like nearly a drop-in replacement.

I think LastPass did finally switch to using the master password for encrypting a user's vault (rather than just for access to it), but I believe they've had security incidents since then, so either I'm wrong or they're doing something else stupid.

[chasfh]

On 4/23/2024 at 6:15 PM, Crazy Cat Gentleman said:

LastPass has had way too many breaches for my comfort. I switched to BitWarden years ago, which at the time seemed like nearly a drop-in replacement.

I think LastPass did finally switch to using the master password for encrypting a user's vault (rather than just for access to it), but I believe they've had security incidents since then, so either I'm wrong or they're doing something else stupid.

I actually signed up for NordPass as a replacement, but obviously they made it for the mobile-only generation, because it works fine on mobile, but it is practically unusable on laptop, which is where I do all my heavy lifting. So I'm sticking with LastPass for the time being. That's fine, they do not store anyone's master passwords so no breach can reveal that, and the nature of the passwords is that they exist encrypted on the user's machine and even if that's breached, they are useless without knowledge of the master. So I feel reasonably confident that I'm gonna be OK.

[Deleterious]

I just found out this was possible. 

 

[Motor City Sonics]

Hey there. 

Anyone here ever have a peptic ulcer?        Did you get treatment and did the treatment help and how long did it take to help.    I'm in misery here and I can't get in to get it confirmed until Tuesday next. 

[Motor City Sonics]

If you were to try a cannabis-infused drink called Tonic...........start with sips,  small sips.....maybe one and wait 20 minutes to see.   Don't take a big gulp.     Holy Hell,  I was on the freaking floor.   

[oblong]

Same with gummies. So I have heard. Takes a few hours. What gets people in trouble is they think it’s not working so they have another. Then it’s bad. 

[oblong]

If you use Apple Pay I would suggest using that to sign up for any type of subscriptions.  It makes the cancelling process so much easier.  If you go to Settings, then type in Subscriptions, it will tell you which ones you have, the next billing date, etc.  If you want to cancel, you do it there. No annoying websites to log into, or forms to fill out, or chat bots to deal with.  I once tried to cancel a Detroit News subscription and it was almost painful as cancelling Sirius.  It's also nice to have it all in one spot to find.

 

 

 

[chasfh]

On 7/30/2024 at 12:14 PM, oblong said:

If you use Apple Pay I would suggest using that to sign up for any type of subscriptions.  It makes the cancelling process so much easier.  If you go to Settings, then type in Subscriptions, it will tell you which ones you have, the next billing date, etc.  If you want to cancel, you do it there. No annoying websites to log into, or forms to fill out, or chat bots to deal with.  I once tried to cancel a Detroit News subscription and it was almost painful as cancelling Sirius.  It's also nice to have it all in one spot to find.

Along these same lines, I recommend to everyone that you connect PayPal to your credit card, then use it to pay for anything online you can manage to, as a way to shield your actual credit card details from any number of one-shot-deal online vendors from which you might be buying that thing you suddenly need.

[gehringer_2]

26 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Along these same lines, I recommend to everyone that you connect PayPal to your credit card, then use it to pay for anything online you can manage to, as a way to shield your actual credit card details from any number of one-shot-deal online vendors from which you might be buying that thing you suddenly need.

absolutely. and if you do use your credit card - always uncheck "save my credit card info".

And while it can be an initial inconvenience, you can go one step further - open a bank account linked to paypal with a low minimum balance. Feed that account as you go only what you anticipate spending with paypal. You now have an absolute limit on your liability should it all get hacked.

Edited August 12, 2024 by gehringer_2

[Edman85]

Proactively not engaging in politics on social media is good for your mental state.

[Motor City Sonics]

If you need over-the-counter medications - it is worth the effort to go to your closest Henry Ford Hospital with a pharmacy.     You'll save a lot of money.       Even without my employee discount I just paid half the price for allergy medication

[Deleterious]

The best product tester on Youtube IMO.  A one man Consumers Reports.  

https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectFarm