Cautiously Optimistic

Of course, you know this if you know me at all. But when I order a pizza I don’t expect that statement at all.

It’s Superbowl night and, though I am watching The West Wing in lieu of the Superbowl, I ordered a pizza from Papa John’s anyhow. I was hungry and I have no food.

I placed my order online and got it in a reasonable amount of time. I ordered a special: A medium one-topping pizza with breadsticks and wings. When I went from pizza to wings I discovered I had no sauce. I called the local store and, after a guy told me about the special, I told him I ordered online and didn’t get my wing sauce.

Utter, utter silence. And then, mumbling ensued.

After about 30 seconds I heard, in the background, if “the idiot looked in the breadstick box”. I had not and, after checking, the ranch sauce was there. The exact quote was, “Did the idiot look in the breadsticks box?”

The total order came to $16 and some change. I gave the guy a $20 and told him to keep it cuz, you know, I used to deliver pizza and I didn’t want to wait in the cold for change.

I called the corporate number supplied with my online order e-mail and was directed to a voicemail. I left my name and number. But I was still mad. So, I went back to their online ordering site and left them a nice, detailed message about what transpired.

Long ago I put together a list of companies that I boycott. Expect to see a revision of that with Papa John’s in the top 5 in the near future. And also, from here on out, papa johns joins the bush delegation in no longer being capitalized as a proper noun. No one who acts in an improper manner (to put it lightly in both cases I suppose) deserves that privilege.

No one calls me an idiot except for my friends, and I certainly don’t pay you money to do that.

Can you believe it? It’s that time again.

You may think it is a bit early to talk taxes. True, the year is over, and with it all of the possible deductions and breaks. But in this lame-duck period between the time your employer decides to send out your W-2 form¹ and you file, you should go check out your credit reports for free.

Now, getting a free credit report from each of the three agencies (Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax) is a lot like getting the free player from RealPlayer. But, if you enjoy challenges and killing time at work, this is a good way to shave 10-15 minutes from your schedule.

You want to start out by removing your wallet or purse and placing it in a secure spot at least 45 feet away from your computer. Make sure all credit cards are in your wallet or purse, and leave them in there while you are participating in this exercise. Return to your computer.

Now, you will browse to AnnualCreditReport.com. This is NOT that freecreditreport.com site that makes you pay. AnnualCreditReport.com is your gateway to all three reports for free, as provided for in federal law².

The catch is these places will attempt to sell you the FICO score they have on you. I’m not going to say that knowing your FICO score is a bad thing, especially since they just re-did the formula used in calculating it³, but being charged any amount of money for what amounts to your information is a travesty. I got lucky - I signed up a while back for a credit card with a horrible interest rate. It’s like 24% or something. I don’t carry a balance on it and there is no annual fee (and my credit limit on the thing is pathetic). So why do I have this card? Because it shows me my FICO from Experian every month for free as a “perk” and lets me know when it changes +/-20 points. My suggestion is that you, too, find a card that offers this as a perk. There has to be one out there (mine was Providian, which was bought out by Washington Mutual some time ago). If all else fails, pay the extra money to learn your FICO if: 1) You find a derogatory but valid entry on your credit report, or 2) You find an invalid (derogatory or not) entry on your credit report. Otherwise, assume you are in a 650-750 range.

Back on track:

Once you are at AnnualCreditReport.com follow the easy-to-read directions. Put in your name, SSN, birthday, current address, previous address if you have lived at your current residence for less than 2 years, and whatever else it asks for. I chose to mask my SSN to the last 4 on each of my reports so, when they are old, I don’t necessarily have to worry about someone taping the shredded paper back together and trying to read it. I’m not being paranoid; I just find it smart to take all precautions.

Once the form is complete and the information is verified AnnualCreditReport will list each of the three bureaus on a page with checkmarks next to them. AnnualCreditReport.com is actually a portal site that sends your info to each of the three bureaus for you, leaving only for you to verify small stuff, such as a street you lived on, the name of a bank that financed a loan, a loan payment amount, the last 4 of your SSN, etc.

The first site I was sent to was Equifax. You’ll note that, at the top of your screen, is a “frame” from AnnualCreditReport.com, which I am now going to call ACR because this full name shit is getting ridiculous to type. Anyhow, I was asked to verify a bank that made a loan to me and the general scope of the loan payment amount. After that, I was asked only once if I wanted a FICO score and/or some sort of Eqifax-ian credit protection. I declined both and, in another click, I saw my report.

You’ll want to print your report out as soon as you can. Most sites will only show you your report on that visit, so if you do not print out a copy of your report, it is your loss until next year. The best bet is to look for a link that says “Print Report” or “Print View”. For Equifax and Experian, these links are in the upper-right of the screen. For TransUnion, I can’t remember. It doesn’t show up on my hard copy.

The next site, TransUnion, pissed me off. It is by far the hardest site to navigate without buying something. The trick is, look below the pretty pictures. That’s right - any link that asks for money for services has an HTML “plain-Jane” link below it saying you do not want any offers. I was presented 3 offers on two pages. I declined them all, yet was taken to a cart to purchase something I didn’t want! (Score Protector or some shit). I hit cancel and, after that, I was finally taken to my free report. Again, stay away from the pretty links and look towards the bottom of the page to skip offers.

The last site, Experian, was actually easy to use. I verified the last 4 of my SSN, declined an offer, and there it was. It did freak me out when it asked for my username and password, and I specifically had to “opt-out” of “special offers e-mails”, but I remembered my username and everything.

Once you have your reports, look them over closely. These reports, by no means, are accurate until you say they are.

Coming up: Disputing your report

¹Remember that federal and state law mandates that you have your W-2 form in your hand by Jan 31st. If your company is late it can face some harsh fines. Keep that in mind when begging your employer to get your W-2 to you as fast as possible. Remember - if you are owed money, bushy is spending the interest on it in Iraq and giving it to his Haliburton cronies.

³Here’s a good site explaining all about FICOs, what’s changing, average scores, calculations, etc.

I updated the blog software to fix some vulnerabilities.

I do have real stuff to blog, just no real time to do it really. Look for something this weekend perhaps.

Laid,

-Jay

Cuz, according to my DirectNIC invoice, y’all are stuck with me for three more years.

I paid $45. I hope you are all worth it!

Kidding. You know you are. In fact, pat yourself on the back. You’re probably one of my friends!

I think that about says it all.

All too often I write disparaging remarks about companies that don’t know how to treat a customer. Many times, like Tino, companies do whatever they can to make your life difficult, including breaking the law!

Today though I am happy to report a positive experience about 1 800 CONTACTS that just made my day.

I ordered 4 boxes of contacts a few weeks ago. When the time came to put the left lens in it was pretty blurry. It wasn’t so bad at first, but by about day 3 I was getting headaches from my vision being weird. So I opened up a second lens from the same box and…same thing.

This time I left it in for about a week before it drove me to madness.

So, having another box of left lenses I decided I’d try one of those instead. Voila! My vision was crisp and clear, just like it should be.

But now I had another dilemma - contacting a big company’s customer service center to get another box to replace the defective one.

I settled into my futon with a soda and laptop, expecting to wait anywhere from 5 to 50 minutes. That never happened.

After about 2 rings I was greeted by a friendly rep by the name of Sherry. I explained the problem and, within about 3 minutes, she told me I had a new box on the way and a shipping label to send the defective box back with. She was courteous, funny, and personable.

She finished the call by letting me know I could call back anytime I had a problem.

Just..wow. I was left speechless.

So I sent them a nice letter telling them that they won a customer for life and also sent a copy to The Consumerist.

If you ever need contacts I implore you to use 1 800 CONTACTS. They know how to treat a customer.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

On this year’s tax return be sure to take your “federal excise tax refund” credit. It looks like it is on line 71 of the 1040 but not many of us use that long form. Instead, on the 1040-EZ (which most of you will likely be using) you can find it on line 9:

The amount one can collect (as a single filer) is $30. If you happened to save every single phone bill you’ve gotten from Feb 28 2003 through July 31 2006 then you can add up the excise tax, put it on form 8913, and claim the exact amount. I highly doubt that any of us is this much of a pack-rat.

If you are paying back student loans like me you’ll want to pick up form 1040-A. On that particular return, the line for the deduction is line 42.

If these 1040’s confuse you, let me sum them up:

-Really, really rich people, or people with tons of deductions, or homeowners, will use form 1040.
-People who are middle class, not yet homeowners but may be paying back student loans, who may have that “oops” kid from that drunken one-night stand in college, should fill in form 1040-A
-For you people who have W2s and shake your head and ponder how you spent $9,000 over the course of a year, have absolutely nothing to deduct, and want to do their taxes as painlessly as possible, will want to pick up the 1040-EZ.

So, don’t forget to screw the government out of their $30, the money they took from you for the Spanish-American war back in the late 1800’s. Chances are you paid more than $30 if you had a landline. If, like me, you stuck mostly with a cell phone, you got lucky.

That’s Jay’s tax tip for the day.

*UPDATE* - Made a public post

A couple of years ago in my blog I gave advice on how to prepare your taxes for free. Intuit Tax Freedom used to be my online preparer of choice but they have fallen out of favor for a couple of reasons: 1) They aren’t free for me anymore (I make too much) and 2) Again, Intuit hides the link to the Tax Freedom Project so they can make money, kind of like how RealPlayer hides the link for their free media player, and 3) They do not allow for free online state filing for some reason. We got around that before by filing directly on Wisconsin’s Department of Revenue web page (under the Electronic Tax Services) and for most people that isn’t a problem. I, however, would like to keep my taxes together if possible, and it appears that TaxAct fits the bill perfectly. (See the update at the bottom of the post)

In a separate rant, I STILL have not gotten any of my W2s yet even though the month is half over. I know that they have until the 31st but I like to get taxes done and out of the way early so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. Plus, the longer the government holds onto it, the less interest I am earning on it since the IRS does not, obviously, pay interest on tax refunds. The fact that they should remains debatable and I would support such a feature.

In another separate rant, another told to Tamar via e-mail the other day, is that a company who cannot get a W2 into their employee’s hands by the 15th business day of January should be held liable for all of their employee’s tax interests. That way these companies could run their little report on their W2 stock, e-send it to the IRS, and mail it out to their employees. I originally said 10 business days but if a pay period extends long into January that would give them little time. I mean, seriously, how hard is it though to run a report on W2 paper? Payroll has to do it on plain paper every other week!

Anyhow, back to the post at hand…

I filled in as much as I could over at TaxAct but without the requisite W2s I need to wait. That said, first impressions were good overall. They copy Intuit’s tried and true interface for the most part, though the navigation arrows being pushed all the way to the right of the dialog boxes (instead of below them) made me have to hunt for a few moments. Like Intuit, TaxAct will try and make a buck at your expense, asking you from time to time to purchase their deluxe product. Frankly, unless you see a harrowing reason to do so, I’d avoid it.

Once I am able to do my taxes completely I’ll offer a more in-depth review.

*UPDATE* - Found out TaxAct DOES charge you for state taxes. Head over to the Wisconsin DOR site to do them for free. You can still go to TaxAct for your federal stuff.

*UPDATE #2* - Made a public post.

My old number is dying a slow death. Doctors predict it will be dead on Jan 7th.

I think I hit all of my friends with the new one. However, if I missed you, send me an e-mail. It’s jay at the domain you are currently browsing. The domain is the whole citking.net part. So yes, Jay. At. citking. net.

But if you really needed me to break it down like that for you, chances are you aren’t a friend. But I might be dating you.