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Please be reminded that the winners of the gas cards giveaway will be announced next Monday (August 18th)!

I was just at the pump yesterday and it still costs me $50 to fill up my tank even with the recent relief of gas prices. Looking back, I have spent $15,000 on gas already in my life and that number will only goes up! Wow! (Actually, I didn’t realized it was that much money until I thought about the number midway through typing the sentence!)

I really hope that the gas cards can help everyone! If you haven’t joined yet, go to the original post to find out how you can become eligible.

Those who subscribed through email wouldn’t have to worry because you, as promised, will automatically be eligible to win every giveaway on MoneyNing!

If you still haven’t joined yet, head on over there for a chance to win! Good luck everyone!

A big thanks to all of you as July was a great month for the blog with subscribers growing tremendously to top 1500. I am currently running a gas card giveaway to show my appreciation where 3 winners will win a $50 dollar gas gift card so check it out if you haven’t entered yet!

On the Personal Finance Network front, we also wrote our first group project together aimed at personal finance issues related to the summer. It was a lot of fun to be apart of it and there were a bunch of great articles by our fellow bloggers. Down the road, we have more plans ahead of us so check back often for the latest update!

Here are some great articles published in July in case you missed them.

• An Intro to Passive Income, Popular Ways of Getting It and the Mindset You Need to Start Creating It
• Learn from Watching Two Families Go Through Foreclosure on Larry King Live
• 7 Reasons Why We Need to Start Budget Tracking Now
• Our Thinking of Money Matters are Way Too Complicated
• Move On from Our Mistakes
• Cool Frugal Ideas to Stay Away from the Heat - PFN
• iPhone Apps for Personal Finance
• Making the Right Car Purchase Decision Can Mean So Much for Your Financial Health
• What Helps Me Give Away Free Gas Cards
• Saying Yes to Up-Sell is Saying No to Being Frugal

Money Mailbox Friday

• Countrywide Home Loans
• Write to HSBC and Other Companies to Keep Junk Mail Away
• Scam Checkup

Motivation Monday

• Change Your Routine
• Talk Things Through with Encouraging People
• Find Your Passion

To receive great personal finance articles delivered to you, you can subscribe to my blog via RSS so you don’t miss a thing! Alternatively, you can subscribe via email in the following form.

With so many junk mail coming through our mailbox each day, why not mix in some great incoming mail by winning the free gas card giveaway hosted over here?  On August 18, three winners will be announced here at MoneyNing and each winner will receive a $50 gas gift card to help them fill up their tanks!

Here are some simple ways to enter:

• Commenting on this post get you one entry
• Stumble, Digg and Mixx this post and get 3 more entries for each vote
• All email subscribers of this blog will have 5 entries
• If you have a blog and write about this giveaway with a link to this post, you will get 5 entries
• My Twitter Followers will receive another 5 entries

Note that the gas gift cards will be Shell gift cards for the US.  If you cannot use it, I will send you an amazon gift card instead.

Good luck everyone!

• Down payment and closing cost assistance
• 100% financing
• No minimum credit score required
• Flexible qualifying guidelines
• 30, 35 and 40-year loan terms available
• Fixed rate and fixed period Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARM) options

During the housing boom, many of these loan agencies advertised to potential home owners, telling them to buy homes. Convincing statements like “Why rent when you can own” were resonating throughout all of America.

In fact, my wife and I almost took the plunge in March of 2007. We were looking at a property in a newly developed community and even went to their phase release. I remember waking up at 3:00am, driving to the house and dreaming about what we can do to the front / backyards. Luckily, the enthusiasm of buying our first home didn’t cloud our judgment in the end. I really need to thank the Irvine Housing Blog for giving me the necessary information to stay patient and wait. If it wasn’t for this blog, the home buying decision would have been a real net worth destroyer.

Getting a loan was never a problem a year ago, as companies like Countrywide gave everyone in the loan process huge incentives to approve loans. It didn’t matter if no one provided proof of income, nor did it matter that they were making $50,000 a year while buying a $500,000 house with no money down.

To make matters worst, the ARM loans were misused to the point that there are now millions of people facing foreclosure. We hear terms like sub-prime and HELOC abuse all the time but there are many mislead people in the average working class in serious trouble. These people are amongst us, they are our families and friends and not just people we hear about in the news. Being in California where home appreciation was one of the steepest in the country, I’ve seen my fair share of unhappy housing stories. I have two friends who are facing foreclosure and I can tell you that the foreclosure process is not something you want to go through. I totally overreacted when I wrote the post about ING’s disturbing ad (readers actually corrected me in that ING is actually a responsible lender and company) but if you see people you know suffer, you might do the same when ads like those come in your mailbox.

With so many people in such pain and the worst yet to come, Countrywide is still trying to advertise 100% financing. We can argue all day that it is really the people who brought their fate upon themselves but does Countrywide really have to help push them off the cliff?

Thanks to privacy laws, consumers like us have the rights to restrict companies from passing our personal and financial information with their affiliates and companies that they do business with.  Just the other day, HSBC sent me a letter asking me to respond by checking the check box besides the two following statements if I didn’t want junk mail originated from them.

1. NO, please do not share personal and financial information with your affiliated companies.
2. NO, please do not share personal and financial information with outside companies you contract with to provide financial products and services.

At the end of the letter, it even gives you three options to reply

1. Fill out, sign and send back this form to us using the envelope provided
2. Call this toll-free number: 1-877-394-HSBC (1-877-394-4722) and select option 2
3. Reply electronically by contacting us through the following Internet address: us.hsbc.com/californiaprivacy

It was great of them to provide the internet option because it was by far the easiest and fastest way to respond. If there are any complaints, it would be that a response is needed to decline sharing of our information. As it stands now, HSBC can freely our information to companies that want our business if we didn’t get the notice or didn’t bother to reply.

Speaking of junk mail, there are actually many companies that sell our information to different businesses. If you want to drastically reduce your junk mail, send each of the following companies a letter asking to be placed in their name removal file and off their telemarketing lists. The more information you can provide them about yourself, the more success you will have.

Advo Incorporated
Delivery Services
1001 W. Walnut Street
Compton, CA 90220-5191

Direct Marketing Association
Attn: Customer Service Opt Out
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-6700

Experian Consumer Sevices
List Maintenance
901 West Bond
Lincoln, NE 68521

infoUSA, Inc.
5711 S. 86th Circle
Omaha, NE 68127-0347

Acxiom Corporation
Opt-Outs
P.O. Box 2000
Conway, AR 72033-2000

Trans Union LLC
Name Removal Option
P.O. Box 97328
Jackson, MS 39288-7328

LEXIS-NEXIS
9393 Springboro Pike
P.O. Box 933
Dayton, OH 45401

National Demographics & Lifestyles
Customer Service Department
1621 18th Street, #300
Denver, CO 80202

Experian Consumer Services
List Maintenance
901 West Bond
Lincoln, NE 68521

The last company (Experian Consumer Services) is especially important because it will drastically cut down the number of credit card offers that you get through the mail!

I know it’s a tedious process to mail to so many companies but imagine the amount of time that you’ve spent cutting up and throwing out junk mail!

I logged onto the website, and entered my offer code along with my email.  The process was a breeze since it already had most of my information.  By that afternoon, I got an email from a sales person who wanted to speak to me over the phone.  I politely asked him to wait until I get the package first because I wouldn’t have any questions without seeing additional information from them.  No reply to that email.

The next day, I get a priority mail package delivered from them.  I was impressed with the speed of delivery and responsiveness and also a little excited to see what the Zagat Survey’s Golf Guide was about.  I open up the package and it had:

• Booklet that advertises their resort amenities
• Another brochure with more advertising
• No golf guide in sight

I was truly disappointed.  I don’t feel that the offer is a scam but I wouldn’t consider doing business with this company even if I was interested in the first place.  Another package may very well come at a later date with the golf guide but there is no way I will be a customer of that resort.

On a more encouraging note, other people who left comments seemed to have a better experience with similar offers:

Fiscal Musings - I got a 3 day 2 night stay on the Vegas strip just for listening to a sales presentation about time shares. Sure, the sales pressure is pretty intense, but if you’re confident that you can say no, then I’d say it’s definitely worth it.

Marci - I had a 2 night 3 day stay at Eagle Resort near Bend… Yes, I had to go to the 1.5 hr presentation - but once I said I wasn’t buying, just there for the free weekend, the sales pressure let up. It was actually fairly interesting - and a nice way to see how others splurge their monies… as it is a great golf resort, I can see the attraction for those who are retiring and wanting to live at a golf course.

For me, there were a few follow up mails, one phone call to see if the salesmen were polite and informative, and that was about it. No pressure.

luz also warned us…

Beware of emails saying that you won from the lottery and getting your personal info.

They might use your profile in crimes they might into so don’t give out your personal info easily.

Only time will tell whether it was worth it to send out my email address to them or not, but I will be sure to keep you posted!

If you have more stories to share about these types of offers, let us know by commenting about it!

With the launch of the Personal Finance Network and the new column Money Mailbox Friday, the past month has been a busy month for MoneyNing but all in all it’s been a great month!  There were many good articles posted so check these out if you’ve missed any.

• How I Started Buying My First Stock
• Patience with Keep Us From Spending Unnecessary Money
• Setup Google Alerts to Get Coupons and Deals
• A Dollar Saved is Two Dollars Earned but Two Dollars Earned is Twenty Dollars Saved

Learn About Money Related Issues with Money Mailbox Friday

• My Global Rewards Network
• Scams and Junk Mails with Tempting Offers

Earn More Money by Being More Motivated with Motivation Monday

• Create a Need and You Will Find a Way
• Staying Busy
• Snowballing Positive Energy
• Get Some Fresh Air
• Hang Around Motivated People

If you like what you read here, you can subscribe to my blog via RSS so you don’t miss a thing! Alternatively, you can subscribe via email in the following form.

I received a mailing recently from a luxurious resort asking me whether I would like a free DVD that explains how I can feel like owning a vacation home with a fraction of the cost. Like most sales type mail, I usually throw it out right away but this one tempts me because as a bonus gift of saying I want the DVD, I would also get the 2007/2008 Zagat Survey’s Guide to America’s Top Golf Courses.

As an avid golfer, this guide should be a pretty good read. All I am really giving up by replying yes is my mailing address (which they already have) and my email address. On the other hand however, I might be opening the door to a sales person’s constant emails and attempts to win my business.
So what would you have done if a junk offer tempts you to sign up by offering something that’s really cool? Would you go for it?

These offers are everywhere and we certainly see them all the time. The most common ones are those that ask you to go listen to their sales pitch for an hour by giving you a couple free nights of hotel stays. Has anyone been to any of those offers? How has your experience been like and did you feel that you were scammed? Were there any bad consequences afterwards?

Sometimes, it’s quite hard to figure out which ones are scams and which ones are not but here are a few ways to that could potentially help.

Check the Credentials of the Company
You would be surprised at how bad a job those scam companies usually present themselves. The mailings should state which company it’s from and if you check carefully by looking online at their website, your intuition will guide you to eliminate many of those scams.

Google It
The most valuable thing Google provided was a way to search almost all web pages across the globe. All you need to do is search for the content of the mail and chances are someone’s talked/discussed/blogged about it. Read up on what others have to say about it and you can be sure to get some clues as to whether the deal is good or not.

Trust Yourself
If you are unsure whether it’s a scam or not, then it probably is. If it’s too good to be true, then pass the offer up. We are actually pretty good at determining this subconsciously so just trust your instincts!

After doing all this, I think I will go get myself a free copy of the Zagat Survey. I will let you know if I get scammed!