Tricia It was my understanding the opt out stops anyone from taking a look see at your credit to know how much credit they will offer when sending a credit card offer?? As far as anyone you already have a relationship with I just called the few we got and ask to be put on their opt out list. I even opted out of our own bank, credit union and savings institutions. The only thing I get is statements and notices when a CD is coming due. We didnt get any junk mail for years until a few months ago. I will be turning 65 this year and am now getting 8 to10 offers a week from every insurance company in the world. At first I was calling and asking them to please take me off the mailing list but now have just given up and shred everything. I would like to know how I got on these lists but havent found an answer yet. SS and Medicare both say they do not share any information. I am even getting this junk addressed to me at my dads address. Very frustrating for him. We dont have home mail delivery so even my post master if upset that he cant get all my mail in my P.O. Box. I told him to just send it back but of course he cant. As far a credit scores I will never understand how that works. About 12 or so years ago our accountant ask me how many credit card I had in my wallet. We got to figuring it out and came up with an obscene amount of available credit. I had cards for way to many department stores that I never used. I had had them for years so the limits were high. I closed everything but the one credit card that was tied to our checking account and the debit card for the same account. I had our bank set out credit limit at ten thousand so it never goes any higher. I pay it off every month. I also had them set the limit on our debit card higher so each of us has a thousand dollar a day limit. When DH ordered me a new car a few years ago he was told we have the highest credit score the dealership had ever seen and mine was 2 points higher that his. I havent worked in over 20 years so how does that happen? I check our accounts every morning as soon as I get on the computer and pay the credit card from the checking account as soon as the cycle ends. We have one of those very old gold accounts so we dont have any fees or pay for anything including cashiers check and travelers checks. The manager at the bank told me to never close it. I pay all our bills on line and never have had a problem. So my next question is should I keep the checking account statements or just shred them? Claudia

Either you trust yourself to handle money/credit responsibly, or you don't. It's hard to develop that self-discipline of not buying something just because you want it. That feeling of instant gratification is alluring and addictive, and some folks can't step away from it. Many do it by reducing the temptation to begin with, which is what cutting up cards does. Some tips on traveling abroad: - Find out how much your card charges in transaction fees on foreign purchases. Capital One, for example, doesn't charge any extra fees. There are others; if you are doing a lot of overseas travel, apply for one. - Make sure whatever card you use has the new CHIP AND PIN technology. Most US cards only use Chip and Signature tech, which is very outmoded by global standards. Both American Express and Diners Club use CaP tech, but one traveler reported having to wait two hours in line at ORLY because almost an entire planeload of US travelers were queued up to use the only train ticket window with a human teller. The automated ticket kiosk only took exact change or a CaP card. The traveler said he couldn't even get his airline, Air France, to change a 20-Euro note. From a Liz Pulliam Weston/MSN Money article last year: "....It's not that your credit cards are useless overseas. Most merchants and travel providers in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Canada -- the areas that have adopted the smart-card technology -- still accept U.S. credit cards, says Odysseas Papadimitriou, who travels to Europe a few times a year and is the chief executive of credit card comparison site Card Hub. But U.S. cards, which rely on older magnetic-strip technology, simply won't work in machines that require users to punch in a personal identification number, or PIN, that's matched against a computer chip embedded in the card. U.S. debit cards won't work in these machines either, because they lack the all-important chip. You could find yourself: • Trapped in a parking lot that relies on automated kiosks to exit. • Unable to buy gas at a pay-at-the-pump station. • Prevented from buying bus, subway or rail tickets. • Stopped at toll booths that require chip-and-PIN cards. Some travelers report they've also encountered problems with clerks who don't know how to process a swipe-card transaction or merchants who refuse to accept U.S. cards, believing they're less secure. Such problems seem to be more common as time passes and fewer people are familiar with the older technology, especially in Europe, said Dan Ray, the editor-in-chief of CreditCards.com. "The odds are greater now that you'll have some trouble," Ray said. "Europeans are less likely to have the machinery or the people who are eager to process your card." Your debit card will work in overseas ATMs, but you may want to shorten your PIN if it's longer than four digits. Many foreign ATMs don't accept longer PINs. Also, foreign ATM keypads often don't have letters. If the only way you remember your PIN is by typing in a word into the keypad (say your password is 9-6-7-3, but you remember it by typing in the corresponding letters W-O-R-D), you should memorize the digits before you go." ========== HTH!

I received an email back from Paypal this morning that wasn't helpful at all. I just got off the phone with them and the guy said there is nothing wrong with my account and it's a problem on their end. I'm not the only one having this happen. The problem has "escalated and they're working seriously to correct it." We'll see. I'm not linking my actual checking account to Paypal. They don't need it as far as I'm concerned. Back when it was easy to get around their site I also had my debit card listed. Deleted it at one point because I liked the idea of having only one card listed in my account and figured I could go back and add it later if need be. The guy on the phone told me I can't add a new card also because of the current issue. Just to be clear, I can't even make a payment with my card on file for Paypal at this time. This post was edited by sheesharee on Wed, Sep 17, 14 at 10:26

They're taking your word for it but double-checking. The bank doesn't need to "legalize" anything or to cover itself. Cardholder agreements say that the individual authorizes account reductions for authorized charges (or liability, in the case of a credit card). If the bank's info sources suggest the charge was authorized, whether that's correct or incorrect, they're entitled to reinstate it as if it were a normal one triggered by the cardholder. At which point, kathsgarden, you'll need to speak with them further.