Service Review: Consumer Credit Reporting / Monitoring and Identity Theft Protection Services
This post lists out major service provider in credit reporting/monitoring and identity theft protection. Credit repairing has got a bad name due to some businesses’ abusive activities, therefore businesses providing that service have been excluded for readers’ benefit.
Please feel free to share with us any of your unhappy experience with these agencies so that this list can be maintained constantly useful to readers.
Credit Reporting/Monitoring
myFICO® is the consumer division of Fair Isaac, the company that invented the FICO® credit risk score that lenders use. Starting in the 1960s, Fair Isaac sparked a revolution by pioneering credit risk scoring for the financial services industry. This new approach to lending enabled financial institutions to improve their business performance and expand consumers’ access to credit. Today Fair Isaac’s FICO® score is widely recognized as the industry standard for lenders.
myFICO® offers informative credit-information products that help people understand actions they can take to achieve and protect their overall financial health. Through myFICO.com and its associates, over 23 million FICO® scores have been sold to U.S. consumers since they launched consumer service in March of 2001.
myFiCO is allied with national credit reporting agencies Equifax and TransUnion to create a new generation of credit information products that empower consumers to understand and protect their true credit standing.
Equifax is public listed company, member of S&P 500 index. On Consumer service side, Equifax offers credit management products like 3-in-1 Credit Report and Score Watch help consumers make informed decisions when making purchases, securing loans, paying for college educations, and managing their personal finances.
Identity theft is the fastest growing white collar crime in America. One in five families have been affected by this epidemic. Identity theft protection products like Equifax’s Credit Watch Gold™ with 3-in-1 Monitoring continually monitor consumers’ credit files and alert them of potentially fraudulent activity like a new credit card application that they did not initiate.
CreditReport.com provides free credit reports and credit scores to consumers in a secure, online environment. Its Credit Monitoring service alerts customers to changes across all 3 of their credit reports while Credit Score Tracking notifies customers to significant changes in their credit score.
Identity Theft Protection
TrustedID’s® mission is to proactively protect consumers against identity theft, especially as identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the United States. Its innovative flagship product – IDFreeze® - stops identity theft before it ever happens. Secured from identity theft by their 15 points of protection which includes protection for children, seniors, and medical records.
IdentityTruth.com provides identity theft protection services starting from $10/month. They use innovative technology to offer customers the earliest possible notificationTM of identity misuse and threats. IdentityTruth is a privately held, VC- funded company headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Investors include Argonaut Ventures and Stata Venture Partners. They are offering customers the chance to test our services on a risk free basis before making a purchase.
ID Watchdog offers patent-pending technology that continually scans thousands of credit, social security, DMV, medical, public records and other databases. They search for fraudulent activity and notify you of anything suspicious.
Also included in the free trial offer of ID Watchdog Plus is a free ID Theft Profile. This cross references thousands of databases, checks for any instances of previous ID theft and is valued at $19.95.
LifeLock provides a proactive identity theft service, specializing in the prevention of identity theft rather than the reporting of it. LifeLock was founded in 2005.
Also refer to my previous post: Credit Score Q&A
Dividend Investing: High Dividend Stocks Ex-Dividend in Week of 6/30/2009 to 7/6/2009
This post lists high dividend (annual yield > 3%) stocks go ex-dividend next week order by ex-dividend date and then by yield. Since the timing of capturing the dividend of these stocks are one day before ex-dividend, therefore the listings go from next Tuesday up to the Monday in week after.
Tuesday 6/30/2009
American Capital Agency (AGNC), with market cap $358.45M, avg daily vol 187.15K, annual div yield 25.12%
Urstadt Biddle Properties (UBA), with market cap $368.49M, avg daily vol 131.71K, annual div yield 6.51%
Pulaski Financial Corp (PULB), with market cap $70.64M, avg daily vol 16.35K, annual div yield 5.55%
Brandywine Realty (BDN), with market cap $642.87M, avg daily vol 3.94M, annual div yield 5.49%
American River Bankshares (AMRB), with market cap $63.77M, avg daily vol 3.59K, annual div yield 5.18%
FNB United Corp (FNBN), with market cap $27.20M, avg daily vol 4.99K, annual div yield 4.2%
Sysco Corp (SYY), with market cap $13.56B, avg daily vol 3.97M, annual div yield 4.18%
PSB Holdings (PSBH), with market cap $31.67M, avg daily vol 0.58K, annual div yield 4.12%
American Express (AXP), with market cap $27.74B, avg daily vol 27.29M, annual div yield 3.03%
Wednesday 7/1/2009
Hatteras Financial Corp (HTS), with market cap $1.02B, avg daily vol 876.45K, annual div yield 15.55%
Mack-Cali Realty (CLI), with market cap $1.48B, avg daily vol 2.37M, annual div yield 8.12%
AMB Property Corp (AMB), with market cap $2.69B, avg daily vol 4.27M, annual div yield 6.08%
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY), with market cap $41.52B, avg daily vol 14.02M, annual div yield 5.92%
Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD), with market cap $44.59B, avg daily vol 1.79M, annual div yield 3.7%
Mead Johnson Nutrition Company (MJN), with market cap $6.52B, avg daily vol 489.06K, annual div yield 2.51%
First National Lincoln Corp (FNLC), with market cap $211.68M, avg daily vol 21.68K, annual div yield 3.58%
Indosat (IIT), with market cap $2.62B, avg daily vol 36.63K, annual div yield 3.53%
Campbell Soup Co. (CPB), with market cap $10.34B, avg daily vol 2.63M, annual div yield 3.39%
Thursday 7/2/2009
Kite Realty Group (KRG), with market cap $99.21M, avg daily vol 662.78K, annual div yield 8.28%
Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS), with market cap $38.03B, avg daily vol 934.75K, annual div yield 4.25%
Glatfelter (GLT), with market cap $377.33M, avg daily vol 337.72K, annual div yield 4.34%
Gentex Corp (GNTX), with market cap $1.57B, avg daily vol 1.52M, annual div yield 3.85%
Bridge Bancorp (BDGE), with market cap $166.76M, avg daily vol 18.86K, annual div yield 3.43%
Glacier Bancorp (GBCI), with market cap $943.58M, avg daily vol 656.31K, annual div yield 3.39%
Friday 7/3/2009
none due to holiday
Monday 7/6/2009
Project Capital Corp (PSEC), with market cap $426.43M, avg daily vol 584.85K, annual div yield 15.93%
DCT Inndustrial Trust (DCT), with market cap $748.38M, avg daily vol 3.94M, annual div yield 7.53%
First South Bancorp (FSBK), with market cap $123.58M, avg daily vol 14.99K, annual div yield 6.3%
Industrios Bachoco (IBA), with market cap $1.09B, avg daily vol 9.3K, annual div yield 2.71%
Remembering Michael Jackson: His All-Time Best Selling Albums
Michael Jackson left us at age of 50 today, but his music will stay with us on and on. Although there are many ways of measuring the success of a musician, but Michael Jackson definitely holds the top spot of producing best selling albums. He has produced 3 albums that sold more than 30 million copies worldwide each, among which his 1982 album Thriller is the top seller in the all-time best selling albums, sold more than 109 million copies worldwide.
Here are his all-time selling albums:
Thriller: $12.99
The Biggest Album Ever just got bigger. The 25th Anniversary Edition of Thriller celebrates this ground-breaking album with 7 bonus tracks, six of which are previously unreleased. The new tracks include exclusive remixes from Kanye West, Fergie, will.i.am and Akon along with a previously unreleased track from the Thriller sessions, “For All Time,” newly mixed and mastered by Michael Jackson. Also included is a BONUS DVD with new, digitally restored versions of the three videos from the album as well as the Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking performance of “Billie Jean” on the “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” television special (first broadcast on NBC May 16, 1983).
Bad: $5.93
Though it sold in the eight-figure range worldwide, to some ears Bad suffered in comparison to its predecessor, Thriller. While not as visionary as that record-breaker and Off the Wall, the 1987 album does find Jackson and producer Quincy Jones continuing to work their craft at a high level. As it had with Thriller, radio embraced nearly every cut. Airplay saturation helped make the likes of “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Smooth Criminal,” and the title track major hits in their day; they ring with confidence and good feeling more than a decade later. The self-involvement that would make the new material on History (1995) sound so curdled had yet to overtake Jackson; even his plea to “Leave Me Alone” displayed a sure wit, particularly in its video version. While the third best of his first three Epic solo discs, Bad carries a lot of what people love about Michael Jackson’s music. –Rickey Wright
Dangerous: $7.97
Michael Jackson was still going for pop hits with 1991’s Dangerous, but he also front-loaded the album with six straight Teddy Riley-assisted cuts. This half-hour swoop of tense, aggressive, often angular funk was Jackson’s most interesting music since Thriller, and still sounds, well, invincible on this remastered edition. After that, the record’s uneven, but there’s nothing embarrassing about it, either. “Gone Too Soon,” a non-Jackson composition about teen AIDS casualty Ryan White, is a quiet statement (particularly played next to the choir-laden “Heal the World,” “Keep the Faith,” and “Will You Be There”) showing that the star doesn’t always have to get showy. The sprightly “Black or White” is explicitly pro-interracial romance, an angle its video didn’t go near, and the urgent “Give In to Me” is almost scary. Scary good, that is. –Rickey Wright
Complete list of all time best selling albums
Swarovski Summer Sale
Updated on June 30
Now, you can get this 50% promotion on US and Canada Swarovski website.
Regular price: $ 90.00 Current price: $ 67.50
A classic creation - this faceted Bordeaux crystal heart pendant is just right for special moments. It hangs on dark brown waxed cotton cord and speaks volumes of superb taste and elegance. This pendant comes on a cord.
Regular price: $ 180.00 Current price: $ 90.00
This USB memory key is disguised as heart pendant on a pink silk cord. The polished stainless steel heart is combined with a fully faceted, asymmetrically-cut Vitrail Light crystal. The pendant or USB key has a 1 GB data-holding capacity (i.e., of about 250 songs or 1,000 photos) and a high-speed USB 2.0 interface. This pendant comes on a cord.
Regular price: $ 80.00 Current price: $ 48.00
A mobile phone accessory with a rhodium-plated Bambi charm. Violet, Smoked Topaz and Light Colorado Topaz crystals set in Pointiage give Bambi his adorable definition and glitter.
Dividend Investing: High Dividend Stocks Ex-Dividend in Week of 6/23/2009 to 6/29/2009
This post lists high dividend (annual yield > 3%) stocks go ex-dividend next week order by ex-dividend date and then by yield. Since the timing of capturing the dividend of these stocks are one day before ex-dividend, therefore the listings go from next Tuesday up to the Monday in week after.
Tuesday 6/23/2009
Getty Realty Corp (GTY), with market cap $466.84M, avg daily vol 137.12K, annual div yield 9.97%
Cogdell Spencer (CSA), with market cap $84.77M, avg daily vol 361.57K, annual div yield 9.2%
Xcel Energy (XEL), with market cap $8.25B, avg daily vol 3.43M, annual div yield 5.41%
Portland General Electric (POR), with market cap $1.49B, avg daily vol 837.85K, annual div yield 5.14%
Piedmont Natural Gas (PNY), with market cap $1.79B, avg daily vol 486.68K, annual div yield 4.41%
Wednesday 6/24/2009
Superior Industries (SUP), with market cap $375.49M, avg daily vol 245.53K, annual div yield 4.55%
Alliance Financial Corp (ALNC), with market cap $127.92M, avg daily vol 8.31K, annual div yield 3.73%
Southern Union (SUG), with market cap $2.09B, avg daily vol 959.94K, annual div yield 3.56%
Chubb Corp (CB), with market cap $14.15B, avg daily vol 4.79M, annual div yield 3.48%
Thursday 6/25/2009
Annaly Capital (NLY), with market cap $8.46B, avg daily vol 16.8M, annual div yield 15.44%
Canadian Imperial Bank (CM), with market cap $2.32B, avg daily vol 736.97K, annual div yield 5.79%
ECB Bancorp (ECBE), with market cap $46.93M, avg daily vol 0.38K, annual div yield 4.42%
Independent Bank (INDB), with market cap $417.82M, avg daily vol 156.82K, annual div yield 3.6%
Integra Bank (IBNK), with market cap $26.55M, avg daily vol 93.36K, annual div yield 3.13%
Friday 6/26/2009
Lexington Realty Trust (LXP), with market cap $439.40M, avg daily vol 1.76M, annual div yield 17.35%
Capstead Mortgage (CMO), with market cap $842.55M, avg daily vol 781.41K, annual div yield 17.48%
Glimcher Realty Trust (GRT), with market cap $106.84M, avg daily vol 400.78K, annual div yield 14.23%
Penn West Energy Trust (PWE), with market cap $5.42B, avg daily vol 3.24M, annual div yield 12.38%
NGP Capital Resources (NGPC), with market cap $127.39M, avg daily vol 123.62K, annual div yield 8.15%
Entertainment Properties Trust (EPR), with market cap $743.02M, avg daily vol 1.08M, annual div yield 12.23%
Windstream Corp (WIN), with market cap $3.59B, avg daily vol 3.75M, annual div yield 12.18%
Iowa Telecom Services (IWA), with market cap $435.16M, avg daily vol 293.73K, annual div yield 12.17%
Alaska Communications Systems Group (ALSK), with market cap $320.73M, avg daily vol 354.44K, annual div yield 11.85%
Agree Realty Corp (ADC), with market cap $140.93M, avg daily vol 50.19K, annual div yield 11.25%
Baytex Energy Trust (BTE), with market cap $1.74B, avg daily vol 409.34K, annual div yield 7.92%
B & G Foods (BGS), with market cap $286.46M, avg daily vol 121.62K, annual div yield 8.55%
PMC Commercial Trust (PCC), with market cap $80.91M, avg daily vol 9.28K, annual div yield 8.34%
National Health Investors (NHI), with market cap $730.12M, avg daily vol 126.79K, annual div yield 8.31%
Inland Real Estate (IRC), with market cap $469.33M, avg daily vol 928.39K, annual div yield 8.13%
CBL & Associates Properties (CBL), with market cap $391.64M, avg daily vol 3.92M, annual div yield 8%
Hersha Hospitality Trust (HT), with market cap $121.21M, avg daily vol 457.49K, annual div yield 7.97%
W.P. Carey & Co. (WPC), with market cap $1.01B, avg daily vol 47.49K, annual div yield 7.73%
CapLease Funding (LSE), with market cap $136.58M, avg daily vol 238.42K, annual div yield 7.02%
Redwood Trust (RWT), with market cap $860.44M, avg daily vol 1.45M, annual div yield 7%
Kilroy Realty Corp (KRC), with market cap $678.49M, avg daily vol 1.41M, annual div yield 6.83%
Essex Property Trust (ESS), with market cap $1.74B, avg daily vol 1.29M, annual div yield 6.5%
Camden Property (CPT), with market cap $1.53B, avg daily vol 2.25M, annual div yield 6.34%
Mesa Royalty Trust (MTR), with market cap $50.52M, avg daily vol 4.24K, annual div yield 5.09%
Avalonbay Communities (AVB), with market cap $4.61B, avg daily vol 3.15M, annual div yield 6.19%
Arthur Gallagher (AJG), with market cap $2.17B, avg daily vol 1.18M, annual div yield 5.9%
NTS Realty Holdings LP (NLP), with market cap $40.74M, avg daily vol 2.49K, annual div yield 5.59%
TransCanada Corp (TRP), with market cap $17.16B, avg daily vol 471.61K, annual div yield 5.48%
Post Properties (PPS), with market cap $648.41M, avg daily vol 1.16M, annual div yield 5.47%
Aircastle Ltd. (AYR), with market cap $584.75M, avg daily vol 499.38K, annual div yield 5.42%
Nicor (GAS), with market cap $1.57B, avg daily vol 542.73K, annual div yield 5.35%
Acadia Realty Trust (AKR), with market cap $555.23M, avg daily vol 498.81K, annual div yield 5.14%
Corporate Office Properties (OFC), with market cap $1.67B, avg daily vol 1.56M, annual div yield 5.13%
Hopfed Bancorp (HFBC), with market cap $34.00M, avg daily vol 3.19K, annual div yield 5.06%
Permian Basin Royalty Trust (PBT), with market cap $568.62M, avg daily vol 280.35K, annual div yield 4.92%
Washington Trust Bancorp (WASH), with market cap $287.95M, avg daily vol 35.46K, annual div yield 4.67%
Kraft Foods (KFT), with market cap $37.42B, avg daily vol 10.89M, annual div yield 4.57%
PG&E Corp (PCG), with market cap $13.89B, avg daily vol 2.68M, annual div yield 4.46%
Douglas Emmett (DEI), with market cap $1.09B, avg daily vol 3.21M, annual div yield 4.45%
S&T Bancorp (STBA), with market cap $375.82M, avg daily vol 280.69K, annual div yield 4.42%
Biomed Realty Trust (BMR), with market cap $824.20M, avg daily vol 2.49M, annual div yield 4.33%
Boston Properties (BXP), with market cap $5.74B, avg daily vol 4.83M, annual div yield 4.23%
Severn Bancorp (SVBI), with market cap $30.20M, avg daily vol 5K, annual div yield 4%
Willis Group Holdings (WSH), with market cap $4.37B, avg daily vol 1.19M, annual div yield 3.98%
Edison International (EIX), with market cap $10.31B, avg daily vol 3.11M, annual div yield 3.92%
Great Southern Bancorp (GSBC), with market cap $260.18M, avg daily vol 37.69K, annual div yield 3.7%
National Fuel Gas (NFG), with market cap $2.89B, avg daily vol 471.78K, annual div yield 3.68%
Dow Chemical (DOW), with market cap $15.10B, avg daily vol 23.07M, annual div yield 3.68%
Illinois Tool Works (ITW), with market cap $17.71B, avg daily vol 4.36M, annual div yield 3.5%
First American Corp (FAF), with market cap $2.42B, avg daily vol 1.61M, annual div yield 3.4%
Iberia Bank (IBKC), with market cap $697.23M, avg daily vol 166.56K, annual div yield 3.13%
Axis Capital Holdings (AXS), with market cap $3.66B, avg daily vol 1.65M, annual div yield 3.11%
Wishire Bancorp (WIBC), with market cap $190.30M, avg daily vol 179.81K, annual div yield 3.09%
Thomas Properties Group (TPGI), with market cap $41.62M, avg daily vol 122.28K, annual div yield 3.09%
Nucor Corp (NUE), with market cap $14.67B, avg daily vol 6.63M, annual div yield 3%
Monday 6/29/2009
Liberty Properties (LRY), with market cap $2.42B, avg daily vol 2.79M, annual div yield 8.29%
Realty Income Corp (O), with market cap $2.35B, avg daily vol 2.59M, annual div yield 7.59%
CVB Financial (CVBF), with market cap $504.12M, avg daily vol 1.17M, annual div yield 5.62%
Alexandria Real Estate Equities (ARE), with market cap $1.41B, avg daily vol 2.05M, annual div yield 3.92%
Maiden Holdings Ltd. (MHLD), with market cap $401.34M, avg daily vol 247.83K, annual div yield 4.2%
Republic Services (RSG), with market cap $8.90B, avg daily vol 3.16M, annual div yield 3.24%
Sanders Morris Harris Group (SMHG), with market cap $158.56M, avg daily vol 51.14K, annual div yield 3.2%