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Archive for September, 2008

Follow-up: Sears/Dockers rebate scam

September 30th, 2008

A while back I posted about a scam being perpetrated by Sears and Dockers on a recent rebate promotion. The issue I had was that instead of a “$10 reward card” as promised in a Sears press release, I received a crappy $10 off $50 men’s apparel coupon that was loaded with exclusions. Well, I’m happy to report that after a strongly worded complaint to the BBB, Sears refuted my argument but still offered to exchange the coupons for $10 gift cards. I sent in the coupons, and have since received the gift cards and even spent them. In my case, case closed.

However, it seems my post solicited numerous other comments about other issues in getting even the $75 gas card sent. Reports here and in the thread over at SlickDeals report issues with denials due to missing birthdates, purchases over multiple receipts, and even denials even though the required amount of merchandise was purchased. It has been noted that because of numerous issues they are now accepting resubmissions of the rebate at the following address:

Dockers Shell Promotion
Attention: Judy
1105 SE 8th St
Grand Rapids, MN 55744

If this doesn’t work, I would certainly recommend a BBB complaint. It certainly worked for me.

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Posted in Customer Service, Scams

Tags: 206inc Dockers gift card rebate scam sears

Dumb luck as an investment strategy

September 29th, 2008

OK, this is totally in the “don’t try this at home” department, because people a lot smarter than me have tried to do this and failed miserably. With that disclaimer out of the way…

I recently made the decision that I needed to rollover the funds in my old employer’s 401k plan (not the one I just got laid off from, the one I quit four years ago). After careful research, I actually went against my previous advice and opted for a target-date retirement fund from Vanguard. I was very impressed with the asset mix and expense ratio of the fund, and in an effort to simply my holdings a bit I deemed it a good investment option. The one wrinkle in my plan to transfer the funds to a rollover IRA was that my old custodian, Fidelity, would only send the funds via a check made out to the new custodian mailed to my home address, which I would need to mail in to Vanguard once I had received it. Believing I could turn the check around quickly and I wouldn’t miss that much market action in the process, I went ahead with the rollover and had the check sent.

Well, mother nature had other plans for my rollover timeline. I made the request to withdraw the funds on September 10, three days prior to Hurricane Ike making landfall here in the Houston area. A result of the hurricane was that we were without power for nearly two weeks, meaning I could not go online to complete the application for the new account at Vanguard and print the necessary paperwork to mail in until September 26. Adding in the time required to ship the paperwork, the check was not received until today, September 29. Per Vanguard’s policy, the new investment would be purchased based on the closing price on the day the check is received.

Luckily for me in this instance (and not considering the damage done to the rest of my retirement funds that we didn’t rollover into this account), this means the investment will be purchased after today’s horrific 7.59% decline. Assuming that I had been able to invest the funds on the same day of the withdrawal request, I would have been able to purchase shares of the Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 fund at a price of $12.97 per share. Purchasing after today’s close I am purchasing at a price of $11.81 per share, meaning that I was inadvertantly able to avoid a loss of 9.10% simply by not being invested for about the last two weeks. Considering the amount of the rollover, this means I was able to avoid a loss of over $4,200.

Like I said before, do not try this at home. This was purely dumb luck. A lot of really smart people have tried before to time the market and guess high and lows and have failed badly at it. As stomach-turning as it can be, the best strategy is just to stay in the market. Yes, you may suffer losses, but the historical trend is for long-term gains, which you are likely to miss out on by trying to time your trades just right.

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Posted in Retirement

Tags: 401k Fidelity ira market timing rollover Vanguard

Return from the Dark Ages

September 25th, 2008

As our loyal readers may have noticed, there have not been any updates to this blog in some time. What you may not realize is that this humble blogger lives in Houston, and in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike we lost electrical power. Well, after nearly two weeks in the dark (from about 2am on Saturday Sept 13 until 8:04pm tonight Thursday Sept 25), I am happy to report that we are once again in air conditioned comfort, complete with lights and an internet connection.

We have quite a bit to do to get plugged back into modern life, however over the coming weeks I will be posting various thoughts about the experience of being disconnected for so long as well as highlights of the huge stack of magazines I read through while the lights were out. Stay tuned!

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Posted in About

The real aftermath of Hurricane Gustav the media isn’t telling you!

September 4th, 2008

Sorry for the off-topic post, but watching the news coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav (or lack thereof) is really getting under my skin. As a service to my readers, I want to share with you the real story the national media isn’t bothering to tell.

Listening to news coverage, you would believe that there were virtually no effects of Gustav. They are delighting in the fact that damage in New Orleans was minimal. However what they are bothering to tell you is that New Orleans is not the biggest city in Louisiana, and the damage in Baton Rouge (which by the way is Louisiana’s largest city post-Katrina) was extensive. The highest wind speeds ever recorded in Baton Rouge were recorded during this storm, which is impressive considering the city has also taken blows in the past from Hurricanes Andrew and Betsy, just to name a few.

I rode out the storm with my in-laws in Baton Rouge, and can tell you first hand of the damage I saw as my family made our way back home to Houston after the storm. Trees were down – everywhere. Trees blocked roads, demolished homes, and downed power lines throughout the area. Area rivers were rising from the massive amounts of rain the area received, with many rivers cresting well above flood stage. The electric power infrastructure was so badly damaged that 1.2 million Louisiana residents lost power. While about 200,000 had been restored at this point, estimates for others are as long as 4 weeks due to the need to repair transmission lines (think the big cancer-causing lines) as well as distribution lines (lines that go to individual neighborhoods and streets). Lines for necessities such as gasoline are massive and are reported to be several hours long. Essentially the largest city in the state of Louisiana has been thrown back into the dark ages, but I’m glad the national media seems to think this is a non-event.

If you want a true picture of the aftermath of Gustav, I would recommend looking at some of the local media sites such as 2theadvocate.com, wafb.com, and wjbo.com.