How to Change Your Google Voice Phone Number
Follow the steps below to learn how to change your Google Voice phone number. Keep in mind that there is a $10 one-time fee to do so.
Step 1: Click "Settings" when you are logged in.
Step 2: Click on the "Phones" tab.
Step 3: Click "Change"
Another $50 ($10×5) Gift Cards FREE from Citibank
Filed under: Citibank, Credit Cards, Make Easy Money, Protect Your Credit
I wrote about Citibank’s credit protector program about 9 months ago, here, where I received a $15 gift card just for signing up. The program doesn’t cost me anything since I don’t use that credit card very often (you only pay a fee when you carry a balance), but when I called to cancel, they offered me five $10 gift cards if I kept my subscription active. The catch is that you can only redeem each $10 gift card every month so it’s actually a long and tedious process, which they didn’t tell me over the phone. I ended up getting my five gift cards; some are pictured below, but when I called to cancel again, they offered me the exact same deal, another $50 worth of MasterCard Citibank gift cards.
The customer service representative’s are very deceptive since they won’t tell you that you have to mail out 5 separate redemption coupons a month apart in order to get your “$50 gift card”, which in the end takes 5 months.
PineCone Research is Open for Applications - Paid Surveys
I just received an e-mail from PineCone Research Panel, and they are accepting new applicants just for a limited time (if you qualify). Only $3 per survey (takes about 15-20 minutes), I know it doesn’t seem like much, but you can do them when you’re bored, late at night, at work, while you’re watching TV, or instead of going on facebook? Before you know it, by the end of the year, these things can quickly add up to a few hundred dollars (they can send you a check or you can have the funds deposited into your PayPal account).
Anyway, PineCone is one of the better paying survey companies out there, I get a couple surveys each week. Just make sure you stay consistent with the information they ask about you, like your age and the people who live in your household. Also, try not to miss the deadlines for completing a survey. If you screw up any of these, you might suddenly stop receiving surveys.
Click here to sign up for the PineCone Research Panel.
And if you’re interested, the other decent survey companies are MySurvey.com and SurveySavvy.com.
Free $50 to Begin Investing with Lending Club
Lending Club will give you a $50 sign up bonus when you sign up to start investing. This offer is exclusively for AppleRama readers. The bonus is to encourage you to try the site and is available for you to invest in Notes right away. Make sure you click this link to ensure that you receive the $50 sign up bonus.
Lending Club enables individual investors and well-qualified borrowers to get better rates than with banks or credit card companies. Their straightforward, online approach operates at a cost much lower than the big banks.
It’s no secret that banks are now charging people with good to excellent credit 15%-25% interest for loans and credit card debt.
Lending Club offers a better alternative with a simple and transparent model that leverages 50 years of credit default trends to set interest rates.
The result is that Lending Club facilitates loans at an average rate of 14% — a lower rate than most creditworthy borrowers pay on their credit cards today.
And Lending Club investors have earned an average of 9.05% in the last 20 months. That’s because when you cut out the costs of traditional financial institutions’ overhead and complexity, you end up with a better rate for borrowers and better returns for investors.
eBay Sales Report Update #1 - On Target
Filed under: Goals in Life, eBay
Back in November of 2008, I set a annual eBay sales goal of $200,000 for the 2009 year, and I am happy to say that it looks like we are on target. Although we started selling a little late, about the second week of February because we had just returned from a small holiday vacation, during the past six weeks, we’ve been averaging about $4,000 a week in sales which is amazing.
A few things we are doing different this year compared to last year:
- Buying more bulk items. Buying profitable items in bulk are working well for us because we would rather make $5 profit per item on 100 items, than make $20-$40 profit on 20 items. Another good reason to buy items in bulk is that it gives us a chance to receive more feedback; 100 possible feedbacks vs. 20 possible feedbacks.
- Buying more smaller priced items. We are buying more items priced $30 or less such as $4 dvds, $10 video games, $13 toys, and many more amazing deals. The main reason for this is because we can afford to replace these items if a package gets lost or if an item is defective; this way we can always try to keep the customer happy.
- Buying more physically smaller items. Smaller items cost less to mail and are easier to package for us. They also arrive faster since we would be able to send it via USPS First-Class Parcel Mail.
February 2009 Statistics:
- Sales: $10,417
- Sold Items: 242
- Average Sale Price Per Item: $43
- Buyers: 214
- Unique Buyers: 209
- eBay Fees: $1001.37 (before discount)
- PowerSeller Discount (5%): $22.11
- Double Final Value Fee Discount: $22.11
March 2009 Statistics:
- Sales: $20,774
- Sold Items: 382
- Average Sale Price Per Item: $54
- Buyers: 363
- Unique Buyers: 360
- eBay Fees: $1640.54 (before discount)
- PowerSeller Discount (20%): $275.50
- Double Final Value Fee Discount: $275.50
Conclusion: The PowerSeller discount was a huge factor for us saving a lot of fees as you can see from February to March, going from 5% to 20%, and a savings of $22.11 and $275.50 respectively. This is the first time that we’ve actually been selling full time without school or the wedding as a distraction so it really gives us a good sense of what kind of sales we should expect in the future. I’d like to make it clear that our sales does not mean profit, they are just that, sales, which does not include eBay and PayPal fees, shipping costs, or the cost of our items, but I’ll save our profits for another article.
Fisher-Price TMX Tickle Me Elmos
Filed under: Pictures - Bulk Items
Fisher-Price released the 10th year anniversary edition of the Tickle Me Elmo on September 19, 2006, the TMX Elmo, “X” meaning extreme. The TMX Elmo along with the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii video game consoles were very hot items for this holiday season.
These Elmo's were purchased the first day they were released.
TMX Elmo Manufacturer Box
How to Lower Your PayPal Fees by Enabling Merchant Rate
Don’t let PayPal take any more extra money from you! If your monthly sales are greater than $3000, then you qualify for PayPal’s lower merchant rates below:
| Monthly sales | Price per transaction | |||
| $0.00 USD - $3,000.00 USD | 2.9% + $0.30 USD | |||
| $3,000.01 USD - $10,000.00 USD | 2.5% + $0.30 USD | |||
| $10,000.01 USD - $100,000.00 USD | 2.2% + $0.30 USD | |||
| > $100,000.00 USD | 1.9% + $0.30 USD | |||
How to Lower Your PayPal Fees by Enabling Merchant Rate:
- Log into your PayPal account.
- Click here.
- Click Apply Now.
- Fill out the one-time application and submit.
When Your Credit Card Signature Fun Backfires
Filed under: Credit Cards, Good Read's, Protect Your Credit
A friend linked me the article below a little while ago, and I thought it was hilarious.
Over the past 6 months, I have been playing a fun game with my credit card company. The game finally backfired on me today and led me through the most hilarious moment of my life. Most people would have been embarrassed, but me, I’m a little twisted, so I laughed all the way through it like an asshole.
With any story, there is a setup process. Here is the setup to this story. About 6 months ago, I was making a purchase with my credit card and when I went to sign the electronic signature machine, it was broken. By broken, I mean that when I touched the pen to the machine, it went crazy and didn’t look anything like my signature. It looked like a drunk 4 year old signed my name for me. It accepted the signature without any problems. So this really made me wonder what I could do to give my credit card company something to laugh about. I mean, they obviously don’t review the signatures since they never called me or declined a purchase. For fucks sake, it could have been a stolen card.
I started out modest by signing with a line or an “X”. Occasionally I would do last name first. After a couple of months, I became bolder. I wrote goofy shit, drew pictures, etc. Here’s a list of some of my favorite signatures over the past few months:
I AM NOT KINGPIN
I STOLE THIS
FUCK OFF
FUCK YOU
WALMART SUCKS
CALL ME
CROTCHY CROTCHINGTON
MY BALLS ITCH
911
I’M A CRIMINAL
THANKS FOR THE STUFF
Today I went the extra mile. When it came time to sign my name, a thought popped in my head. I should draw a picture. But what picture should I draw? I smirked as something completely juvenile came to me. This is a rough drawing of the signature that I provided:
Yes, I know, it’s not my best artwork, but I didn’t have the time to be elaborate with the drawing. I had to look like I was providing a signature. Right after I hit “OK”, there was a pause. The register then said “COMPARE SIGNATURE ON SLIP TO CARD.” One thought popped in my head: “OH FUCK!” It then printed the receipt and there in black and white was my shitty drawing of cock and balls. The lady at the register didn’t immediately look at it. She asked for the card. I handed her the card and she flipped it over. Then she brought up the receipt and she smirked, but then took a stern tone and said “These signatures don’t match.”
At this point I was in tears from trying to hold back my laughter. I tried to explain to her why I had done it, but it didn’t matter. I probably didn’t make sense as I laughed hysterically through the explanation. She then paged the manager and I erupted in laughter. The guy behind me in line got a glimpse of my signature on the receipt and began laughing. The manager comes up and the woman from the register begins whispering to him. I then hear a few words “he drew a penis…” as she holds up the receipt. The manager blurts out a short laugh and then controls it. He turns to me and I’m out of breath from laughing and I’m still giggling like a schoolgirl.
Manager: Sir, your signature…heh…umm…doesn’t match the signature on your card.
Kingpin: I know and there is a good reason for that.
Manager: (quietly) You drew a penis on my credit card machine.
**The guy behind me bursts into laughter.**
Kingpin: Yeah, I didn’t think this would happen. I’ve been trying to see how far I could go with my signature before the credit card company did something about it.
Manager: I guess you learned your lesson.
Kingpin: Yeah, the credit card doesn’t accept penis.
**The guy behind me now can’t stop laughing.**
Manager: OK, I’m going to decline the signature and have you sign it again.
Kingpin: Fair enough.
Manager: This time, really sign it.
So I had to sign it again and they wouldn’t let me keep my artwork. Those bastards. I had singlehandedly broken up the monotony of their daily routine and given them something that they will be talking about for years to come and they wouldn’t let me keep it. They will tell their grandchildren about the guy that drew cock and balls as his credit card signature.
So I have a plan now. I’m going to get a new credit card and sign the back with my cock and balls drawing. Then I will consistently use that as the signature. That way, if I ever get caught in the same situation, the signatures will match. That will really fuck with them.
Originally posted at Drunk Republic.
How to Earn 36% of Your Seller’s Fee’s When You Shop on eBay
Filed under: How To's, Make Easy Money, eBay
Imagine you won a brand new digital camera on eBay for $300. You could actually earn an extra $4.26 just by signing up for Big Crumbs. In fact, you can always earn 36% of the seller’s total fee’s when you win an auction or a Buy It Now listing.
What is Big Crumbs?
- BigCrumbs is a site that allows you to earn cash back (debited to your PayPal account monthly) on your purchases when you shop online at very large retailers such as Best Buy, Buy.com, Drugstore.com, eBay, Gap, Office Depot, Orbitz, Overstock, Target, Walmart, and much more!
- Membership in BigCrumbs.com is 100% free. There are no hidden costs and you don’t pay extra when shopping at featured retailers. It’s really that simple!
- They also give you a chance to earn more cash just by telling friends how you’re saving with BigCrumbs.com.
How BigCrumbs works?
- BigCrumbs.com is paid a marketing commission and then they pass part of that commission on to you!
How to Earn 36% of Your Seller’s Fee’s When you Shop on eBay:
- Sign up for a Big Crumbs account.
- Log into your account.
- Click the Shop tab and choose eBay as your retailer.
- Click Shop Now! or the eBay logo.
- Win your auction by bidding or win a Buy It Now listing and automatically earn 36% of your seller’s total fee’s. Best Offer purchases are not eligible for cash back per eBay’s policy.
What are the Seller Fee’s? (detailed fees page here)
- Listing fees (range from $0.10 to $4.00)
- Reserve fees (range from $2.00 to $50.00)
- Buy It Now fees (range from $0.05 to $0.25)
- Listing Upgrade fees (range from $0.10 to $359.90)
- eBay Picture Hosting fees (range from $0.15 to $1.00)
- Final Value fees (a calculated percentage taken from the closing value)
How to Send and Receive Unlimited Text Messages for FREE
Unfortunately, this will only work if you have a Google Voice account, formally know as GrandCentral. If you have never heard of Google Voice, it is a free service that gives you one number for all your phones, voicemail that is easy as email, and many enhanced calling features like call blocking and screening, voicemail transcripts, call conferencing, international calls, call recording, and much more. It’s pretty amazing. If you don’t have an account yet, you can request an invite here, but it may take a while to receive one.
What you’ll need:
- Google Voice account. Request an invite here.
- Any phone that has internet capabilities such as an iPhone, BlackBerry, etc… even an iPod Touch would work.
How to Send and Receive Unlimited Text Messages for FREE:
- Call your wireless provider and ask them to block all text messages to your phone. Unfortunately when you block incoming text messages, they also block outgoing text messages as well. We need to block incoming text messages because when someone replies to your Google Voice SMS, it also alerts you on your phone. Sending and receiving texts from your Google Voice account is always free, but we don’t need the extra notice on your phone which costs you money.
- Log into your Google Voice mobile account from your phone, https://www.google.com/voice/m/sms, and start texting!
