- Mazel Tov JJ And Basha: IT’S A GIRL! IT’S A BOY! AND IT’S ANOTHER GIRL! by Dans Deals. Congratulations to JJ and the extended Dans Deals family.
- Shafted by the Big Banks: My Payroll Protection Program App Was Never Even Looked At! by MtM.
- Southwest Asks For Labor Concessions, Their Biggest Union Responds ‘Full Pay Until The Last Day’ by VFTW.
- Save 20% on Trim Cable / TV / Internet / Phone Bill Negotiations (Use Code trimsave20 – Promo Expires April 25) by Travel With Grant.
Deals starting/expiring at the end of today or starting today (view the full deal calendar here):
- Best Western: Stay Two Nights & Get Your Next Night Free (On a Future Stay)
- [Working Again] Amazon: Get 20% Off on Amazon when Using 1 Membership Rewards Point (Max $50 Discount) [YMMV]
- Burger King: Free Whopper With Any Purchase
- United Shopping Portal: Spend $100+, Earn 500 Bonus Miles
- Amazon: Get 20% Off When You Use 1 Discover Point ($50 Maximum Discount)
Deals starting/expiring at end of tomorrow:
- None
Popular posts from yesterday:
MtM wouldn’t have got anything whether he had applied through a bank or on the SBA website directly. There just wasn’t enough funding for everyone to get covered. The bulk of the post is him guessing at what happened and then insisting that it is all factual and documented.
William Charles, thanks for linking to my Trim post. Hopefully people can save a few bucks on their next cable / tv / internet / phone bill. Have a great day.
One problem I saw with Trim in the past is that they charge for “savings”. Eg Bill was about to go up from $30 to $50 but they “negotiated” to $35 so now you owe them for “saving” you $15 when your bill still went up. Is that still part of their model?
Good question Frank. Assuming you did nothing but autopay your bill, you would pay $50 / month. If Trim negotiated you down to $35 / month, you would be saving $15 / month. Trim can’t prevent your bill from ever going higher than $30, but they do what they can to keep your bill as low as possible.
Yes, warning against Trim – their Trim Premium advertises a lot of features but don’t really work. Moreover, if you use Bill negotiation while on Trim Premium and cancel it, you’ll be on the hook for the “savings”. Imo, use this option if you REALLY can’t negotiate for yourself.
PSA:
1. Use Trim only as a backup to your own negotiation attempt
2. Beware of Trim premium
3. If you do use the service, watch out they may calculate the savings in quite an absurd manner.
Interesting how Amazon is trying to reduce orders in many ways- cutting Google ad spend, removing product suggestions, slashing afflituate rates- yet these credit card point offers keep coming. Is amex/Discover paying for them? Theories?
Probably deals that were signed long ago that can’t be changed is my guess.
I can echo MtM’s story: we hold tens of millions with BofA at any given time. We had a handful of companies apply right away and only one of them has received a request for more information. Not sure if the $ is earmarked for us or if we are SOL. Either way we’ve decided to move our accounts to a local bank who actually help us with another company
My sympathies for points blogger businesses aside, bloomberg’s take on it is a compliance + scale problem.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-17/giant-u-s-lenders-outpaced-by-rivals-in-small-business-rescue?sref=1kJVNqnU
“As banking giants tried to automate the process, hundreds of employees at Texas lender Cullen/Frost Bankers Inc. volunteered to fill out forms manually, working late into the night in homes to set up $3 billion in loans. That contrasts with Wells Fargo & Co., which arranged only about $120 million by the time the program was depleted this week, according to people briefed on its progress.”
The real problem is that the money ran out. Since the money ran out, it doesn’t really matter whether the small businesses who didn’t get the loan applied through Cullen/Frost or WF.
“The firm initially ran up against a sanction imposed by the Federal Reserve in 2018, capping the bank’s assets. But even after the restriction was eased, the firm struggled to get application packets completed and submitted. After years of getting faulted by lawmakers and regulators for scandals, its managers were intent on building a system that complied with government rules.”
I’m sure now they’ll complain about how bad regulation is for their customers and how they should be less regulated.