Home Depot has admitted they were recently hacked and customer information was compromised and stolen. If you have shopped at any Home Depot store after April 1, 2014, you are eligible for one free year of identity protection and credit monitoring at homedepot.allclearid.com (press release).

If you need identity repair assistance during the next 12 months, starting on September 8, 2014, we have a team of dedicated fraud resolution investigators available to assist you. They will do the work to recover financial losses, restore your credit, and make sure your identity is returned to its proper condition.

For additional protection, we are also making available at no cost to you a service that includes credit monitoring, identity monitoring, and an identity theft insurance policy.

It appears you get AllClear Secure identity repair service and a 12-month AllClear PRO subscription (retail price of $14.95 a month, though I’d never actually pay that). Call 1-855-252-0908 for identity repair assistance. You’ll have to provide them with your Social Security number. Keep in mind that with all major credit card issuers, you have zero liability for any unauthorized charges as long as you report them in a timely manner.

Reminder: Everyone can get free daily credit monitoring from all three major credit bureaus through the following sites: Credit Sesame for Experian, Credit Karma for TransUnion, and Quizzle for Equifax (I got offered this last one, but it may be targeted).

A couple of readers have asked me about the BankAmericard Better Balance Rewards credit card. It definitely has a unique rewards structure

• Earn a $25 cash reward for each calendar quarter in which all of your monthly payments are received on or before the due date and are more than the minimum payment due. Your account must remain open and you must have a payment due in each of the monthly cycles of the calendar quarter to be eligible for the quarterly cash reward; a zero balance or a credit balance does not qualify.
• Earn an additional $5 cash reward per quarter if you have a Bank of America checking or savings account.
• Cash back is automatically credited to your card balance, unless otherwise directed into your BofA bank account.
• No annual fee.

The draw is that you could charge just $5 to the card every month, wait for the statement to close, and then pay off that $5 every month, and end up with $100 a year in rewards (or $120 a year with BofA account). It would take $5,000 of total purchases at a theoretical 2% cashback rate to get to $100 in rewards.

The first catch is that you need to maintain this every single month. If you skip just one month and have a zero balance, or somehow a refund has you end up with a negative balance, or you don’t pay the minimum due on time, then you forfeit the entire $25 for that quarter. Remember that by default the $25 reward is applied to your credit card balance, so even that could put you negative in a month. You have to pay attention to this card.

The second catch is that there is no other rewards structure, not even a flat 1% cash back. There is no incentive to put any significant purchases on this card, as you won’t get any additional cash back.

In the end, this card would work best for:

1. People who naturally charge very little on their cards, but at least something every month. Maybe you’ll miss out on a quarter here and there, but with small total purchase amounts it would still be more than you’d get from a normal rewards card.
2. Detail-oriented folks who are willing to jump through the hoops to get that $100 to $120 per year by charging small amounts and paying them off every month. (Then put all your other charges on a 1%/5% or flat 2% cashback card or other better card.) You could try and automate this somehow with a scheduled $5 monthly charitable contribution, put Netflix bill on auto-pay, or something similar. I can’t recall if BofA lets you also automate the payment.

I think the best play here is to try and convert an existing Bank of America credit card that you don’t use anymore (cash out the rewards completely first!). Ideally you’ll get access to the benefits without an additional credit check. Otherwise, in the current environment, it is quite easy to get $500 or more value upfront out of a new credit card application. A credit pull is valuable and I’d rather have a big bonus now instead of having to jump through hoops for 4-5 years. If/when the bonuses start to drop, then this card would start to look better.

Amazon just announced Local Register, which allows small businesses to accept credit cards on their smartphone or tablet much like Square, Paypal, etc. The special thing is their initial promotional rate of 1.75% until the end of 2015 if you sign up by October 31st, 2014. Their standard rate is 2.5%. Square’s standard rate is 2.75%, PayPal is 2.7%. So this is a decent savings of at least 30% on your credit card processing fees. No minimum amounts or monthly fees. Via NYT Bits.

To swipe cards, you have to buy the dongle for $10 with free 2-day shipping, but it also includes $10 in free processing fees. They just don’t want people ordering it and leaving it in their desk drawer (like I did with my Square reader). The lower rates apply to swiped cards only, manually entered numbers cost 2.75%. Compatible with iPhone 4 and newer, Samsung Galaxy S3 and newer, Kindle Fire HD and newer, and all iPads.

I’ve been seeing more Square-type readers at farmer’s markets and smaller retail kiosks. If you have higher volume, you may get a better deal via Costco or other traditional merchant accounts.

CreditKarma.com just announced that they will now provide members a full copy of their TransUnion credit report, free of charge and updated once a week if you log in that frequently. You should see a pop-up once you log in, otherwise navigate to My Finances > Full Credit Report (Beta).

Here’s a summary of their offering now:

• Free TransUnion New Account credit score. Updated once a week. Not a FICO-branded score, but can still be use to track relative changes over time.
• Free 24/7 credit monitoring of your TransUnion report. Will alert you if there are any changes, in case you’re like me and don’t really need a weekly update of your credit score. This is handy for tracking the location and timing of credit inquiries.
• Free full credit report of your TransUnion data. Updated once a week. Nice to be able to track any changes down the smallest detail if needed.

Everything is still free with no trials and no credit card required. Either Credit Karma is making some decent money off their website advertising, or the cost of credit reports and scores continues to drop. I think the latter is definitely an overall trend.

Don’t forget the other major bureaus to get your complete credit picture. Get free non-FICO scores and 24/7 credit monitoring from all three credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) here. I track and compare all of my free credit scores here.

Update: This LTO is now EXPIRED

Chase has just boosted the sign-up bonuses on their Ink cards. The Ink Bold Card and Ink Plus Card cards now offer 60,000 Ultimate Reward points after spending $5,000 within 3 months, which are worth 60,000 United miles, $600 cash, or $750 towards travel. That is 20% or 10,000 points higher than the standard offer. I believe this matches the highest bonus ever for these three cards.

The Ink Cash Card with no annual fee and 0% interest for 12 months is offering a $300 bonus (up from $200) after spending $3,000 within 3 months.

Chase Ink Bold Card bonus link

• For a limited time, earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards.
• No interest charges because it’s a pay in full charge card.
• Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• 1:1 point transfer to leading frequent travel programs with no transfer fees.
• Direct access to a live service advisor anytime.
• Free Employee Cards.

The 5X rewards on office supply stores from these two cards are handy as you can buy a wide variety of gift cards at Staples, Office Max, and Office Depot from prepaid cell phone reloads to Amazon gift cards to Home Depot and other retailers. This effectively gets you back 5X Ultimate Rewards points on a lot of your everyday spending.

Chase Ink Plus Card bonus link

• For a limited time, earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months from account opening. That’s $750 toward travel when you redeem through Chase Ultimate Rewards.
• With Ink Plus, you have the cash flow flexibility with the choice to pay over time or pay in full.
• Earn 5X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services.
• Earn 2X points per $1 on the first $50,000 spent annually at gas stations and for hotel accommodations when purchased directly with the hotel.
• No foreign transaction fees.
• 1:1 point transfer to participating travel programs with no transfer fees.
• Free Employee Cards.

The major difference is the Ink Bold is a charge card that you must pay in full each month and Ink Plus is a credit card where you can carry a balance. The good thing about this is that you can get both cards for the same business and thus both bonuses.

Chase Ink Cash Card bonus link

• For a limited time, earn $300 bonus cash back after you spend $3,000 in 3 months from account opening.
• 5% cash back on the first $25,000 spent annually at office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services.
• 2% cash back on the first $25,000 spent annually at gas stations and restaurants.
• 1% cash back on all other card purchases with no limit to the amount you can earn.
• 0% introductory APR for 12 months on purchases and balance transfers.
• No annual fee.

Many people aren’t aware of the fact that they can apply for business credit cards, even if they are not a corporation or LLC. The business type is called a sole proprietorship, and you may be a consultant, freelancer, or other one-person business. This is the simplest business entity, but it is fully legit and recognized by the IRS. On a business credit card application, you should use your own legal name as the business name, and your Social Security Number as the Tax ID.

NavyFed Credit Union has a limited-time promotion going on until Sunday, April 20th where if you do a balance transfer from an external financial institutions to your existing Navy Federal card, you’ll get a fixed 0% promo APR for 12 months with no balance transfer fee. It is unclear if this offer is targeted to specific e-mail recipients as it is not mentioned on the home page, but I’d definitely call in and ask if interested.

Membership eligibility for NavyFed is primarily restricted to military personnel including Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force – including retirees and family members – but also includes some civilian employees in the Department of Defense. Similar previous offers from NavyFed have used “existing” in their terms to suggest that new credit card applications are ineligible, but that wording does not appear on this offer.

There has never been a better time to consolidate your high rate balance to your Navy Federal Credit Card. You’ll save more, thanks to no balance transfer fees1 and a 0% fixed intro APR2 on balance transfers for 12 months. After that, a variable rate between 7.99% APR and 18% APR applies.1

This is a solid offer as it has been harder to find a no balance transfer fee 0% APR offer these days even though interest rates are still relatively low. However, you’ll note that Chase is not mentioned in their little balance transfer fee comparison chart as the Slate® from Chase is also currently available with a 0% introductory APR on both balance transfers and purchases for 15 months with $0 balance transfer fee and $0 annual fee. All you have to do is initiate your balance transfer within 60 days of opening the account.

Either way, both cards are good opportunities to lower the interest rate on your existing balances and accelerate any debt payoff plans.

If you’re looking for a solid cash back card and are willing to open a Fidelity account (or are an existing customer), then you should really consider the credit card offerings from Fidelity, especially the Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express Card.

This card earns a flat 2% cash back on purchases, as long as you deposit the money into an eligible account at Fidelity:

• Fidelity Cash Management Account
• Fidelity Brokerage account
• Fidelity-managed 529 account
• Fidelity Retirement account (IRA, Roth IRA, SEP-IRA, Rollover IRA)

Once your 2% rewards balance goes over $50, it will automatically deposit into your linked Fidelity account. I used to have my money go into a Fidelity 529; I think their investment options are okay but not the best, but this way you won’t spend your rewards on something frivolous. However, these days I just have it deposit into my brokerage account so I can invest it. An IRA would be too confusing for me due to the stringent IRS contribution limit rules. (If you’ve maxed out the limit, they say that they will automatically defer the rebate until the next year. But what if you have a partially phased-out limit due to income, and your limit is reduced to $2,350? How would they know that?)

In terms of catches, it’s mostly that you have to open an extra Fidelity account if you don’t have one already. It appears that the Fidelity Cash Management account has no opening minimum, but if you want to make some trades the Fidelity brokerage account you will need $2,500 to open that (no ongoing minimum balance requirement). I would open your Fidelity account first to make sure you have no issues.

Note also that the rewards only come in $50 increments:

Customers earn 2 points for each $1 in net retail purchases. Once you reach 5,000 points, they can be redeemed automatically or on demand for cash at a 1% exchange rate into an eligible Fidelity account (i.e. 5,000 points = $50 deposit).

So a $49 rewards balance = $0 in your pocket. It will roll over each month until the balance goes above $50, when the entire thing (i.e. $62.54) will arrive in your Fidelity account. Then the $50 hurdle kicks back in. So it is a little harder to time a cash out of your remaining balance if you wanted to close the account (but why would you?).

Finally, it is an AmEx and not a Visa/Mastercard, but I’ve found the number of merchants accepting American Express much improved since 10 years ago although there are still gaps in areas like utilities, insurance, and small mom & pop restaurants and stores.

But really, with no annual fee, this card and the Citi Double Cash card have raised the bar for a “basic” rewards card to 2% cash back at the very minimum.