Greg In The Desert

CitiBank, my mortgage holder, sent me the following offer. This is the second time they have sent this to me. The first time was on June 17th which expired on July 15th and this one expires on August 15th.

Get $100 when you open a Citibank regular checking account.

As a valued CitiMortgage customer, you are invited to open a Citibank checking account and get $100. Plus, you’ll enjoy all the benefits and services that come with being a Citibank customer. It’s our way of saying thanks for choosing Citibank.

How to get your $100:
1. Open a Citibank regular checking account in a qualifying package and deposit a minimum of $1,000.
2. Perform qualifying activities.
3. Get $100 deposited into your new account.

What? A $100 on a $1000 depoist. That’s a 10% return! Let me see what the fine print is.

This offer is available to CitiMortgage customers who receive this communication.

OK no problem. I qualify on both counts.

Offer is not valid for existing Citibank checking customers. All accounts are subject to approval and applicable terms and fees. Participation limited to United States (“U.S.”) citizens or resident aliens with a valid U.S. taxpayer identification number. Customer is responsible for taxes, if any. Persons under 18 years of age are not eligible. Offer may be modified or withdrawn at any time without notice, is not transferable and cannot be combined with any other offer.

That all sounds reasonable to me.

Customer must open a regular checking account in a Citibank Account, Citibank Everything Counts® or Citigold® account relationship package by 7/15/09 and make an initial deposit of at least $1,000.

A Citibank Everything Counts checking account has a $25 fee unless $10,000 is maintained and a Citigold account has fees unless $100,000 is maintained across all the Citibank accounts. They are starting to loose me. Perhaps I can close it before the first month?

Beginning no later than the first month after account opening, customer must complete at least one direct deposit to, or at least two electronic bill payments from, the checking account, or five or more qualifying non-PIN purchase transactions using your Citibank debit card each month for three consecutive months to get $100. Electronic bill payments are those you make using Citibank® Online, Citi Mobile® or CitiPhone Banking®. A bill that is paid by making a transfer between linked accounts does not qualify as a bill payment for this offer. Qualifying non-PIN purchases must be submitted through the MasterCard® Network and are those for which either you or a merchant designates as a “credit” transaction (including purchases you sign for, small dollar purchases that do not require a signature and use of your MasterCard® PayPass™), Internet, phone and mail-order transactions. Qualifying purchases do not include those initiated using a Personal Identification Number (PIN) or other transactions submitted through other payment processing networks.

Ughhh… Now they want me to actually use the account!

$100 will be deposited to your Citibank checking account within 120 days from the end of the statement period in which you met the qualifying requirements. Your Citibank checking account must be open and in good standing at the time bonus payment is deposited.

Citibank has 3 months in which to give me the $100. That means I will probably be paying 3 months of fees since I probably wont be able to maintain the minimum balances.

Separate enrollment of eligible checking account in ThankYou® Network required. Enrollment and participation are subject to terms, conditions and restrictions. Participation limited to customers who are either citizens or resident aliens of the United States (U.S.) with a valid U.S. taxpayer identification number. Taxes, if any, are customer’s responsibility.

ThankYou is Citibank’s reward program. I don’t think there are any fees for it but I can’t tell.

I guess the $100 will at the minimum turn into $25 and may even cost me money if I take this offer. Plus I would have to go through a lot of trouble moving money to Citibank and using the account. No thanks Citibank.

• KOB.com – HP to break ground on Rio Rancho center
• Intel feels pain from dropping revenue, WiMAX investment
  This morning, in advance of its official earnings announcement next week, the company released preliminary earnings figures that indicate the situation has gotten worse over the holiday season. It now looks like Intel's revenue came in another billion dollars below the November estimate, or nearly $2 billion below what the company was predicting in October. The $8.2 billion it expects to see represents a 20 percent drop from the prior quarter, and a full 23 percent year-over-year. The same factors that were blamed in the November announcement are fingered in the preliminary earnings report. Gross margins dropped to roughly 55 percent.
• Rio Rancho Police Launch Online Crime Alert And Mapping Service – Albuquerque News Story – KOAT Albuquerque
  The service provides mapped neighborhood crime data in near real-time and is available now.
  The service is free to the public and allows citizens to receive automatic daily, weekly or monthly e-mail alerts if and/or when a crime occurs near a location of their interest such as home, office, or school. Citizens can also review reported crime activity on a map for any location within Rio Rancho boundaries.

I can’t help be be amused that the Mayor of Albuquerque has suspended the red light camera program over money. According to him, the purpose of the program was not to make money, but was to increase safety at risky intersections. Its questionable if the data supports this, but the program did make money, like $10 million. Oops, that extra $10 million wasn’t supposed to happen. Or was it?

Now the state wants a cut of it, or I guess all of it, so goodbye cash cow. I’m sure all interested parties will find a way so everyone can profit. except the citizens.

I’ve been thinking and saying out loud that the City Manager should be fired. Mainly for things like Unser Road and other such things going on in Rio Rancho. Loos like I’m not the only one as City Manager Jim Palenick was canned by the City Council. KRQE reported on it and so did the Citizens Media Group.

Palenick’s management style alienated some on staff, and two department heads had threatened to resign, including Rob Anderson, director of development services. Anderson had followed Palenick from Bay City, Mich., where Palenick had been fired from his job as city manager in August 2002.

Hopefully we will see some better planing around here with the next guy.

The TIA, or was known as ‘Total Information Awareness’ was/is a plan my the Government to collect all information about anything and everything. They would cross reference it and put it in a big database. They then could look up anything and know everything about it, or most worrisome, about anyone.

The MIT Media Lab has come up with GIA, or Government Information Awareness. As this Slashdot article says, “The premise of GIA is that if the government has a right to know personal details about citizens, then citizens have a right to similar information about the government.”

I think the government is still working on TIA in some form or another.

I couldn’t agree more with Alton Brown when he says (June 10th, BTW).

“I?m just saying that people with authority should have to play by a set of rules…published rules. If as a nation we?re going to have to tolerate being probed, scanned, profiled and frisked before we can get on an airplane, so be it. But it seems to me that we deserve a little consistency. Otherwise we open ourselves up to a whole new brand of bully…bullies with badges…not to mention really nice omelet pans.”

(TSA = Transportation Security Administration)

In the year before September 11th, 2001 I was working away from home in California. I flew back and forth for 9 months and got quite familiar with the airport system. I was luck that my assignment was over just before those planes crashed into the towers. At the time I thought it a good idea to turn over security to the feds. I mean, they should be doing for the safety of the citizens instead of for the money (not that “for the money” is a bad thing). Having been through security since then I can think that it is nothing more than a joke. They have random searches of peoples shoes? Give me a break.