Walgreens is having a promotion on will refill one of your ink cartridges for free on April 2nd (April 7th in Hawaii). Just look in their 3/20 Sunday ad or print out this online coupon. It usually costs $10 for black & white, $15 for color. Here is a list of eligible brands and models (no Canon or Epson). Via Wisebread.

KeyBank is offering a $100 pre-loaded Mastercard for opening up a Free Checking account with them and making two direct deposits and/or automated payments. You must reside in a state that has KeyBank locations. There is a lot of fine print, but the free iPod Nano I’m listening to right now is from a previous offer. This is only a partial excerpt:

Must open a qualifying checking account […] between 3/29/08 and 4/25/08 and make a combination of two direct deposits and/or automated payments each of $100 or more by 6/27/08. […] You will receive your $100 Key Possibilities MasterCard® card within 90 days of meeting requirements. Direct deposit transactions are limited to: payroll, social security, pension and government benefits. Automated payments exclude Key Bill Pay, debit card automated payments, PayPal® transactions and account to account balance transfers. If you close your account within 180 days of account opening, you will be charged a $25 account early closure fee.

I can’t stop the stock market from tumbling any further, but here’s a quick roundup of promotions by companies willing to pay you to try out their services. None of these listed require even a credit check. Additional information can be found through the links provided.

• LendingClub $25 Bonus. Just sign up as a peer-to-peer lender and you’ll get $25 in your account, just link your bank account. If you deposit $1,000 you’ll get $50. More details here.
• RevolutionMoneyExchange $25 Bonus. Also no initial deposit required to try this money-transfer service. More details here.
• TextPayMe $5 Bonus. No deposit required. You can pay people via text message with this service. More details here.
• eBates $10 Bonus. eBates offers rebates on online store purchases. After your first purchase of any amount, you’ll get a $10 bonus. Or you can simply sign-up for a free trial of Netflix through eBates and get another $18. Just remember to cancel in time. More details here.
• Prosper $25 Bonus. Also a peer-to-peer lender. You’ll need to make a loan of $50 to receive your $25. More details here.
• Capital One 360 $25 Bonus. One of the earliest online-only savings accounts, Capital One 360 will pay you $25 immediately if your initial deposit is at least $250.

I have gotten all of the bonuses above successfully except for the Prosper one, as I had signed up before the promotion started. I have also gotten several $100 bonuses from these credit cards, although applying will require a credit check.

Oprah had Suze Orman on her show today, and as part of it they are giving out a free download of her latest book Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny. You can find more information and the download link on this page, but it’s only available until 2/14 at 8pm EST [update: no longer available, sorry!]. So download it now, and read it later!

Hat tip to My Open Wallet.

Last week, I pointed out how to get a free Experian credit score via Prosper. You can already get free credit reports from AnnualCreditReport.com as well as in other special situations. But what about services like daily credit score monitoring?

Now, a new site called CreditKarma is offering free daily credit scores. For comparison, FICO’s own Score Watch program costs $89.95 per year. So what’s the catch?

1. It’s not a real FICO score. This is another FICO-clone, with a score ranging from 300 to 900. (FICO is from 300 to 850.) It also doesn’t say from which bureau this score is based upon, as they say they can pull from any of the big three (Experian, Equifax, Transunion). My guess is that they’ll use whatever is available that is both cheaper than FICO and still reasonably accurate. That’s what I would do…
2. You only get the score. The service is pretty barebones. You don’t get information about who’s pulling your credit, how often they are doing it, or information about your existing credit lines. So the “alerts” feature is missing. Instead, the primary attraction is the ability to see trends – is your score increasing or decreasing over time?
3. They are advertiser-supported, so I guess they are counting on people to obsessively check their score every day. I’ve always been a bit mystified by such behavior, but I don’t check the stock market ticker all day long either. From their privacy policy it seems that they are using your personal information to target ads to you, but aren’t actually sharing your info with others unless you opt-in. I sure hope not!

Security and Privacy Concerns
Okay, it’s free, so price isn’t a barrier to using this service. But it’s definitely wise to think twice before giving out personal information like my Social Security number to a start-up company. I read through their site, and didn’t see any glaring security holes. They use common third-party systems like ScanAlert Hacker Safe, TRUSTe, and Verisign. If you do notice something fishy, please share in the comments. The CEO will be reading, given that he’s the one that told me about this site.

It was in stock, then out of stock, now back in stock! Free Schick Quattro Titanium Razor sample, while supplies last. If successful, you should get the message “Thank you for signing up! Your free razor is on its way!”.

Amazon Prime, in case you don’t know, is a premium service where you get free 2nd-day shipping on most items with no minimum, even if you’re just spending $5. Very convenient. The normal cost for turning Amazon into your impulse-buying superstore is $79 per year (not available to Alaska, Hawaii, P.O. boxes, APO/FPO and U.S. territories).

This might be old, but it appears that if you are signing up for a new account with a new e-mail address, you will be offered a 1 month free trial right now. You’ll need to supply a credit card number, but you can set it so you don’t have to remember to cancel if you take the following steps:

1. Click on Your Account.
2. If you’re not there yet, scroll down and click on Subscriptions Management > Manage Your Amazon Prime Membership.
3. Look for green text. Click on the Do Not Upgrade button and you won’t automatically be charged $79 anymore. You’ll still get the entire 1st month of free Amazon Prime shipping.

Another startup website, WeddingWire, is offering a $5 gift card to Amazon.com for newlyweds and married folks who provide reviews of 5 wedding vendors. Thanks to reader Susie for the tip.

Although this may not be the most efficient use of time, I kind of like the idea of sharing feedback in this area. You’re usually talking about a large amount of money on a one-time event. Reviews would have definitely been welcome. In our case, we actually got food poisoning from one (rather expensive) hotel meal we had, we didn’t feel they handled it very well. On the flip side, our photographer was awesome and exceeded our expectations. Not a bad deal overall – One horrible night after the wedding, but a permanent set of beautiful pictures. 🙂