a way to get a discount

is to buy gift cards from ebay.

the current valuation:

• home depot cards are cheap, you can get around 10% discount.
• the hottest is Walmart cards. you get 5% if u r lucky.
• basically every chain store cards are available.

extras:

1. pay through paypal, you get protection. you can distribute and get refund.
2. ebay gives you about 2% rebate to spend in the next quarter.

confusion: some people make the sale guaranteed to loose money - they must have some tricks that i don't know about. i once bought a $100 walmart card at $95. i got the card directly from Walmart with Walmart envelope.

also, i have seen some (especially low value cards) cards are being sold for more than face value. e.g. $25 card is being bid at $26.

with ebay commissions, how did the seller make profit?!!!

credit scores - bad model of me

did not grow up in this country makes me not very aware of the importance of credit.

learned my lesson once again - citi bank closed my shell mastercard before the expiration date. chase bank earlier this year lowered my credit so now i have only one c-card with $1K limit.

• i used to have a BoA card with over $10K limit. they closed it after it expired two years ago.
• i had a BonJovi logo card from BoA with $6K to start with. i only applied the card for BonJovi photo on the card, as well as a t-shirt and a cap with BonJovi logos. i cancelled the card as soon as i got the BonJovi gifts.
• i had a Amex card with "unlimited" credit (but the bank must have a confidential limit thus rejected some big purchases) but cancelled it after they started to charge annual fees.
• I had a chase card with $5K deposit to secure. but it was a credit card. it was used to build my scores when i first arrived. (at the time, many of my crdit card - such as the shell gas card - were rejected because i didn't have enough credit cards, IRONIC!!!) i closed it as soon as i had too many cards.
• ...

at the peak i had 4 cards with over $14K limit. but how come my score has become so bad?

1. one time i got a late fee from my Banana Rep. card (you know how the merchant charges the late fees, $39 on a balance of $19.) and the bank would not waive them. so i refused to pay it. they finally sold the balance to the collector. the collector was very hard to deal with. i refused to pay the $100+ balance. my wife got a call from the collector and paid in full (in contrast, she is very aware of the score.)
2. i did not use the online pay features and was tight on when to send the checks for payment. so the payments were late quite a few times.
3. for some reason, i have been victims a few times of identity hijacking. people used my card in Mexico (when my card is actually with me); people opened bank accounts using my name but different address. they even had set up online access with their own username and PIN and stuff.