Not long ago, I asked readers to list their favorite online brokers. The results are now in, so I thought I’d compile the results here, for your edification. What follows is a list of online brokers that garnered multiple recommendations. There were a number of broker that received a single recommendation, but I’m only including those that got at least two votes. [more]

eBay sellers, listen up… Starting in May, eBay is changing their feedback policy such that sellers will no longer be able to leave negative feedback. The logic here is that they don’t want buyers to withhold negative feedback against a bad seller for fear of retaliation, even if their complaint is legitimate. According to eBay, sellers are 8x more likely to leave retaliatory feedback than are buyers.

While I can understand their reasoning, this change creates an uneven playing field, where sellers with excellent reputations can be held hostage by buyers with unreasonable expectations. Let’s say that something gets lost or delayed in the mail. In the past, the buyer was more likely to follow up with the seller and try to work things out, as they didn’t want to jump straight to negative feedback and receive the same thing in return. But now buyers are free to fly off the handle without trying to get things resolved.

On the upside, negative feedback will only figure into your percentage for 12 months, and you can get negatives from non-paying bidders removed. Just file a non-paying bidder report and, if they don’t respond within 21 days, the negative goes away. Likewise, if the buyer gets suspended, the negative goes away.

I just got an e-mail from Blockbuster that purportedly contained “Important Account Information.” Upon opening it, I discovered that, in order to continue providing us with “the unmatched convenience of both online and in-store DVD rentals,” they’ll be raising our monthly rate from $17.99 to $19.99. Yuck. For reference, we’re on the unlimited 3-at-a-time by mail plus 5 free in-store exchange plan.

I’m not sure how (or if) their other plans are changing, as they haven’t updated their website to reflect the changes. But given that they just reduced service/raised prices in August, I’m not thrilled about this news. Perhaps it’s once again time to consider NetFlix…

Last year I relied very heavily upon Amazon.com for my Christmas shopping. And now that we’ve signed up for Amazon Prime, I’m relying on them even more heavily this year. The combination of convenience, generally low prices, and their price drop guarantee is pretty hard to resist. [more]

Interesting… I just ran across a list of the most expensive items purchased at Amazon.com during 2006. To be honest, the items on this list aren’t nearly as expensive as I would’ve expected…

Indeed, it seems that nobody is buying things like the $204,000 IWC watch or the Antique Russian Floral Bouquet Paperweight even though they’re both in stock and the watch is being offered for a whopping $36,000 off list price.

Returning to the list reference above, I’m not sure about you guys, but I’d much prefer my own personal set of bleachers to a 60 volume biographical collection. Sadly, the reviews aren’t great, and there’s a 3-5 week wait on the bleachers. Then again, this may be for the best given that shipping costs a bit over $1500.

What’s the most exotic thing that you’ve seen for sale at Amazon?

As I noted the other day, we’re changing our reward credit card strategy, in part due to perceived inflexibility on Citi’s part when it comes to making automated payments. It turns out that I may have been wrong about what you can and cannot do, so I just hopped on over to the Citi website to request the enrollment kit for the Autopay service. While I was there, I ran across the following message:

Please note: Customers using comment or blog tracking services on their computers run the risk that information submitted here could be displayed on those websites. Please disable your comment and blog tracking service before using the Citi Cards Message Center.

I’m assuming that they’re talking here about services like coComment, which allows you to track your conversations (primarily weblog comments) across websites. I’ve never used any of these services, but it seems like this could be a relatively major security hole if using them does indeed result in things like supposedly secure conversations with your bank being slurped up and deposited on a third-party site.

As an aside, there’s no need to use these sorts of services to keep track of conversations here at FiveCentNickel… Rather, simply check the box labeled:

“Notify me of followup comments via e-mail”

before submitting your comment and you’re good to go (and you can cancel these notifications at any time).

This is just a quick note to let you know that I’ve created a discount code (97BONES) through Dreamhost that gives you $97 off your first year of hosting. Given that a year of hosting costs $119.40, this works out to an 81% discount. Your final cost for the entire year will be $22.40, and you even get a free domain name registration.

In case you’re not aware how this works, Dreamhost customers can create promo codes that offer discoutns of up to $97. If you set it up for less, you get to keep the difference when someone signs up. In this case, I’ve set it up to give you guys the maximum discount available. Since $97 - $97 = $0, it’s a good deal for you and a push for me.

Full disclosure: I ultimately outgrew Dreamhost and had to move on to greener pastures (with a dedicated server). Early on, Dreamhost served my purposes very well, and it’s a great way to get your feet wet without risking much money (here’s a rundown of what they offer). If nothing else, it gives you a place to back up files online since you get 500 GB of space (to start with - it increases by 2 GB every week), and it supports WebDAV such that you can map your storage space to your desktop like a virtual hard drive. In fact, even though I no longer host with Dreamhost, I’ve kept my account open for these sorts of uses.

Note that you can also create your own promo codes after you get started to help reduce your costs even further (or even turn a profit).

If you’re interested, hop on over to Dreamhost and use promo code ‘97BONES‘ to get started. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Well, this is interesting… Earlier this week I wrote about how Zecco relies on their free online stock trades to land customers, as opposed to bankrolling major marketing campaigns. But just the other night I saw a primetime TV ad for Zecco on Comedy Central (I think). Maybe I’ve just had my head in the sand, but I don’t recall seeing TV spots of this sort in the past.

There’s nothing terribly significant about this, it just makes me wonder if they’re re-thinking their marketing strategy. I guess now that they’ve tightened up their commission structure a bit, they can afford to do more in the way of mainstream promotion. Regardless, Zecco still looks like a pretty solid deal if you’re in the market for a cheap (free) online broker.

Have you ever wondered how a free online broker like Zecco makes money? In case you’re not familiar with them, Zecco offers free online stocks trades — up to ten per month as long as you maintain a minimum account balance of $2500. Gone are the days of paying “discount” brokers anywhere from $10-$30/trade.

I’m particularly intrigued by the possibility of using Zecco to invest in Vanguard ETFs, which are a good bit cheaper than their index funds once you get past the commissions. [more]

Last week we took the plunge and signed up for Amazon Prime. In case you’re not familiar with Amazon Prime, it’s:

“An exclusive membership program that gives you and your family the benefits of unlimited express shipping on eligible Amazon.com purchases.”

It costs $79/year to join. In return for your membership fee, you get free two-day shipping and $3.99 overnight shipping on a ton of items. Basically, if it’s eligible for Super-Saver Shipping, then it’s eligible for Amazon Prime. Unlike Super-Saver Shipping, however, there is no minimum purchase required — and your stuff comes quicker.

While this is admittedly a bit of a luxury, it opens up a whole new spectrum of convenience for us. For example, our smoke detector started beeping the other night because the battery was low. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any spare batteries around the house. Had we been signed up for Amazon Prime at the time, we could’ve ordered a 9 volt battery and had it delivered to our door in two days for just $1.46. When extrapolated out over a year, this has the potential to save us a substantial number of trips to the store, and thus a good bit of time.

Sure, we could plan ahead, group our purchases together to get over the $25 minimum, and then wait patiently for our stuff to arrive. However, as our lives get increasingly busy (we’re raising four boys, coaching three soccer teams, etc.), that gets more and more difficult. In fact, I ended up pulling the trigger on Amazon Prime while gift shopping for our oldest son’s birthday just three days before the big day.

Well see how it goes over the course of the next 12 months. For the time being, however, I’m perfectly happy to pay a bit extra for some conveniences.