April 27, 2024

You are here: Home / Archives for spokeswoman

NBC’s Display of a 30-Shot Gun Magazine Prompts a Police Inquiry

December 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment

NBC had asked the police for permission to use a high-capacity magazine and “was informed that possession of a high-capacity magazine is not permissible, and their request was denied,” said Officer Araz Alali, a police spokesman.

“This matter is currently being investigated,” he said. “I can’t get into any other specifics of this investigation.”

A spokeswoman for NBC declined to comment.

According to a federal law enforcement official, an NBC employee contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Friday to ask whether it would be legal for Mr. Gregory to show the magazine on television without the ammunition. The bureau, which does not enforce Washington’s gun laws, said it would be legal. That information, however, was incorrect, as it is illegal to have any empty magazine in Washington, the official said.

Mr. Gregory displayed the magazine, which rapidly feeds ammunition into the chamber of a gun, about 10 minutes into his interview with Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A. vice president. The host picked it up from the table in front of him and held it in the air as he questioned Mr. LaPierre.

“Let’s widen the argument out a little bit,” Mr. Gregory said. “So here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets. Now isn’t it possible that if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said, ‘Well, you could only have a magazine that carries 5 bullets or 10 bullets,’ isn’t it just possible that we can reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?”

Mr. LaPierre said he did not believe it would have made a difference. “There are so many different ways to evade that, even if you had that,” he said.

In Washington, people who are caught in possession of the type of magazine that Mr. Gregory had can face up to a year in prison, said David Benowitz, a criminal defense lawyer.

“You would be arrested; you would most likely be charged with possession of an illegal magazine,” Mr. Benowitz said, adding that “depending on what time you were arrested, you would most likely be held overnight.”

Prosecutors and defense lawyers often work out a plea agreement in which defendants receive probation and have a misdemeanor charge on their criminal record, Mr. Benowitz said. If defendants have a prior criminal record or lose a jury trial, they could face a stiffer sentence.

Mr. Benowitz said the accusation from the police that NBC had asked for permission and then had gone ahead with showing the magazine “didn’t help Gregory’s case.”

NBC was the only network to have a televised interview on Sunday with Mr. LaPierre, who held a nationally televised news conference on Friday to address the issue of gun control after the school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

At several points during the interview, the word “Exclusive” appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/27/us/washington-police-investigating-nbc-over-gun-device.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Media Business Tagged With: , ,

Media Decoder Blog: Accuser of Kevin Clash, Elmo Puppeteer, Recants Claim

November 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

9:27 p.m. | Updated The man who accused Kevin Clash, the voice and puppeteer of the “Sesame Street” character Elmo, of an under-age sexual relationship has recanted that claim, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

The reversal came a day after the claim was published by the gossip Web site TMZ, threatening Mr. Clash’s reputation and alarming parents and other fans of the beloved children’s television franchise.

Andreozzi Associates, a law firm that said it represented the anonymous accuser, said in a statement on Tuesday afternoon that “he wants it to be known that his sexual relationship with Mr. Clash was an adult consensual relationship.” The statement added, “He will have no further comment on the matter.”

Mr. Clash said through a spokeswoman: “I am relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest. I will not discuss it further.”

The statements were followed by detectable sighs of relief from those who had been alarmed by seeing the words “under-age sex” in the same sentence as “Elmo” (whose name was trending on Twitter nationwide on Tuesday evening).

“We are pleased that this matter has been brought to a close, and we are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode,” said Sesame Workshop, the organization that produces “Sesame Street.”

The organization did not say when — or even whether — Mr. Clash would return to work at “Sesame Street.” On Sunday, he took a leave of absence when it became clear that TMZ was going to publish an article about the accusation of inappropriate and possibly illegal conduct.

The Web site said on Monday that the accuser, now 24 years old, contacted Sesame Workshop last summer and claimed that, beginning at age 16, he had a sexual relationship with Mr. Clash. “Voice of Elmo Denies Sex With Under-Age Boy,” the site’s headline read. Mr. Clash, now 52 years old, responded by saying that the relationship “was between two consenting adults” — something that the accuser affirmed on Tuesday afternoon. The accuser’s law firm did not respond to follow-up questions.

Mr. Clash has played Elmo on “Sesame Street” for decades. He was profiled in a documentary last year, “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey.” When his accuser first contacted Sesame Workshop in June, officials at the organization ordered up several investigations, both by its own staff and by outside firms. They all concluded that the accusation was false.

Despite that, the accuser’s claim was published by TMZ. The site followed up on Tuesday with excerpts from an explicit e-mail said to be from Mr. Clash, which the Web site pointed out was “sent well after the accuser turned 18.” Harvey Levin, the editor of TMZ, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The episode this week led to Mr. Clash coming out as a gay man, something he had not previously discussed in public. “I have never been ashamed of this or tried to hide it, but felt it was a personal and private matter,” he said in the statement on Monday.

Production of “Sesame Street” has been unaffected by Mr. Clash’s leave of absence. Mr. Clash had been helping to identify other puppeteers who could play Elmo for some time, and they will fill in for him while he is away from work, a Sesame Workshop executive said on Monday.

Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/accuser-recants-allegation-against-elmo-puppeteer/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Spain Raises Deficit Forecast

December 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

MADRID — Spain’s new conservative government revised upward its forecast for the country’s 2011 budget deficit, saying it would represent 8 percent of its gross domestic product, up from the 6 percent target of the last government.

The new administration approved 8.9 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in spending cuts Friday and maintained a freeze on civil servants’ salaries and a freeze on practically all government hiring, said Soraya Sáenz de Santamaria, a government spokeswoman.

Taxes on the wealthiest Spaniards will be raised but temporarily, for two years.

The government is seeking to reassure markets that it has a plan to get a grip on its public finances at the same time as it tries to kick-start an economy saddled with sky-high unemployment.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=dae0647dde4929bbbb53ebdc75ccbaef

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

The Texas Tribune: Rick Perry’s Job Creation Initiatives in Texas Are Questioned

December 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

But the number of jobs his office credits the program with creating has been scrutinized by Mr. Perry’s opponents, who say the fund’s contributions to the Texas economy have been far overstated. And a national nonprofit has said the Enterprise Fund lacks the accountability measures to ensure it is creating quality jobs.

Mr. Perry helped create the program in 2003 with the goal of luring new companies to Texas by providing grants. Companies undergo an 11-step “due diligence” process before a contract is signed, and the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the Texas House must all approve, said Lucy Nashed, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry.

The contracts require companies to meet job-creation milestones each year and maintain those jobs for an extended period of time. The governor’s office said companies that are subsidized through the fund created or maintained a combined 33,460 new jobs in 2010. Although 28 of the companies failed to meet their job targets, and at least four of those contracts were terminated, 25 reported a job surplus, which led to a total of 9,795 more jobs than the contracts required.

But Craig McDonald, the executive director of Texans for Public Justice, which tracks money and political influence in Texas politics, said the job growth cited by the governor’s office is misleading. A report released by Mr. McDonald’s group last month said that amendments to recipients’ state contracts, lowering targets or postponing deadlines, “undercut the job promises.”

While some companies whose contracts were amended were able to meet their revised targets, others still fell short. Of the 15 Enterprise Fund companies with amended contracts that filed compliance reports with the governor’s office in 2010, eight did not meet their new job targets. Combined, the 15 companies fell 941 jobs short of their amended projection.

Ms. Nashed said that it was impossible to predict a business cycle and that the ability to amend contracts benefits companies and taxpayers. Under the revised contract terms, the state can “require the company to have to maintain those jobs longer than they would have before,” Ms. Nashed said. She also said the contracts allow the state to reclaim money if companies do not meet their obligations.

So far, companies with amended contracts have repaid $7.7 million to the state — a little more than 11 percent of the funds disbursed — for failing to meet job targets on time. Mr. Perry’s office has also reclaimed $16 million from 11 companies whose contracts were terminated, or just over half of the funds originally disbursed to those companies.

The nonprofit Good Jobs First released a report this month comparing 238 job creation programs across the country. Although the Texas Economic Development Act, an incentive program managed by the state comptroller, received a perfect score, the Texas Enterprise Fund received low marks.

Thomas Cafcas, the report’s co-author, said the Enterprise Fund lacks uniform accountability measures — like market-based wage and health care requirements — that would ensure the program creates quality jobs. Implementing consistent standards would also guarantee “there are no backroom dealings that change the rules” midcontract, Mr. Cafcas said.

Ray Perryman, a Texas economist, said incentive programs are always controversial. He said the Enterprise Fund has been largely effective at luring businesses to Texas, so it is appropriate for Mr. Perry to “receive recognition for its success.”

baaronson@texastribune.org

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=68c73e300f043b179cd24ebe8e8105ac

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

Walmart Removes Enfamil Formula After Boy Dies

December 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The action by Walmart and Supervalu, which owns supermarket chains like Acme and Jewel, was highly unusual because there had been no determination by authorities that the formula was to blame for the child’s death, and neither the manufacturer nor federal officials had sought a recall.

Shares of Mead Johnson Nutrition, which manufactures Enfamil, fell more than 20 percent intraday on Thursday as news about the situation spread. The stock partly recovered by the end of the day, closing at $68.76, down 10 percent.

The Food and Drug Administration said it was testing samples of the formula, Enfamil Premium Newborn powder, that it had obtained from the family of the dead child, Avery Cornett. Officials asserted that there was no immediate indication that the formula had been contaminated.

A Walmart spokeswoman said the company learned on Sunday night of the baby’s death and that his parents had fed him formula bought at the chain’s store in Lebanon, Mo. On Monday, the company decided to pull all containers of the formula that had come from the same manufacturing lot from the shelves of its stores.

“As a precautionary measure, we made a company decision to remove the specific lot of the product from our store shelves nationwide,” said Dianna Gee, the Walmart spokeswoman. “We’re not saying the product’s unsafe.”

Walmart identified the product consumed by the baby who died as Enfamil Premium Newborn powdered infant formula in a 12.5-ounce container, with the lot number ZP1K7G printed on the bottom of the canister.

The baby boy, who was 10 days old when he died on Sunday, was infected with Cronobacter sakazakii, a bacterium that is commonly found in the environment and has occasionally been known to cause severe illness in infants.

In a written statement, Mead Johnson said Thursday, “We are confident that all our products are safe and nutritious when prepared, stored and used as instructed on the label.”

The company said that it had tested all of its formula for Cronobacter. It said that its records showed that the batch bought by the Missouri infant’s family had been tested before it was distributed and that no Cronobacter had been found.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that it received reports of about four to six Cronobacter infections in infants a year. The fatality rate is 40 percent.

Scientific studies and disease investigations have found Cronobacter in various types of formula. In some cases, when the bacterium was found in open containers, it was not clear whether the formula had become contaminated after opening. But in other instances, the bacterium has been found in sealed packages delivered from the factory.

In one case in 2001, an infant died from Cronobacter in Tennessee, and investigators found a genetically indistinguishable strain of the bacterium in sealed containers of the formula, according to reports by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the F.D.A. The formula, a Mead Johnson product called Portagen, was recalled.

Health officials said it was important for parents to take precautions when preparing formula. That includes washing hands thoroughly, sterilizing bottles and other feeding equipment and preparing only enough formula for a single feeding.

Officials said the bacterium could grow over time if it was in the formula, and holding onto mixed formula for more than one feeding could increase the chance of infection.

Ms. Gee said Walmart had removed the newborn formula from more than 3,000 stores nationwide. She said the company was holding onto the product and that if it was cleared in the investigation, the company might put it back on sale. Walmart continues to sell other Enfamil products.

Walmart said customers who bought Enfamil from the same lot could bring it back and receive a refund or another product in its place.

Supervalu said Thursday that it had also received formula from the same lot and was removing it from store shelves.

Michael A. Siemienas, a Supervalu spokesman, said the formula might have been shipped to hundreds of its stores around the country, including Jewel, Shaws, Shop and Save, Acme, Farm Fresh, Shoppers and some Albertsons supermarkets.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=bff1c28c1605395ec191a29d5614c53f

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Authors to Get Sales Data From Three Big Publishers

October 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Simon Schuster announced the creation of an author portal, a Web site where authors and illustrators can check sales of their books, broken down by type of merchant and book format, including digital.

Random House and the Hachette Book Group also said on Wednesday that they were in the planning stages of creating their own portals for authors that would offer sales and other relevant information. Sophie Cottrell, a spokeswoman for Hachette, said the company’s portal would be introduced sometime in 2012.

Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House, said a date had not yet been set, but that the site would provide sales data in all formats, in addition to marketing tools and related information.

The new services may help publishers strengthen their relationships with authors who have expressed frustration at the difficulty of getting up-to-date sales information. In the absence of data from their publishers, many writers turn to Amazon, which last year began giving them access to data from Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of print sales. This has helped forge stronger ties between Amazon and authors at a time when publishers are already feeling competitive pressure from Amazon’s plans to accelerate its own book publishing program. Carolyn K. Reidy, the president and chief executive of Simon Schuster, said that the portal was not a response to Amazon, but rather an effort to accede to authors’ requests to have immediate access to their sales figures, without being forced to ask their editors or agents to provide the information.

“There isn’t any place where they can go and get all of their sales figures,” Ms. Reidy said, adding that the project was years in the making. “We realized that we can give them the knowledge we have.”

For authors desperate to know how many copies their books have sold, there are few attractive options. Checking a book’s sales rank on Amazon only reveals how a book is selling compared to other books on Amazon. While book publishers say that they openly share information with authors and agents, they will sometimes hesitate to do so if a book is not selling well.

Authors who use Simon Schuster’s site are instructed not to share the data with anyone other than their literary agents. The site also features links to publishing news and instructional tips on using social media, blogs and videos to promote their books.

Agents and authors said they welcomed the news. “It’s a growing move toward transparency that the business has been going toward anyway,” said Christy Fletcher, a literary agent. “There’s much more equilibrium. Now everyone’s getting the same information.”

Dave Cullen, the author of “Columbine,” a nonfiction book published in 2009 by Twelve, part of Hachette, said he had become accustomed to haranguing his publisher for sales data. While his publisher was patient and accommodating, Mr. Cullen said, he frequently wondered why he could not check the same information himself.

“Some of this is the publishers trying to be competitive,” Mr. Cullen said. “And some of it is that they’re opening their eyes. Publishers didn’t realize the frustration that authors have.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5a93b5566f5ccde543eb2221df26eb73

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Bucks Blog: Banks Starting to Charge Customers for Debit Card Use

September 30, 2011 by Leave a Comment

A customer pays by swiping a debit card.Michael Stravato for The New York TimesA customer pays by swiping a debit card.

Starting Saturday, big banks must comply with a new regulation that caps the fees they can charge merchants for processing debit card purchases. But some consumers are already seeing the impact of the change, in the form of higher fees charged on their checking accounts, as banks seek to recoup lost revenue.

Bank of America is the latest bank to say it will begin charging a monthly fee for checking accounts that use debit cards. Starting early next year, the bank will charge $5 a month, in any month that the customer uses a debit card to make a purchase. (If customers have a debit card, but don’t use it, they won’t incur the fee.) The fee won’t apply to A.T.M. transactions, and it won’t be charged to customers with certain premium accounts, a bank spokeswoman, Betty Riess, said. “The economics of offering a debit card have changed with recent regulations,” she said.

Bank of America joins banks including SunTrust and Regions in charging the fees. Other institutions, like Wells Fargo and Chase, are testing them, too. And over all, bank fees have crept up to record levels, a recent survey found.

The added fees have come even though the limit on the merchant fees wasn’t as low as banks initially had feared. (The Federal Reserve originally considered a cap of 12 cents, or half of what it finally set.)

While consumers are seeing the impact of the change in their bank accounts, any potential savings benefit at stores is likely to be muted. “I don’t expect there to be any visible effects at the cash register,” said Aaron McPherson, practice director for payments at IDC Financial Insights. When similar caps were put in place in Australia, he said, merchants there didn’t pass along savings, so it’s unlikely that will happen here either.

That’s because, retail groups say, stores aren’t going to benefit as much as they had originally hoped under the new cap, and some merchants may actually pay higher fees.

The Fed earlier this year lowered the average maximum “swipe,” or interchange, fee to roughly half of what it had been previously. (Shoppers don’t pay the fees directly; banks collect them from merchants on behalf of payment networks like MasterCard and Visa, which set the rates. The rates vary depending on the type of merchant.)

Retail groups say the new cap is a “critical step” in reining in fees that contribute to higher prices for shoppers. But Brian Dodge, a spokesman for the Retail Industry Leaders Association, said the Fed, under pressure from banks, set a “deeply flawed” formula for the cap that will actually result in some retailers paying higher fees for small-dollar transactions — say, drinks sold at coffee shops.

The formula sets the cap at 21 cents, plus .05 percent of the transaction amount, plus another penny in certain cases, for fraud-control measures. That means the maximum fee on the average debit transaction of $38 will be about 24 cents, compared with 44 cents previously.

But the payment networks have indicated they will treat the cap as more of a floor in some cases, Mr. Dodge said. In short, he said, to help make up for lost revenue on big-ticket items, the networks will increase fees on smaller transactions, to bring them up to the new limit.

Retailers do retain some flexibility, he said, to steer customers away from more expensive forms of payment, like rewards credit cards, and toward less expensive methods. So consumers may eventually see some merchants, like gas stations, offer discounts for using a debit card, as some do now for payments in cash.

One impact is clear, said Paul Bragan of Wakefield Research, which has studied consumer opinion about the swipe fee debate: Consumers are much more aware of the process by which banks charge stores for the use of plastic cards, and are in favor of more disclosure of such fees. “They’re looking for greater transparency in the process, so they can understand how it will affect them,” he said.

If you see any signs of changed retail prices or bank fees, after Oct. 1, please let us know in the comments section.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=0212f4354fa94c341ce0d101fcd75f5c

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,

Bucks: E.M.V. Credit Cards Unlikely to Change Consumer Liability

September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Recently, Bucks noted Visa’s plans to speed up adoption in the United States of credit and debit cards that use E.M.V. chip technology, which is considered more secure than the old-fashioned magnetic strip cards prevalent here. The new cards are widespread in Europe, and some globetrotting Americans have complained that their cards don’t always work  overseas.

In response, a reader wondered, in a posted comment, if the impetus for the change was to shift more liability for card fraud away from banks and onto cardholders; he suggested that had happened in Europe, after the migration to E.M.V. cards several years ago. (E.M.V. stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa.)

But it’s unlikely that the new chip cards will result in any changes to consumer liability in the United States, says Julie McNelley, an analyst specializing in retail banking with Aite Group.  Federal law already limits consumer liability in cases of card fraud to a maximum of $50 in most situations, and banks usually waive even that amount.  “The shift of the form factor isn’t going to affect consumer liability,” Ms. McNelley said.

Rosetta Jones, a spokeswoman for Visa, noted in an e-mail that Visa has a “zero liability” policy for fraudulent use of its credit and debit cards that goes beyond the protection of federal law in the United States: “Visa doesn’t expect the zero liability protections consumers enjoy in the U.S. to change with the adoption of E.M.V. chip.”

There was some controversy about cardholder liability in Britain, when some banks balked at reimbursing customers for unauthorized transactions conducted using a PIN, according to consumer advocates in Britain.

But that problem was addressed by regulations that took effect in late 2009. A spokeswoman for the UK Card Association, an industry group, said via e-mail that cardholder liability is limited by legislation to £50 (about $80) and in practice, most card companies refund their customers in full. There is a possible exception if the cardholder acts “fraudulently” or with “gross negligence,” but the burden of proof lies with the bank.

What will change in the United States, eventually, is that merchants — instead of banks — will bear more responsibility for fraudulent transactions. Card-issuing banks now generally cover most fraud costs, but merchants will bear more liability if they don’t adopt payment systems that can handle the new E.M.V. technology by October 2015, according to Visa’s plan.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=45e1fb41cdc0373df7900eb714b566aa

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,

U.A.W. Reports Contract Talks Are ‘Very Close’

September 16, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Meanwhile, there appeared to be little additional progress in parallel talks with Chrysler, though union and company officials are continuing to meet.

“Labor agreements of this magnitude undergo numerous changes and revisions as the language becomes finalized,” Joe Ashton, the U.A.W. vice president in charge of dealings with G.M., wrote in an update posted online. “I am very optimistic that the negotiations process is entering its final stage.”

He concluded, “I truly believe that a settlement is within reach.”

Bargainers from G.M. and the union reconvened at 9 a.m. Friday, 12 hours after adjourning Thursday evening.

“We’ve made great progress,” Jordana Strosberg, a G.M. spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

The union has agreed to a day-by-day extension at G.M. to complete the outstanding issues separating the two sides, including job commitments in plants, signing bonuses for workers and a pay increase for entry-level employees.

The union’s president, Bob King, has been conducting parallel talks with G.M. and Chrysler, the two Detroit automakers that were bailed out by the Obama administration in 2009.

But Chrysler abruptly asked for a weeklong contract extension on Wednesday night after Mr. King did not attend a scheduled session with Chrysler’s chief executive, Sergio Marchionne.

Instead, Mr. King seeks to set a pattern on wages and bonuses at G.M., and then try to match it at Chrysler and Ford.

The union cannot strike either G.M. or Chrysler as a condition of their federal aid packages. That is not the case with Ford, which turned itself around without government assistance.

It is not unusual for the union to grant a contract extension if it is close to a deal with one automaker. G.M. has been determined to be the first company to settle and establish a cost structure that will help its comeback.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=76f51eb1d84e30440f43ecae7ec5635f

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: , ,

Bucks: Replacing Schwab’s Late, Great Rewards Card

September 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Courtesy Bank of America

Holders of Charles Schwab’s Invest First Visa credit card, which paid 2 percent cash back on all purchases, are learning this month about their replacement options for the card, which, sadly, was discontinued by Schwab. Bucks has written previously about the demise of the card, which was one of the best deals out there in the world of rewards plastic.

Schwab stopped sponsoring the cards last year, so they actually are not Schwab cards anymore, a Schwab spokeswoman said. But Schwab’s card partner — FIA Card Services, a unit of Bank of America — had continued to provide the 2 percent cash-back rewards, and had told holders they would be notified of any further changes.

Now, holders are being notified that the cards will be replaced with Bank of America-branded cards with different rewards, according to a report this week by the Web site NerdWallet. The perks aren’t bad, but they aren’t as good as the rewards offered by the Invest First card.

Bank of America is starting to notify customers who currently have the 2 percent cash rewards card that they will be offered either the BankAmericard Privileges card, or the BankAmericard Cash Rewards card, a bank spokeswoman, Betty Riess, confirmed. Customers have until mid- to late October to choose, she said.

The  BankAmericard Cash Rewards card offers 3 percent back on gas, 2 percent on groceries and 1 percent on everything else, plus an extra 10 percent bonus if the rewards are redeemed and put into a Bank of America account. The card has no annual fee and zero percent interest for the first 12 months. You also get a $50 credit if you charge at least $100 in the first 60 days. On the downside, it carries a 3 percent fee for transactions in foreign currencies, making it a poor choice for foreign travel.

The Privileges card provides 1 point for every dollar in purchases, plus three times the points in categories that rotate quarterly.  Also, if customers opt for cash rewards under the Privileges program and deposit the cash  into a Bank of America or Merrill Lynch account, they get a 50 percent bonus. The card has a $75 annual fee, but it is waived for the first year.

If neither of those cards is appealing, NerdWallet suggests some alternatives with decent rewards. First is the Capital One Venture rewards card. It has an annual fee of $59, but that’s waived for the first year. Next, NerdWallet cites Chase Freedom Visa, which offers a $200 sign-up bonus, as well as 5 percent cash back on bonus categories — like groceries and department store purchases — that rotate each quarter.

Also, my colleague Ron Lieber recently wrote about the new Capital One Cash card that offers 1.5 percent cash back — although it makes you wait a bit to collect some of the cash.

If you’re an Invest First Visa cardholder, have you been notified of your new card choices? What will you choose?

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=5b5c621f104ce0138f6b7553583ccc0d

Filed Under: Your Money Tagged With: , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »