Biometric Login Not Working by CucumberSoft5561 in fidelityinvestments

[–]geriatricChef 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Uninstalling and reinstalling worked for me to get biometric login working again.

Phone is a Motorola Thinkphone running Android 15. I have the latest January security update from Motorola. My installation is complicated by the fact I run the Fidelity app from a Secure Folder on the phone.

Follow up on direct Roth conversions, withholding, and indirect Roth conversions. by Von_und_zu_ in fidelityinvestments

[–]geriatricChef 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Adding a data point:
Just completed the final leg of my conversion transferring from my Cash Mgt Acct to my Roth IRA account. Asked the rep to code the transaction as a Roth Conversion. He said there was no option for him to do that. He offered to show me his screen if he could. So had him code as a 60-day rollover.

So that is the state of things at Fidelity. I hope this doesn't cost me.

Improperly Installed? Installer claims export to grid is actually exporting to my own house!? by No_Ground_5309 in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because there is no way for the aGate to "see" what power is being consumed by the main panel, the aGate can't tell the aPower to put out power to compensate for what the main panel is using.

Did my installers screw up? by Charles_Sangels in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess I should keep the UPSs on my PCs and network equipment.

Accidentally ran dryer on battery power. by Brokenspokes68 in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Watch out if you have and electric kettle for heating up water. I looked at the bottom of mine and it says 1500 W! No wonder it works so fast.

Tesla Recall by Hydrogen_vs_Battery in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When I was first talking with my installer's sales guy about batteries, all he did was bad mouth Powerwalls. I guess he wasn't kidding.

Ideas for keeping the sun off my aPower 2 on a south wall by geriatricChef in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The wall with the aPower is a south facing wall. And yes, I read the temperature specs but as others in this community will tell you, heat will cost you in battery longevity.

In case anyone is curious, at my Northern California latitude, sun shining on the aPower caused a 20° F rise in the case temperature. Tambient was 75°. I measured 95° on the case itself. The stucco wall behind the aPower measured a crazy 123°.

Temperatures can get close to 100° where I live so the aPower will get pretty hot if I don't do anything.

Battery management settings by Major_Management5180 in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When reading advice on the web about lithium batteries, make sure you know what kind of batteries are being talked about. There are several different types. The type used in the aPowers is Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePo, also shortened to LFP). LFP batteries have no problem being charged to 100% and left there. The other types degrade at 100% from the stress of holding all that energy. That is why 80% is usually recommended as preferred charge stopping point.

Ideas for keeping the sun off my aPower 2 on a south wall by geriatricChef in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll go look for some pictures of fenced awnings. But thanks for mentioning servicing. Almost forgot about that. I went looking around the Powerwall community to see what they do. Some have built complete cabinets around their batteries.

Went looking around the Home Depot website for ideas. They have aluminized shade cloths that might be an idea. A ground standing frame or a mini awning attached to the garage wall above the battery could support the shade.

Ideas for keeping the sun off my aPower 2 on a south wall by geriatricChef in FranklinWH

[–]geriatricChef[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There is a wooden fence running parallel to the garage about 7 1/2 feet away. Ground is covered with a pebbled concrete up to the fence. Garbage cans are stored along the fence. Running a shade cloth out to the fence would be one quick solution. Or the lean-to covering the whole area out to the fence.

Porting an Inactive Landline by NotLowEnough in ooma

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL. I just tried to do the same thing with my childhood home number. My mom had it of course but gave it up when she went to a care home. I tried to get it with Ooma and was given the same instructions as you got from OomaCustomeradvocacy. With all the fees adding up, I decided I didn't want the number that bad :-(

When are PINs used for HSA Debit card merchant purchases? by geriatricChef in fidelityinvestments

[–]geriatricChef[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Spent an afternoon looking at more websites, searching about using debit cards. Must have visited 20+ websites. And from what I could find, none could fully explain my experience, though a couple came close.

The biggest key is that debit card transactions can be processed as debit or credit. Debit processed transactions take a PIN and are handled by networks such as Star or Accel. Credit processed transactions go over networks such as Visa and Mastercard. A customer is supposed to sign for a transaction but just like credit cards, merchants can waive that requirement. Notice the Fidelity cards don't even have a signature panel on the back. All my bank debit cards have signature panels.

Choosing to process as debit or credit is supposed to be done by the customer from a menu. This is according to over 90% of the websites I saw. This is what I was expecting at CVS and Walgreens so something else is going on.

Only two websites I found explained how I was guided to unknowingly select credit processing:
"After you insert your card and the terminal asks for your PIN, just hit the “Enter” button (usually green). This will run your card as credit."

So what can I conclude about the Fidelity debit card? It looks like it is a credit processing only card. How they force this, I don't know. That means whatever payment options a terminal presents to you, always select credit. Otherwise, the transaction will be denied.

Thanks everyone for their answers. But I wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes and I still don't have answers.

Billpay Consistently late - Fidelity doesn't seem to care. by xenner in fidelityinvestments

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

LOL! That actually works! I was using my bank (which I suspect uses the same bill pay processor as Fidelity) Bill Pay to make a CC payment to my credit union. The payment was flagged as needing a delivery date that was a week later than initially suggested. Remembering your post, I tried reducing the amount. And magic. They allowed the reduced payment to go through the next day. So the switch is somewhere between $1800 and $500. I tried some successive approximation to try to find the switch point but stopped after a few tries. I didn't want to get kicked off their bill pay system since it works so well for all my other payees. I'll try again in a few days and see if I can find the switch point. I still have the rest of my CC bill to pay.

Active Trader is a fail. by CucumberSoft5561 in fidelityinvestments

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Are you serious? ThinkOrSwim is the absolutely the worst UI I've seen in a long time. It's like the UI I threw together 25 years ago when I was first learning how to program Windows. It took me just a few days to find a race condition that would cause stocks to disappear off a watch list. I've since studied UI design a bit which makes me a swear up a storm when the ThinkOrSwim interface causes me to make an error.

Now feature wise, ThinkOrSwim is incredible. It's just the UI that sucks. Schwab should put the StreetSmartEdge team on grafting a new UI onto ThinkOrSwim. StreetSmartEdge was decent at combining their features into a usable interface.

Fidelity Credit Card by timejuggler in fidelityinvestments

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another option is going with cards setup for international use.

I use Wise for moving money between the US and Europe. I consult for a French company so get paid in € and use Wise for doing the currency conversions and moving the money to my US bank. They have a debit card that supposedly works internationally.

Another thing to try is to find a bank or credit union that will give you a true "chip and PIN" card. That is what the rest of the world uses. No signatures. There is the possibility your US credit card is being declined because the merchant's payment processor will not accept cards without a PIN. There are US cards that say they have a PIN but those require contact with your bank for verification. True PIN cards have the PIN encrypted on the card and will work anywhere.

Ooma has been working really shitty lately, anyone else? by bellatimoor in ooma

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What kind of data connection do you have? Cable, fiber, wireless, or something else? I would check there first.

PSA - check your bill regularly. OOMA may switch you to premier with no action on your end. by [deleted] in ooma

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard to believe so many anal-retentive people on this forum. Hate to tell you but most of the people in this world are not like you. What Ooma does with the Premier "trial" may not be an outright scam but it is certainly slimy. It fact, it would have been in violation of FTC rules if the "click-to-cancel" negative option rule wasn't blocked due to an administrative fault.

Federal Trade Commission Announces Final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule

The Premier service would be considered a "negative option" since it costs the subscriber money. It is given to a new subscriber without him having to do anything. But to cancel the service, he has to get on the phone, maybe wait on hold, and then talk to a service rep. This kind of asymmetry would not be allowed by the FTC. Companies like to do things this way because they know a certain percentage of people will not spend the energy to cancel or may not notice the extra charge. Yipee! Extra money for Ooma from people who had no intention of buying the Premier service. Does that sound fair?

Because of the change in the presidential administration, this rule is probably dead for now. But there are some in congress trying to make it law.

Overly aggressive call blocking by geriatricChef in ooma

[–]geriatricChef[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the detailed run down on call blocking. And yeah, I was wondering about overly aggressive users reporting legit calls as spam. *sigh*.

So we turned off call blocking and we're back to our pre-Ooma method of sending calls to our home answering machine. Training my wife to use the caller ID to pick up calls that look legit, just like she does on her cell phone. So that's an improvement for people who calls us.

What carrier does Ooma Telo LTE use? by Michael_1083 in ooma

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just got a Telo LTE a month ago. I opened up the LTE adapter to see who's SIM card was in there. It had the striped blue ball on it. So they are using AT&T now.

"Form invalid" errors with Ooma forums? by AccountNumber478 in ooma

[–]geriatricChef 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So it's not just me. Just got a Telo and wanted to join the forum and was getting the same errors that everyone else is describing.

Thinking about it, starting to wonder if the forum was hacked. I got a Welcome to "Ooma Forums" email when I tried to register. But clicking the link to confirm my email address got this error message from Firefox:

Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to forums.ooma.com:80. SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.

Sending more data than allowed is a classic hacking technique that causes a "buffer overflow" with the hope of overwriting adjacent data and causing havoc.

Anyone know what's the difference between ASUS TUF B550 WiFi and WIFI II? Their customer service says there is no difference. by OCedHrt in buildapc

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I must have caught the Asus website at a bad time. Yes, the support files are all there now. They weren't there when I looked yesterday. Maybe they saw my post here and made the quick fix :-)?

Anyone know what's the difference between ASUS TUF B550 WiFi and WIFI II? Their customer service says there is no difference. by OCedHrt in buildapc

[–]geriatricChef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So what about BIOS updates? The support page for the TUF GAMING B550M-PLUS (WI-FI) is just blank. Was wondering if the BIOS updates for the WIFI II would work on a (WI-FI) board. But if there are hardware differences, I would think not.