Posts Tagged ‘ money ’

Bank – address change problem

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Last week I went to the shop in the morning to buy something for breakfast.
I’ve collected my items and went to the till to pay for them, but when I’ve put my pin to the card terminal – it said that the card was blocked.

Without thinking twice I went straight to the bank to ask what’s happened.

The bank representative kindly told me that my card has been blocked as I should now be using the new one which they’ve sent to me some time ago.

Since I haven’t received anything, I’ve asked when has it been sent and the answer was about 2 months ago.

I told her that I didn’t receive anything and she’s asked me to confirm my post code – which I did.

The next question was whether I’ve moved recently – and I said – well, not that recently because I’ve moved about a year ago and I’ve already changed my address in this bank 3 times because it hasn’t been updated.

So – guess what – I had to give her my address again – and put my signature on the piece of paper to confirm that I am who I am.

She said that my signature isn’t exactly as the one on the system – it misses 2 letters.
That gave her an idea of explaining that perhaps because of my signature didn’t match last time – they didn’t update the address.

Now I have to wait 1-2 weeks for them to change my address again and 2 weeks for my card to arrive.

Now – I’ve also asked – why they didn’t contact me if I haven’t activated my card after such long time – and she said that the card was sent activated as it’s a replacement.

I asked – that’s not very secure – is it – sending the activated card – and the answer was – it’s normally ok.

That really worries me, as some time ago my card was cloned – which means someone got hold of my pin and card number. Since then I had a new card and new pin – but you can’t really say whenever you pay with your card whether someone is copying your pin or not.

Now, if my card was sent without activation and someone by any chance knows my pin …. – anyway – you get an idea. Scary thing is that banks don’t think this is important enough.

Anyway, after I came back home I’ve realised that I’m actually receiving my statements to my new address so they have to have it right on the system – unless each computer station in the bank uses its own database?

It sounds such non-sense when I hear that it takes 2 weeks to change your address, that every time I go to the bank they have different address of mine, even thou my statements are arriving to the right one.
These days everything is stored digitally and how long does it take to change the address on the computer – 2 min if you are really slow typer?

And I’m sure it’s not the security measure – because in that case they should also think about sending the card which need to be activated by the owner first – before being used.

It really is sad that we all have to use Banks to deal with our own money.
Banks are private organisations, which dictate how we’re going to live – if you think government is running the country – think again, because you’re really mistaking.

Did you realise that to get a job and get paid you HAVE TO have a bank account – there’s no way around it.

People talk about freedom and democracy – which is just another word for a “Modern slavery” – we are all slaves of the system run by the private organisations – and government is just a bunch of marionnettes who do exactly as they’re told.

None are more helplessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749 – 1832

One movie I recommend to all of you is called Zeitgeist and you can watch it free here:

Banks and their Rip-Off interest rates

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Today I came across the article published on the telegraph.co.uk website about the banks being accused of ripping off customers by charging extortionate interest rates of up to 21% on personal loans.
You can read the entire article here: Rip-off interest rates on personal loans.

My favorite quote from this article is the money-saving expert Martin Lewis’s:

“If you walk into your bank for a loan without checking the market for the best deal you may as well have the words ‘rip me off’ tattooed across your forehead.”

The truth is that last year I had to take a loan to buy a new car – if I knew what’s just about to happen (with the Credit Crunch and all prices going down) I would most probably wait a little bit longer.

I’ve been with NatWest for several years now. My wife and I have personal accounts with them and our business account is also with them.
I blindly believed that because of this and because we are good customers (regular payments etc.) we can get a good interest rate on our new loan.

At the time they were advertising their loans at the interest rate of around 7% APR – which sounded extremely attractive.

Without thinking twice I’ve decided to apply and my loan request has been approved, but for some reason interest rate has jumped up to 15.9 % APR.

I needed the new car so I had to accept it, but one decision I’ve made after this, was that I will never go to NatWest asking for a loan again.

These days we have many options, there are price comparison websites – try them first and do not blindly believe that your bank is going to care about your interest – because they won’t. They are only interested in making profit and by becoming their client – you’re becoming their target.

Use internet to send money or make on-line purchase

Thursday, January 8th, 2009

There are many services these days which provide a very convenient way of sending money using internet. Some of the most popular ones offers more sophisticated options and also provide their integration with the E-commerce website systems.

Most of us heard about PayPal – if you’re the person who’s using Ebay or making purchases on-line – than you know that this is one of the most common ways of paying for your products or services.

Many people who have their accounts with PayPal or any other similar service provider don’t even bother to check the rates they charge for the service – which can truly disappoint you eventually.

If you’re sending money abroad – to the account which is assocaited with the different currency than the one you’re holding, then the conversion rate can also appear to be very unfortunate.

In this post I will try to give you an overview of two major service providers: PayPal and Moneybookers.

PAYPAL

PayPal (www.paypal.com) has been around since the on-line payments became available and is – not surprisingly, one of the major players in this sector.

They provide many services which include sending money on-line, merchant services for integration with the e-commerce websites, credit cards etc.

Here’s the PayPal’s Fee Structure (you can also see the latest update here):

Purchase
Pay: Free
Get Paid: 1.4% to 3.4% + £0.20 GBP
Personal Transfer
Send money and Receive money It’s free when you use your PayPal balance or your bank account linked to your PayPal account. There is a charge of 3.4% + £0.20 GBP for debit or credit card payments (either the sender or recipient can pay this fee).
Cross-border and multiple currencies
If your transaction involves a currency conversion, it will be completed at a retail exchange rate determined by PayPal. This rate includes a 2.5% spread above the wholesale exchange rate at which PayPal obtains foreign currency.

A cross-border fee of 0.5% may apply. This fee is waived for UK sellers who are registered with PayPal in a European Union country and who receive payments in Euros from other EU countries.

This basically means that if you are receiving payments from someone in the same country using debit or credit card then you will be charged £3.4% + £0.20 which in case of say £100.00 would be £3.6.

If you are receiving payment from someone in other country – say USA – then the fee is higher and I really tried to calculate it in many ways – I couldn’t guess how they calculate it.

Basically to receive the payment of £300.00 I’ve been charged £11.90, for £20.00 = £0.98 and for £5.00 = £0.40.

If you know how they calculate this – please let me know, as I’m really finding this a bit confusing.

Here’s the explanation which I have received from PayPal support representative by email, after asking why I have been charged so much to receive the money:

There are now two different types of payments that can be sent using PayPal – Purchase Payments and Personal Payments.

 

Purchases (Commercial Payments): These are the payments we traditionally have always offered, where there is a commercial relationship between the sender and the recipient of funds. For example, a person pays for a purchase of an item on eBay.

Personal Payments: These payments are designed as payments between individuals for no commercial reasons, i.e. made for the purpose of either your personal, family and/or household affairs. For example, a person living in Australia is sending money to his brother to buy their parents a gift.

When using the ‘Send Money’ tab, customers will be presented with the two different options to send either a Purchase payment or a Personal payment. As a result of the introduction of this new payment revamp, our fee structure has changed to accommodate these two new payment types.

Fees for each funding type are now charged as follows:

Payment funded with PayPal balance or bank account: PayPal will not charge sender or recipient regardless of their account type.

Payment funded with a debit or credit card: PayPal will apply the normal receiving fees. Therefore, Personal account holders may start to incur PayPal receiving fees. Please note however that the sender will have the option of paying the fees for that payment instead of the recipient.

For Purchases/Commercial Payments there will be no changes in the way fees are charged. The recipient of funds will always be charged the normal receiving fees (or merchant rates for approved merchants reaching the minimum volumes).

MONEYBOOKERS

Next on the list is Moneybookers (www.moneybookers.com).

Moneybookers is the UK company and also has been around for quite a while.

They provide similar services to PayPal – sending money on-line, merchant services etc.

Their fee structure looks as follow (you can also see it here):

Send Money Transactions
Sending Money: 1% (up to GBP 0.50)
Receiving Money: Free
Upload Funds
Bank transfer: Free (2-5 days)
Maestro / Solo (debit cards): Free (Instant)
Cheque: Free (10 days)
Visa / MasterCard / Diners / Amex / JCB (credit cards): 1.90%
Withdraw Funds
Bank transfer: £1.70
Cheque: £3.20
Visa: £1.70

I didn’t have any major problems with Moneybookers except the exchange rate when you’re doing international transfers – it’s really poor.

Several times has happened that I had to top up the difference in the next payment because Moneybookers exchange rate was too low.

Another thing worth to mentioned is that with Moneybookers, due to anti-money laundering regulations, if you are uploading funds to your moneybooker account using Bank transfer – you have to make sure that the bank account is in your name (or your moneybookers account name) – no third party deposits – otherwise you will be charged all banking and administrative costs to return the payment back to your bank account.

If you have some experience with these two or any other service providers – share it with us – we appreciate your feedback!

 

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