The James Kilgour BlogA Life Blog.

PayPal offers “a safe way to pay”, being owned by eBay, and offering millions of users Internet payment facilities. It is the most popular service of its type, and all eBay auctions accept PayPal: it’s compulsory!

I recently sold an unwanted Christmas Gift on eBay; it quickly sold for £30.00, which I was quite happy with. eBay charged me 50p for the listing, (I’m quite happy to pay for this). As per the eBay rule, I accepted PayPal on my listing, and promptly got paid. When I checked my account, I found out that actually, PayPal had charged me another £1.25 in “Charges”. What for?

I had already paid eBay, (the owner of PayPal), the required fees, and now they were effectively charging me again! I make hundreds of fund transfers form my bank account each year, and never get charged a penny. Why should PayPal do any different? It’s not like they even provide good customer service: they are useless!

PayPal should have the sense to stop charging its customers, who don’t have a choice on whether they use the service or not. eBay seem to have a powerful position here: and quite frankly I don’t like it. I will have to think whether I use eBay for sales again: it’s not even the cost so much, but the principle.

JK

So the government is going to pump 75bn in new cash into the economy, in a bid to stop the recession. They call this “quantitive easing”. However, to me, this seems like it will just ruin our economy further.

The British Sterling was one of the world’s strongest currencies. Now, with this development, that will surely fall, and if we are not careful, we could quite easily enter hyper-inflation like Zimbabwe.

In addition, the Bank of England has now lowered interest rates to history’s lowest: 0.5%. This is the sixth time rates have been cut since October. If it hasn’t worked before, why are they still trying?

In my opinion, printing more money is not much of a solution. We should try and weather the recession. If this new money printing idea does cause the economy to go caput, then Gordon Brown will be shot for it.

JK

The Nintendo DS has been a worldwide success, selling millions of units. Now, Nintendo are about to release the DS’s replacement: the DSi.

Boasting two cameras, a media player, internet browsing a 12% thinner body than the ds lite, and bigger screens, the DSI certainly has the power to overshadow the standard DS.

Nintendo DSI Pre Order is now available in the UK. GameStock allows you to see all available deals and choose the cheapest; for example, currently HMV is at £146.80 and free delivery. That is a great deal to pre-order dsi.

GameStock also show new deals for pre-ordering other games and systems; such as Wii Music, and for seeing stock levels of certain titles, such as Wii Fit, which is in stock at Argos for £68.49!

Also, because GameStock uses live feeds to get it’s prices and stock updates, the information is very accurate. For me, this is a great site for checking and comparing prices of the latest games. This ensures the best price for me.

This kind of comparison service is readily available for financial matters, including car insurance and travel. However, this is the first I’ve seen of a gaming focused comparison service. Undeniably, it is very useful. I would recommend this to anyone into gaming, and wants to get the best possible price.

JK

This should be released as a single. It’s AMAZING! That Credit Crunch Stuff looks yum!

JK

Millions of us go abroad every year, and what’s one the most important things we pack? Our Mobiles. With them, we can keep in contact with family and friends, and even take snaps of our holiday.

But using them aboard is ridiculously expensive. Sending a text in Spain, for example would cost 40p, compared to 10p in the UK!

Now the EU wants to force the networks to reduce their prices. Of course, they’re not happy.

But why? Most of the major networks actually own networks abroad, for example Orange provide network in Spain under the Movistar name.

So actually, why would it cost 30p more to send a tiny piece of data, over two networks they own?

The EU have already lowered the cost of calling, although it could have been more drastic. Hopefully Texting will follow.

JK

ChaCha are a fairly new company, in the Question and Answer market. Basically, US users text in any questions they like, free, and ChaCha texts back the answer.

How they do this, is using “Guides”; knowledgeable individuals, who get paid to reply to the questions through the ChaCha web portal. For every answer, they get paid $0.10; the top guides getting twice as much.

Out of curiosity, I tried to become a guide earlier today. Unfortunately, they rejected me at the first questioning stage; the ChaCha Fitness Stage. The topic? ChaCha.

Of course, I had no idea. To be honest, the founder of the company, the place that it was announced and the company’s ethos do not really interest me in the foggiest.

I can imagine how important to an American when their out-and-about to find out that “Cha” means dance in Chinese, and Scott Jones invented the concept. Wow.

I also fail to see how ChaCha actually makes any money. Users don’t have to pay anything to the company to text in, and the texts don’t have ads. Great business model.

JK 

Halifax Bank of Scotland is one of the UK’s big four financial institutions, and whether separate or together, have been part of the highstreet for years. In fact, the bank holds 20% of all mortgages in the UK, and has millions of savers.

The events of the current economic climate though have caused unsteadiness, with the HBOS share price falling by more than three quarters.

But is a Super Bank a good idea for the UK? The new bank would have just under 40 million customers, with a 28% hold of the Mortgage market. (Under UK law, no financial institution is permitted to hold more than 25%.) The Bank would also have nearly 3000 branches, making it unmissable on the highstreet. 

The bank would offer unrivaled security, and would prevent collapse of HBOS, which if this were to happen could be devastating for the UK economy.

The bank would also have unrivaled financial powers, and would gain a controlling stake in the UK economy. However, with plentiful smaller alternatives,  I doubt it would really have an affect on the consumer.

JK

As fuel and food prices soar, we hear more about the “Credit Crunch”, and how we are heading for a recession. But is it our fault? Have the days of spending on credit caused this?

Yes and No. One the one hand, we borrowed what was offered to us, even if it was obvious we couldn’t pay it back, and that was not right. But who was in control? The banks. Their greed in lending irresponsibly has lead to huge debts and the fall in global economy. But who are the ones feeling the burden? Us. Were the ones struggling to pay the bills, as the cost of living has shot up. The banks should take responsible for their actions and be accountable.

JK