Telecoms, Devon Style

Sunday 31st August, 2008 - £7,977.79 in debt…

A couple of years ago, I signed up with 1899, a phone service that gave me free calls. A few months later, my phone started doing crazy things and making noises I wasn’t expecting - I cancelled the 1899 subscription and the noises went away. But now that my phone bill is creeping over £20 a month, I’m going to try again.

The problem with phone tariffs is that the cheapest ones give you free evening and weekend calls. Not a problem, you say? I should stop moaning and get on with my life? That’s easy for you to say. But I work day shifts and my boyfriend works night shifts, so we use the phone at all times of the day and night. We should get a tariff with unlimited calls… or use 1899.

1899 is a very cheap secondary phone service. To use it, you just sign up at www.1899.com and set up your payment method. You must already have a landline and pay your monthly line rental fee to BT or whoever - 1899 just charges you for your calls.

All calls to UK fixed lines are free after a 5p connection charge, so you can be on the phone for as long as you like, at any time. You use the service by dialling 1899 before the full number you want to call, so if a particular type of call is cheaper with your fixed line provider, you can just miss out the prefix number and dial as normal.

For instance, daytime calls to 0845 numbers cost 2p per minute with BT but 3.5p per minute with 1899. But most of my calls are to UK landlines: I currently get free weekend calls with BT, but the connection charge is 6p so I’ll be using 1899 for all my UK fixed line calls. That keeps things pretty simple.

So, 1899 gives me a quick and simple sign-up process, free calls day and night, and no registration, subscription or cancellation fees. And, so far, no surprising noises coming from my phone. Touch wood.

Wyld Stallyns Rule!

If a data entry employee of Lloyds TSB doesn’t like your telephone banking password, they have the power to change or adapt that password without customer consent. That’s the message Lloyds TSB were culpable of sending out yesterday.

Steve Jetley, a previously anonymous individual from a Welsh border town, felt aggrieved at Lloyds TSB for the perceived miss-selling of an insurance policy. In a slightly juvenile move, but one that presumably made him feel like the big man, he changed his Lloyds TSB telephone banking password to:

“Lloyds is Pants”

Upon realising his password had been changed, our man Jetley called the customer services arm of Lloyds TSB, only to be informed his password had been altered, without his consent, to:

“No it’s not”

Naturally, this begs a plethora of questions. Firstly, do low-level Lloyds TSB employees love the company so much that they’re prepared to risk their jobs to uphold the bank’s “untarnished” reputation? Secondly, does that mean passwords are stored simply in plain text? And finally, do they really think Jetley is just going to take this lying down?

Well, if they did then they had another thing coming, when Jetley (in true Jetley style) insisted that he now wanted his password changed to:

“Barclays is Better”

What a card that Steve Jetley is. If it was me, I’d have been taking this security breach a little more seriously.

The upshot? A full apology from bank to Jetley, and Lloyds TSB having to concede the worker in question has now “left” the bank.

A happy ending, but take heed from this tale dear consumers.

 Awww Yeeaaahhh!

Thursday 28th August, 2008 - £7,977.79 in debt…

I was reading this post today - Dan’s take on a recent YouGov poll about the luxuries we’re denying ourselves during the credit crunch - and it got me thinking. What have I been denying myself since I started repaying my debt? And what could I still cut back on?

The top five luxuries I no longer enjoy:

1. Sky Sports and Movies

These were among the first things to go, saving me about £10 a month. I regretted it as soon as the tennis season started to get busy, but haven’t re-subscribed. Yet.

2. New music

Number three on the YouGov list was CDs, but this is a bit more specific. When I was spending with reckless abandon, I would buy albums I’d only heard snippets of by artists I wasn’t quite sure about. That’s what most people do, right? Now I’m only buying music I know I’ll like, or nothing at all. Or getting free CDs with right-wing publications.

3. Biscuits

Not only has the Viennese Whirl addiction been knocked on the head, but I’m cutting out biscuits and cakes almost entirely. Luckily, the boyfriend’s parents normally have a reasonable stash. Not that that’s the reason we visit so often. Honest.

4. Heating

Yes, I’m one of those people that are always moaning about being too cold. Sorry, but it’s chilly in here. My switch to E.ON’s capped tariff won’t save me any money yet, so I’ve been piling the jumpers on. I might have to buy more jumpers.

5. Free time

Every spare minute is time I could be using to earn money, so free time has become a luxury I can’t afford. But I’m lucky to have the kind of job and lifestyle that allows me to earn a lot when I need to, so I suppose I can’t complain. Although I already have complained, quite a lot.

According to the aforementioned survey, I could also save money on:

1. Branded food

I’m already cutting down on this and getting more own-brand stuff, but it’s something of a lottery: Tesco Value chocolate digestives are amazing. Tesco Value pasta sauce can be made at home with a can of chopped tomatoes, a scoop of aspartame and an unshakeable sense of foreboding.

2. Uncut bread

I only get this as a treat, and I know it’s wrong, but it smells so nice.

3. Nail polish

I probably have enough nail polish to be getting on with. Next time I’m after a new look I’ll try pink and orange stripes.

4. Fabric conditioner

This also smells nice, but I suppose I can do without it.

5. Wine

Not in a million years.

 Goldenballs

Q: What do footballers and bankers have in common?

A: Win, lose or draw, they both get remunerated.

Anton Ferdinand, younger (and distinctly more average) sibling of England vice-captain Rio Ferdinand, recently moved from West Ham to Sunderland for a fee of £8 million. The widely claimed reason for the move was Ferdinand junior’s wage demands of £50,000 a week not being met by his current employers.

So what does he do? He joins another club that are prepared to pay him the desired £3 million a year in wages. In his defence, Sunderland was not the only suitor, and this type of practice is commonplace in the modern game.

Equally as recurring are squad players who feature in ten games a season still being paid a yearly wage of multiple millions, and players who’re consistently underperforming and underachieving being remunerated at the same level had they been successful.

The point is, name me another line of business where these kinds of practices are so frequent?

Well, how about the banking sector?

In the words of Mohammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Prize winner and globally renowned micro-financier/ethical investor talking about the role of banks in the sub-prime crisis:

“The banks gave the impression that they were almost perfect, and then we find there is a fundamental flaw in the structure of the system. The regulators allowed them to bundle the risk so that nobody could see what was inside, and then pass it around the world to people who had nothing to do with it”

Ok, so the Banking/Premier League analogy doesn’t apply here, but delve deeper into the philosophies of Mr Yunus and the parallels become clearer. He continues:

“We don’t seem to be accusing anybody over this whole debacle. It is as if nobody is responsible. We can all go off and play golf: the taxpayer will take care of the problem. When things go well the bankers take the profit, and when it goes wrong they are compensated. This is not symmetrical.”

Paying footballers £3 million a year to (occasionally) compete in a medium-sized business pool (Manchester United turned over £245 million last year, HMV turned over £1895 million) is not symmetrical. Rewarding bankers to offload their own bad investments and walk away from them without recompense (a key driving force behind the credit crunch) is not symmetrical.

Win lose or draw, bankers and footballers get remunerated.

 Handwash - Liquid Gold

In previous posts, I’ve alluded to both fancy coffee and good quality organic food as being two prominent examples of expendable commodities that’ll be benched in the midst of the current economic downturn. I steadfastly refuse to cast aside these essentials though.

But now my old friends at the Co-operative bank (eco-friendly, ethical investors lest we forget) have provided a definitive list of the top twenty items UK consumers have been forced to forgo due to belt tightening and budgeting exercises. The data was accumulated from a YouGov survey of 4000 shoppers.

Here are the top 20 items that the economic slowdown is preventing you from buying.

Cue Jimmy Carr:

(1) Flowers

(2) Magazines

(3) CDs

(4) Bottled water

(5) Posh handwash

(6) Quilted toilet paper

(7) Candles

(8) Branded washing up liquid

(9) Organic produce

(10) Branded food

(11) Fresh coffee

(12) Uncut bread

(13) Nail polish

(14) Fake tan

(15) Multi vitamins

(16) Fabric conditioner

(17) Teeth whitening toothpaste

(18) Wine

(19) Desserts

(20) Napkins

So, my two suggestions made it onto the list at 9 and 11, not as high as I would have anticipated.

Ditching flowers, magazines, CDs and bottled water makes perfect sense to me. Flowers schmowers, magazines come free with the Saturday and Sunday papers, CDs can always be found cheaper online than in shops (ridiculously cheap on Amazon marketplace) and bottled water is just plain silly.

But handwash? Posh handwash? Who even decided to prefix ‘handwash’ with ‘posh’? Handwash isn’t posh, it’s a necessity. Without handwash, your hands get covered in germs and smell bad. Are we, as a nation, shunning handwash en masse? If so, I didn’t get the memo, and handwash is still an integral part of my ablutions.

Casting an eye over the rest, candles I can live without (not just during an economical slump, but forever), don’t need fake tan, Bold Ultra has a built in fabric conditioner and if you’ve got a good knife and fork technique then the need for napkins can be circumnavigated.

Take away my nail polish however and I’ll make you wish you were never born.

 Kids’ hobbies prove a great expense

As a young scamp I loved extra curricular activities, begging my mum for new adventures and taking classes in all sorts, including drama, horse-riding, swimming, singing and piano.

So, what did I achieve?

Well, I am neither a famous actress nor a championship rider, the only thing I can remember how to play on the piano is “chopsticks” and despite years of lessons, I still most definitely cannot sing.

(I can however swim)

Hobbies are great though. Whether they lead to a career or not, it’s great for kids to get involved in activities outside school, keeping active and having fun doing things they enjoy. And who knows, there’s always a chance their childhood ambitions could lead to bigger things…

Having said this, these activities are costly and new research from Alliance and Leicester has revealed that many parents may be in for a shock when it comes to the additional costs of these extra curricular activities.

Young aspiring actors and sport stars are putting an increased amount of pressure on parent’s purse strings and those wanting their rising star to stand out from the crowd may not have planned for the costs involved

Alliance and Leicester have calculated that hobbies such as drama and sporting activities could now be costing parents in the UK a massive £1.7 billion every year.

Parents of acting hopefuls can expect to pay at least £10 a session for weekend performing arts classes, while the parents of aspiring dancers will be paying around £7 a class for tutoring in jazz and ballet. Football wannabes can cost their parents over £130 just to be kitted out, plus a further £575 a year for holiday membership to a sports and activity camp. Add to these the cost of petrol to transport your child to and from their activities, and the bills soon start mounting up.

(The figure of 1.7 billion is based on the assumption that one in three kids take part in BOTH drama and sporting activities, and that each of these ambitious scamps take their drama classes in central London. It assumes they are each kitted out in the latest design football shirt, shorts, shoes, shin pads, bag ball and even ‘Chelsea socks’, so to be fair it’s probably a bit of an overestimate, but the fact remains that hobbies can be pricey.)

The research suggests that only one in 20 are saving up specifically for child related expenses and parents who have not made financial provisions may soon feel the pinch.

Indeed, forward planning is the key to providing your child with as many opportunities as possible and being able to invest in their future. Saving a little cash regularly can soon add up into a lump sum which will make additional costs easier to meet and reduce the stress of funding your child’s activities. For example, putting just £50 from your monthly wage packet into a high interest savings account or ISA will add up to £600 a year, plus interest. If you want to give your child a financial boost when they turn 18, then a Child Trust Fund could help maximise your savings.

I think most parents would appreciate that taking part in extra curricular activities can be of great benefit to their child’s development and worth planning ahead for.

Much more alarming than these statistics, is the recent research by Halifax, which claims that 76% of children now own a mobile phone and 68% also own an ipod or MP3 player. With the average phone bill costing £8.38 a month and 40% of kids downloading an average of four songs per week from the internet, Halifax have calculated that parents are currently paying out a total “portable entertainment maintenance bill” of £381.52 a year per child! And that’s not including the cost of the equipment.

Now, is this worth it? I’m really not sure…

Compare Best Buy Savings Accounts >>>

Compare Child Trust Funds >>>

 One of 24 billion

Tuesday 26th August, 2008 - £7,977.79 in debt…

 Whoop whoop! My debt’s under the £8k mark for the first time in years!

This is because this month’s credit card bills have started coming in and confirming how much I’ve paid off after interest.  I started regularly opening my bills when I started this blog, but this is the first time I’ve seen one lying by the door and actually leapt for it like a cat on a bowl of Felix after a fortnight of Asda own-brand meaty chunks.

In other news, I’ve received my welcome pack from AQA (see this post for more info) and downloaded their question-answering software. I’m currently ploughing through all the bumpf about how to do the job, and it looks like it might be the most interesting job I’ve ever had. Did you know, for instance, that there are 24 billion chickens in the world? If that’s not worth knowing, I don’t know what is.

 Nigeria Broadband - Look Beyond the Scams

Plans are afoot in West Africa to boost Nigeria’s ailing internal broadband network, and at the same time repair the nation’s damaged internet reputation.

Due to the high proportion of online scams and fraudulent email activities that stem from Nigeria’s .ng domain, many residential and business broadband users worldwide have blocked all traffic from Nigeria by IP address and domain.

However, as the NIRA (Nigerian Internet Registration Association) surfaces from only its fourth ever AGM, a scheme has been devised to authenticate Nigerian net traffic and effectively assure the rest of the world that not all Nigerian net users are trying to defraud people.

Under the new scheme, local Internet communities and the law enforcement agencies will be given heightened powers and resources to deal with reported cases of fraud.

At present in Nigeria, the government is paying specific attention to broadband connectivity in both rural and urban regions of the country. It is estimated by West African tech observers that Nigeria will boast a million broadband users by 2010. It is hoped by the NIRA that this increased online presence will lead to an increase in authentic domain registrations by Nigerian internet users.

Nigeria has a population of over 140 million; therefore less than 1% of Africa’s most populous nation has broadband access.

 All you need is loans

Narrowing credit acceptance critera, a stagnant housing market and rising food/energy costs are making us all spend frugally this late summer.

Cutting back on your weekly grocery spend and turning the thermostat down by a degree or two will help to alleviate the financial pressure, but unfortunately for Liverpool Football Club there may be no such quick fix when their request for a £350 million loan is rejected by RBS.

The troubled north west side, already rocked by a sluggish start to the season and internal wrangles between manager Rafael Benitez and co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks, desperately require the £350 million loan in order to complete existing debt restructuring plans. The loan is needed to cover the collapse of Hicks and Gillett’s original loan deal (£298 million) that financed their purchase of Liverpool FC, the collateral against which was business assets in America and Canada which have since been considerably devalued by the US sub-prime crisis.

RBS reported a pre-tax loss of £691 million in the first six months of 2008 and are therefore expected to veto Liverpool’s request.

So, as we turn into a nation of spendthrifts, has Liverpool FC followed suit and curbed its spending in anticipation of the seemingly inevitable RBS rejection? Not a jot.

Over £30 million has been spent by Liverpool this summer on French teenagers and Italian journeymen. £20 million alone of that budget was blown on a diminutive Irishman with no proven Premiership scoring record.

The spending doesn’t appear to have stopped either, with Benitez adamant he will land another £18 million transfer target, a midfielder who is essentially a facsimile of a player Liverpool already own. 

Should the RBS loan deal fail, the only remaining option open to Liverpool FC is to borrow from elsewhere at a much higher rate. As a result of these short-term financing strategies, the club would tumble headfirst into fiscal meltdown and administration, possibly within 18 months.

On a positive note, the club could be bought by Dubai based investment firm DIC, although the new owners would still be required to manage the old debt.

 On your marks, set, BOLTBAND

This is no April 1st skit; Virgin Media are seriously considering renaming their new 50Mb super-fast broadband product after Jamaican running sensation Usain Bolt.

The sprinter, who is to athletics what Rupert Murdoch is to news publishing, looks set to sign a rights deal with Virgin Media which will lead to a creation of the ‘Boltband’ brand.

Whether Virgin Media will offer mobile boltband, wireless boltband and set up a separate boltband customer service helpline has yet to be divulged. News on potential bespoke boltband dongles is also scarce.

Our man Bolt, 22, took the gold medal in the men’s 100m and 200m finals in Beijing this week, setting world record times in both events. Had Tyson Gay taken the sprint crown, then we could have been looking at a very interesting endorsed broadband product indeed. Gayband, anyone?

The rollout of Virgin Media’s 50Mbps service on its fibre optic network will take place during the middle part of next year; with the cablenet ISP looking to offer its customers speeds of 200Mbps by 2012.