MasterCard What Now?

Well, surprise, surprise. It seems that the Clydesdale Bank shifting me from a Maestro card to a MasterCard Debit card does have some added advantage after all. It could be, without a hint of irony, the greatest single advantage ever in the history of banking. Yes friends it seems that a great swathe of online retailers don’t even have an OPTION for a MasterCard Debit card. A few, like Amazon, have got a MasterCard option to be sure, but does that option cover both credit and debit varieties, or only the credit ones? Some types of services are restricted specifically to debit cards. The National Lottery website won’t accept the card because it believes it’s a credit card, and their rules prevent people using credit cards on the site as party of their, very responsible, gambling policy. I’m not sure about Play.com right now because their site doesn’t have a drop down box to describe the card type. I guess I’ll just have to plug the card details in and hope for the best next time I try to order something.

Well I’m sure it’s an advantage somehow…

Activation Stations

Is anyone else sick of this “card activation” crap from the banks? I can see the reasoning behind phoning up and saying that you’ve received your card in principle, but really it just seems a thinly veiled excuse to try and peddle unwanted crap. I phoned up today to activate my new Clydesdale Bank MasterCard Debit Card that they so excitedly heralded in the letter I received a few weeks ago. Low and behold the number doesn’t go through to the Clydesdale call centre, but to third party: a company by the name of CPP. The operator on the end of the line was pleasant enough, but I couldn’t help but wonder at the irony of a third party being involved as a go between for confirming receipt of my card. I presume, and sincerely hope, that CPP have only very limited access to account information because it seems to me there’s little difference between phoning them up, and getting Manky Jimmy the town layabout to phone the Clydesdale on my behalf.

The first time I had to call one of these things I didn’t even realise that I wasn’t talking to the Clydesdale Bank itself. Well not until the real reason for having to go through a third party manifested itself. CPP are in the business of providing card insurance and identify fraud insurance policies. As soon as the operator has dispensed with the two second job of asking for your name, address and date of birth to activate your card they launch straight into the sales script. The worst element of this badly disguised thing is that the bank gives you no alternative manner to activate your card. If you don’t call, and set yourself up for the sales pitch, then you’ve automatically shot yourself in the foot because your original card will stop working within six weeks of the new one being issued. In the meantime you’re stuck because the new one won’t work until you phone to activate it.

Now all credit to the CPP operators as they stop the pitch, wish you a merry Christmas as and ring off as soon as you tell them you’re not interested, but I wonder how many people have sat and listened, or even taken out the policies simply because they thought they were dealing with one of those “nice folk at the bank.”

My dearest banks, I appreciate that card activation is an important safeguard, but could you do it without the involvement of a third party and the associated hard sell.

Please?

Chainring Kerching

My bike is still out of action, and it’s starting to get me down. I know logically that we’re getting into the depth of winter and that I probably wouldn’t ride it that much if it was fully operational, but that doesn’t stop me illogically wanting to ride it anyway.

I’ve been reading reviews on various mountain bike websites, as well as trawling through the parts sections on Evans Cycles, Dales Cycles and the Edinburgh Bike Coop’s websites. From what I’ve read it seems that the old maxim holds true even for bike parts: “buy cheap, buy twice”. All three shops have an extensive collection of parts to suit every budget, but as I seem to have already been stung by what amounts to a fairly cheap FSA OEM crankset I’m not anxious to buy a budget set just for the sake of saving a few bucks.

I’ve just about settled on a Shimano M770 XT Hollowtech 2 Chainset which is at the upper end of the market, but not into the ridiculous money range. At the time of writing Evans are currently selling the OEM version for £127.99 and the original retail version for £164.99. As both versions include the bottom bracket and all the other required parts the only difference appears to be in the packaging.

As I said in my earlier post it’s not just the front chain rings that are a bit worse for wear. The rear cassette has suffered a bit of damage as well, either as a result of the front rings causing the chain to slip, or as a result of a damaged chain. Currently I’m considering the Shimano M770 XT Cassette which is an exact match for the M770 XT chainset that I mentioned above.  Again the cassette is available in an OEM version for £39.99 or a retail version for £56.99. I’ll admit that I haven’t put as much research into the cassettes as I have with the chainsets, but I can’t see there being too much to chose between them.

It goes without saying of course that any replacement cassette and chain ring will have to be accompanied by a new chain to match. To be honest there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference that I can see between the various chains, but the Shimano HG93 Chain at £17.99 on Evan’s site seems an OK choice to go with the M770 XT parts that I’ve spoken about.

At the moment these three parts will set me back £185.97 in total if I go for the OEM versions. Then it would be simply a matter of getting them attached to the bike and adjusted… Simple…

The Maestro Is Dead

After years of faithful service, and a few odd hiccups, it seems that the Clydesdale Bank has finally decided to retire their poor old Maestro cards. I’ve just got a letter through the door telling me that I can expect to receive a shiny new MasterCard Debit Card through the post in the near future.

I’m not sure what the immediate advantages are to me as the main selling point on the accompanying leaflet seems to be the fact that I can use it in millions of places around the world. Not much use when I’m a famously insular Scot that refuses to go anywhere that I can’t walk to in a day. I’ve been through the leaflet twice and I can’t see any other advantage mentioned so I guess that’s my lot.

Not entirely sure why Clydesdale have chosen to change this as Maestro is operated by MasterCard anyway so in effect it’s the same service… Isn’t it?

Amazing Rewards Inside

Barclaycard seem to be getting pissed off. I’ve just got a letter today telling me that I’m a lucky man. My Graduate Barclaycard has now been upgraded to a wonderful new Barclaycard Cashback. I assume this is because I’ve not actually bought anything with my current card since 2006 and have just recently finished paying off the last of the outstanding balance. I suppose it’s my own fault for listening to people when they told me I should keep it in case of “emergencies”. If I’d gotten rid of the card in the first place

The letter is a big glossy mail shot written in a friendly and encouraging tone with details of all the amazing features of my new card. The top line is a blazing azure headline that reads “Good News – You’re Being Upgraded”.

First of all I get an amazing 1% cashback on the first £20,000 of purchases I make each year and 0.5% cashback after that.

Double cashback on contactless purchases.

They’ll also lower my purchase APR to 21.4% and give me 0% on any balance transfers that I make until September 2010 (3% fee of course).

They also gave me a £10 House of Fraser voucher…

So in very simple terms I’m to be highly excited by a card that rewards me with virtually nothing unless I spend a huge amount. Additionally I would have to instantly pay off all the balance as soon as the statement arrived or my diminutive cashback “reward” would instantly be dwarfed by the amount added on to my account in interest.

I think this upgraded card will be joining it’s pal in the drawer.

An Expensive Hobby

I’m a greedy man I think as I’m constantly looking at the price of components on ebuyer.com with an eye on improving my PC. I’ve not got much spare cash right now, and with Christmas approaching I’ll need to set some aside for presents, but I’m still plotting and planning and dreaming of a massive upgrade. I know it’s only been about a year since the last time I carried out some upgrades, but I’m planning a more comprehensive overhall this time. The old dual core AMD Athlon that I’ve got is starting to act quite tired, and windows XP is slowly choking to death under the bloat of installed crap that I’ve never got round to removing.

I’ve even gone as far as going through all the review websites and checking out what would give me the best bang for my buck.  Tom’s Hardware and Tech Radar have been particularly helpful as ever. I’ve not gone overboard and went for the best of stuff, but I have tried to pick things that will last quite a long time and dramatically improve the current performance of my machine.

So far my plans are shaping up like this:

Intel Core i7 920 D0 – £214.87

ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 iX58 – £202.30

Antec 902 Nine Hundred Two Black ATX Case – £86.99

Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive x2 – £116.22

Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz XMS3 – £133.21

Grand Total: – £753.59

Unfortunately that’s far to steep for my current financial situation. In fact for that price I could more or less get the MacBook that I’m always humming and hawing about, or I could even buy a complete computer from Mesh or some of the other specialist gaming PC retailers. Advantages being that I would get the whole package with a warranty, and various other peripherals included in the price.

I’ve already got a copy of windows 7 professional that I bought, so it would be a simple matter to wipe all the preinstalled crap off a shop bought machine and set it up however the hell I like.

The Infamous Tendering Process

I’ve always tried to be meticulous in my finances. I suppose some of it comes from many years as student when I had little or no spare money and had to scrape by eating plain bread and drinking Coca-Cola. I’ve never had any real regrets over my lack of disposable income, but I will admit to occasional pangs of jealousy when I saw flatmates and friends spending a fortune on minidisk players, computer parts and other unnecessary luxuries.  That’s life though, the grass always seems greener in someone else’s field, and if you spend it trying to keep up with the Jones you’ll never really get anywhere.

Over the years I’ve developed a very careful and considerate approach to buying things. The more expensive, or luxurious, the item the more careful and considerate I become when trying to decide to buy it or not. El Kat has humorously dubbed this the Infamous Tendering Process and has compared it to governments putting out contracts for construction work. It’s a fair comparison as both things take ages, involve a lot of unnecessary scrutiny and often end up coming in over budget in spite of the best efforts of the organisers to get the best value for money.

The Infamous Tendering Process is slightly different from the government contracting process though. The government generally already knows what it wants and it’s just looking for the right company to build it for the right price. I generally want something, and I know the price of it on a hundred different website, but I can’t be sure that I really want, need or deserve to get it. I also do a lot of deliberating about the possible after effects of getting the item in question. I worry about not having enough money left to pay the bills, feed myself or carry out the day to day stuff that I need to do to stay hale, hearty and sane.

I don’t see a great problem with my cautious approach, but as El Kat points out it can make a torturous drawn out process out of something that would be a simple impulse purchase for anyone else.