FastLook Shopping Blog

Christmas Holidays, Kids on Your Nerves Yet?

2008-12-18T04:48:00.000-08:00

Here's something to help you preserve your sanity over the school holidays.

Bigpond Movies has introduced a 2 week trial of their home delivery Movie service. You can choose from 34,000 Movie titles with free delivery to your door (you know just like the Ad with the guy and the dog) there's no due dates and no late fees.

Sign up for the 2 week trial here

Help, My Credit Card Debts are out of control

2008-11-01T05:16:00.000-07:00

You Can Beat the Credit Card Recession

Economics 'Henny Pennies' like Steve Keen from the University of Western Sydney predicted an Australian recession arising from sky-rocketing levels of personal debt.

Australians have over $41 BILLION in Credit Card Debt. How your credit card going, or should I say cards?

We've all been in the situation where we said we were going to pay the balance off at the end of every month. BUT somehow we just turned around and the little sucker was maxed out.....

Well I am no finance guru, but there is one way you can buy yourself some time and reduce your monthly outgoings. Most credit card companies will encourage you to open an account with them by offering you an interest free or low interest period (3, 6 or 12 months) on all transferred balances.

Its not a long term solution, and of course you should get rid of that debt, but for example if you have a Harvey Norman Interest free deal about to expire then it might be a smart move.

Most of the banks have a low interest, low fee, basic credit card that you can get an 'balance transfer' interest free (or reduction) period.

I particularly like the look of the BP-Citibank Credit Card
You save 5% on all fuel (~ 6 cents per litre) & other purchases at BP Servos, You save 1% on everything you purchase, and you can transfer the balance of all your credit cards at 2.9% for 12 months.

You can find a list of other credit cards that offer lower interest rates on balance transfers on FastLook Finance pages.

ebay postpones changes

2008-06-27T17:27:00.000-07:00

Under pressure from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) ebay has postponed changes scheduled for July 15 that would see buyers not being able to use the direct deposit method of paying for goods purchased on ebay.

Changes of May 21 that forces all sellers to offer 'paypal' will remain in place.

Pretty sure that most sellers and buyers wouldn't have a problem with the changes so far, it just making them use 'paypal' exclusively which is the thrust of postpned changes, that it is a problem.

If safety is the concern, as the ebay press release states, then why not offer other so-called secure payment services as well as 'paypal'?

What's Happening to ebay?

2008-06-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

Changes to ebay for Buyers & Sellers

As you might have heard ebay in Australia have made some changes to the way they do business. Biggest among the changes is that they no longer allow buyers to use direct deposit as a means of making payments to sellers. Rather you need to use "paypal" instead. ebay says it for security reasons, other more cynical people say ebay owns paypal and its just another way to gouge another dollar out of the transaction.

There have also been numerous changes for sellers on ebay, including removal of digital content such as ebooks, stricter rules for listing products, and reduction in payment options for customers (as per above)

Will this have a major impact on ebay? some say yes, others say no.

How does it effect you?

There's one thing for sure, Online Auctions are still great place to buy things and sure are fun. The good news of course is there are several other good Australian auction sites. Here are some of the better ones: http://www.fastlook.com.au/html/auctions.html

Welcome to the FastLook Shopping Blog

2008-06-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Please feel free to raise any topic relating to shopping online in Australia