Moan, moan, moan----get it off your chest or have a chat

[Anthony Darby]

I've had no problems with PayPal (touch wood)....... yet....! Instant payment from anywhere on the planet. Last month I sold a choochoo on Ebay. It is starting a new life in Tasmania.

[Maren]

I'm a bit tempted by Paypal except that over the last 3 or 4 months they have sent me at least 100 "phishing" messages saying my account is being used improperly by someone else or is about to run out or other rubbish when I have no such account. All that has put me right off.

Hi Lesley, the phishing messages did not come from Paypal. They tell you that if you receive rubbish in their name, to forward it to spoof@paypal.com and they will deal with it. You may be better off adjusting your email filter. I find paypal extremely useful, relatively cheap and very efficient.

[Lesley Cox]

Luc, I have to confess that I don't know how to change or where to find, my email filter. Totally useless in most regards when in front of a computer.

Rob, I paid my Frit Group sub by buying a 20GBP bank note and using the extra for my seed application. I can buy up to 100 pounds for the cost of a $NZ6 commision and would have bought the whole 100 against further subs or seeds except that I'm hard up at present. I do it this way each year and have never had it go astray, carefully wrapped in a double sheet of white paper.

We also here, have the option of paying this particular sub as the exact amount to Doreen Mear who is currently secretary of our frit grp, and she pays the lot with her own UK bank cheque as she keeps funds in the UK, travelling back there frequently, as she does.

[Lesley Cox]

Maren, please forgive me. I don't know why I called you Luc. Must have seen his name somewhere out of the corner of my eye. Mind you, a nice person to be mistaken for.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

 

[Ray]

I do have a Paypal account but it is not much good if the person/company you are dealing with has not signed up for it.
Hi Lesley,I did look at the idea of getting the currency of the country where  I wanted to send the money,but the bank wanted $30 fee.
With one company in the UK I sent them $200.00 and they deduct from this fund as required and this is working OK,but probably would not work with big companies.bye Ray

[Maggi Young]

I'm a bit tempted by Paypal except that over the last 3 or 4 months they have sent me at least 100 "phishing" messages saying my account is being used improperly by someone else or is about to run out or other rubbish when I have no such account. All that has put me right off.

Some of our banks (the Australian owned ones), charge $25 for a draft but my bank charges $15. I pay be credit card where possible.

But Lesley, it is not Paypal per se who is sending the phisihing emails but sneaky swines trying to fool you into giving info...... we get these too, purporting to be from Paypal, as we do from just about every banking service in the world, none of which we have any connection with, but it is easy enough to tell the difference between genuine emails form Paypal or any other company.  Obviously if one has an account with a company  who claims to be contacting you,  you must be ultra cautious, but the fact that spammers use these companies to front their scams is a measure of the widespread success of the company... which makes the spammers efforts worthwhile.
It is why the SRGC site is targeted by spammers....( who take a good proportion of my time to keep at bay).... we are a site with very heavy traffic and terrific 'google' ratings so those lowlifes want to cash in on our success.



And yes, we are making enquiries about having an SRGC Paypal account and yes, I know we could reduce the  anti-spammer work by all sorts of means.... but the first of those would be to restrict use of the site to SRGC Members only and that would defeat the whole object of the Forum!
 

[Anthony Darby]

I would go to the pst office and get cash in the currency and send registered mail. You are then covered.

[Tony Willis]

I'm a bit tempted by Paypal except that over the last 3 or 4 months they have sent me at least 100 "phishing" messages saying my account is being used improperly by someone else or is about to run out or other rubbish when I have no such account. All that has put me right off.

Some of our banks (the Australian owned ones), charge $25 for a draft but my bank charges $15. I pay be credit card where possible.

 Obviously if one has an account with a company  who claims to be contacting you,  you must be ultra cautious, but the fact that spammers use these companies to front their scams is a measure of the widespread success of the company... which makes the spammers efforts worthwhile.

NO financial institution ever sends an email asking you to update ,log in from a link within the email or to reset your  account. This is not rocket science they just do not do it.

[Maggi Young]

NO financial institution ever sends an email asking you to update ,log in from a link within the email or to reset your  account. This is not rocket science they just do not do it.

Exactly!

[Lesley Cox]

Thanks everyone for the comments. Since I'm not totally stupid, I NEVER reply to anyone whom I don't know or have a reason to expect email from them. Of course this includes so called Paypal, banks, IRS etc.
let alone the Nigerians who have billions to distribute, especially to me and the lotteries who just happen to have selected my email address at random.

Ray, we complain about the Aussie bank charges inflicted on their NZ branches and by and large, they are much higher than applied within Ausralia, especially for home loans, overdraft facilities, lines of credit etc but a $30 fee to buy currency is outrageous. As I said, we pay a commision of $6NZ for up to 100 GB pounds and 1% of the amount over that, that is bought. So to buy 250GBP would cost me $7.50NZ. That's quite bearable though there is a small risk in sending bank notes in the post. For some reason (Anthony) NZ Post won't register items to be sent overseas and anyway it is illegal to send money or anything with a value that can be exchanged for money, such as a lottery ticket, in the post. But we do it all the time of course. My grandson doesn't want an amount paid into his bank, he wants the money NOW please Grandma!

[TheOnionMan]

Get this, a new trend on opening NEW saving/checking accounts in some American banks, is to only make them accessible electonically, they are so-called e-accounts.  My wife just opened up one of these new-fangled accounts for my 18-year old daughter.  Here's the kicker, with one of these accounts, if she were to walk up to a bank teller to deposit a check in person, there is a $9 charge TO DEPOSIT MONEY???   Apparently the incentive is to force all money transactions to be done electronically, or via the ATM machines... but never use an in-person teller to make a deposit. 

Existing accounts are not subject to this stupid fee (well, at least they aren't yet).  All new basic accounts are using this model.

[Anthony Darby]

I would be changing bank if I had to pay to deposit a cheque. No wonder there have been over a million complaints to Lloyds Banking Group this year already! The banks and bankers caused the global meltdown but we are paying, and it seems, paying them, and in triplicate, too!

[mark smyth]

someone at work is doing their best to get me out by telling lies ....
"Mark was asked to leave the food hall because he was making a nuisance of himself asking for free food"

[ranunculus]

someone at work is doing their best to get me out by telling lies ....
"Mark was asked to leave the food hall because he was making a nuisance of himself asking for free food"

Crumbs!