Incredible, I’m still fuming over this, but it’s just as well, we should all be more wary of rental car companies. Now, more than ever, you have to be diligent when looking over rental polices because it’s clear these companies are at war with the consumer. Almost every time, a simple car rental turns into a costly lesson. Let me tell you a story where Budget / Avis stole more money from me than the actual rental. And, I did nothing wrong.
I don’t often blog about banking in Canada; Because, let’s face it, I don’t want to put you to sleep. But, as I was reading today’s news, I came across an interesting turnaround by one of Canada’s larger banks: TD Bank. They appear to have been on a downward spiral of greed and customer gouging (the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever seen).
Every day that passes, I seem to use money less. Things I used to pay for with coins and paper money have now been replaced by payments methods such as Tap (micro payments), Interac/Debit, and Chip payments. With Apple Pay and various smartphone payment options hitting the market, we have a society that is very close to being cashless. But, what if we stop using and paying with cash altogether? Cash certainly intrinsic benefits that electronic currency can’t touch. If we lose this, some might say that we’ll lose a lot.
Coins in Canada are a fact of life. It almost appears as though, over the years, coins have gotten heavier in our pockets; this despite the phasing out of the penny. Even though we use interac debit and credit cards more and more, coins seem to creep into our pockets and weigh us down. When the coins accumulate, many turn to time consuming counting and rolling, or costly services that charge fees such as 11.9% to count the coins. You can do all this free, if you want. I’ll show you how.
Automatic billing sucks.
Recurring or automatic billing is simply the process of automatically billing a customer on a regular interval. Sometimes it’s monthly, weekly and even yearly. Generally, companies on the Internet love this type of billing because they get to store a credit card and bank on a regular income stream. That looks good on the balance sheet. Where it doesn’t look good is for the customer, as many of the companies the I have encountered use repeat billing tactics to abuse the customer’s goodwill. I’m going to offer some serious sins companies make when billing automatically and suggest some ways to improve the process.
There is a time in any skilled freelancer/consultant’s life when someone they know comes up to them and says “Can you help me with ” and said person expects you to do that for nothing. Even worse, they may give you the runaround or play you more as you’re doing something to help them. Here are some simple rules to follow when you’re gut’s telling you the person looking to you is after “something for nothing”.
Recently, fascinating news was released about Canadian currency. Yes, stopping the minting of Pennies was a big (and international) news item for many. But, the bigger news for us appears to be a new kind of currency called MintChip. The recent news revolves around a new challenge to create a smartphone application and/or make use of a new API. What I’m curious about is more about this new currency and what it means for Canadians.
Kevin Costain