Credit Card Problem we faced

This is from one of our readers (didnt know we had any :P)

Anyway , i got a call around 2 years ago from a bank (bank name not listed for privacy concerns) , they told me i had ‘won’ a lucky draw , i would get a free credit card and also a free bag. I never really liked the credit card concept but thought a free one wont hurt. I called them to my home and i signed on the dotted line.

After 5 days i receive the cards , an addon card was also sent w/o my knowledge. it was ok till then , but 2 days later i got a bill for rs.2000 for the cards , horrified i called the bank customer care which was not responsive and i was put on an indefinite hold. then i decided to write an email to my bank. They replied 14 days later promising to look into the matter. I replied ‘i am not going to pay’ and threatened consumer court. Within 1 day they send me a reply with 2 options

1. Cancel the card

2. pay the fee and get 500 reward points

By this time i had realised the direct selling agents were actually frauds so i didnt really want them to have any commission and i decided to cancel the card, tore it diagonally and sent them back to the bank’s office.

Our take is that always take it from written from the Direct Selling Agents who offer you credit cards. Anyone who says you won in a lucky draw is lying, banks dont conduct lucky draws to see who can be their credit card customer for free. Similar things happen in insurance sector also , a story about that too will be published soon.

Outsmarting Credit Cards : A brief Guide

credit card

Credit card companies have been harassing you since god knows when, take this card, take that card, its free, that’s free and in the end it turns out to be paid. Well I have got a solution to your problems.

1st Step: Get a free for life credit card, ICICI bank claims to offer one but always read the fine print. Take it in written from the agent that the card is free of cost and then only apply for one and sign on the dotted line.

2nd Step: Receive your card, now the first thing you should do after receiving your card is to memorise the CVV number which is written on the back of your card after 4 digits. CVV is a three-digit number used to verify online applications. Now scratch this number out with a knife.

3rd Step: Memorize your Card’s ATM Pin and tear it and burn it away.

Now to get your money’s worth, make a promise to yourself that you will use the card only for things which you have decided to buy already, buy everything you can with a card only, DON’T use cash.

The rationale behind it is that your credit card statement will come next month and you will have till end of next month to pay the bill, so that means instant 2 months interest savings. Plus let me warn you always pay the full amount due on your credit card and never only the minimum amount due if you don’t want to be in a debt. Plus you also earn reward points for which you can get something decent from your bank.

Some general safeguards for using Credit Cardscredit card swipe

  1. Always make sure they are swiped in front of your eyes.
  2. Make sure they are swiped only once
  3. Be on a lookout for an extra attachment to the card machines, these are called skimmers and can clone credit cards.
  4. When using the card on the Internet, make sure it’s not a public computer, even if it’s yours, run an anti-spyware scan before the transaction.
  5. Use your card only on the gateways of banks and legitimate reputed brands, NEVER use your credit card for a get rich quick scheme or similar such offers or on cheap websites of which you know nothing about.
  6. Don’t make gambling transactions on your card, its illegal in India.
  7. The second you see your card is missing, call the call centre number of your bank and get your card disabled, any money spent before that becomes your liability in most cases.
  8. This is my personal trick, in your credit card jacket or for that matter your debit card jacket even, place a chit with a random 4 digit number which is not your REAL PIN, but write PIN on that number, in the event your card is stolen the thief will think he has got a jackpot and if he tries to withdraw money using a wrong pin your card will be swallowed by the machine.
  9. Dont use it at a restaurant where the card will be charged away from your direct view or insist on the card being charged in front of you , remember a little bit of inconvienience can save you from that large shock.

Credit card online transaction

Airtel Spamming Customers

mobile

Ok i am an Airtel Subscriber ever since i got a mobile phone connection i.e. 2 years , i have been an Airtel fan. Thats because although its THE MOST EXPENSIVE service , its also the best in terms of coverage and quality. I didnt even know what dropped calls were at that time. But all thats changed.

First it was poor connectivity which Airtel was giving, calls would disconnect with a Network Busy message , i would be unreachable to the network at most other times. It seemed like ‘Expressing Ourselves’ was becoming harder and it couldnt get any worse.

But guess what , Airtel proved me wrong again.

Now is the time to spam your inbox , my earlier phone thankfully had a service inbox disabling feature. My new phone however treats a link service message like an SMS , so it goes straight into my inbox. So how much spam do i get you asked ?

Picture this , approximately 13 spam messages a day

Often loaded with links to non-minor suitable content (did i say often make it 98% of the time)

Well i am going to switch as soon as i get a good scheme under some other non spamming service like Trump maybe or i will wait till someone sues Airtel.

Yeah and i almost forgot , i called their customer care one day , they told me these messages are part of Airtel Live and cant be stopped , only postpaid customers cant opt for that. can you believe it a Do-Not-Call service for postpaid only. This way you get the goodwill without actually doing any good. Shame on you !!!

email us at admin@wisetechie.com to tell us how happy or sad you are with your service.

Is Orkut Corrupting Us ???

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Well till an year back , most of the so called Indian Students (those famous for being studious) had nothing to do in their free time but watch TV or study , but a new bug has hit town, its called Orkut and boy is it spoiling us. I take my own example , overtly studious guy from New Delhi , did nothing but study and blog and read tech things , suddenly i get this urge to goto Orkut and scrap people , people whom i wouldnt talk to in real life and vice versa suddenly become my fans and vice versa and in the whole process a lot of time is wasted. So why do we Orkut ?

Its basic human psychology IMHO , we want company , when we cant get some in real life , we try to get it in the cyberworld , real people in the cyber world vying to be your friends and even soulmates. I goto my college library and i see every internet machine is logged onto Orkut , people wasting their precious time which would have been used to secure their future had it been 3 years back in time. I know of a few people who had earlier deleted their orkut accounts and then remade them , just because they couldnt get over their addiction. See the similarity in Orkut and Drug Addiction (leaving aint easy , you will face rejection)
Then there are people who like to look at it as a conspiracy , is it a conspiracy by the West to dumb us down ? , majority of the communities are full of Indian students , teenagers and people in their 20s at the peak of their productive lives. And what is the discussion in these communities , not good healthy conversation , but jibberish , “would you marry the person above you”, “add one if you are a boy or subtract 1 if you are a girl” , good for nothing nonsensical postings.

Not only stupid , its downright dangerous , with outright strangers making ‘offers of friendship’ to young women and some being gullible enough to accept them even without realising the obvious dangers involved in the act.

Then there are hate based communities , right from communities which proclaim your hate for a teacher to communities which proclaim your hate for another country , people are depicted as witches , national flags burning , is this the kind of thing we want to be involved in. Moreover the so called , report as bogus feature never seems to work, i take the particular example of a ‘we hate india community’ , i am sure about 5000 Indians atleast would have marked it abusive , but it was still there for months and months and months , i believe its still there or maybe it was taken down when someone filed a court case and when Google saw that its site maybe banned for Offensive and anti-nationalist content.
What people need to realise is that Google’s conscience wont stop all this , they are making cold hard cash out of this venture, they recently placed Google Adsense ads on Orkut , plus they made Orkut free for anyone to join too and their social resposibility doesnt seem to be overiding their buisness sense.
What i mean is that we really need to get rid of this addiction or else we are totally doomed !!!

Wii’s Elbow , Ouch !!!

Its been only a few days since the Wii’s launch and potential health hazards of the new sword style controller have started to come forward. People who were playing the Wii for a long time complained of pain in the joints and dubbed the syndrome as Wii’s Elbow. So to avoid getting this repetitive starin injury , dont play the Wii for long periods at a time.

Here is a very nice article from 1up.com

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3155292