This is Money Blog

Sort of share game: Can you work out which securities are in this chart?

A little game.

Here is a performance chart of three investments over three years cobbled from our charting tool.

But can you work out what they are? The pink line is the FTSE All-share index by the way. Click on the image to enlarge. 

More clues to follow if this proves too difficult.

Reviews of Michael Moore's new movie Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore's films when held up to scrutiny can fairly be accused of distortion and selective use of fact but that's not a reason to discount them out of hand. Bowling for Columbine and Sicko were important polemics that the provoked debate in the US that may otherwise not have taken place. That is, the constitutional right keep guns and to pay for health care, respectively.

His latest offering, Capitalism: A Love Story sounds like it's 'right on the money' as it charts a financial coup d'etat' by the new, 'unsinkable' American establishment made up of financiers who appear to be running the country. 

Chart of the day: British Airways declining (website) traffic

British Airways tends to be loved and loathed in equal measure but a squint at the two-year traffic chart from Google Trends indicates that the love for its website, www.ba.com is waning. The chart shows daily visitors to the site and suggests a downward trend that has continued over recent months when 'Britain's favourite airline' has been running a heavily publicised worldwide flight sale.

The caveat here is whether Google Trends is accurately representing the state of affairs. But given that Google indexes (stores on its computers)  most of the World Wide Web and much of its success is down to how it analyses and capitalises on the behaviour of users, a fair amount of accuracy may be implied.

Hotel comparisons: can you trust them? Not Venere.com

Looking at Barclays share price, which has risen 550% since March, you might be forgiven for thinking that if something looks too good to be true... sometimes when it comes to the stock market it might actually be so. 

But in my experience the same cannot be said for hotel comparison website Venere.com.

 

Last month, I found a brilliant deal. A smart hotel in central Ostend for 18 euros (£15) for a Saturday night. And having previously written about £5 hotel deals, it didn't seem as outrageous an offer as all that. It was in Belgium after all. So I accepted the offer, booked a Eurotunnel return ticket and prepared to throw some English pounds at the pointless Belgian economy. Until...

On the morning of our departure the hotel, the Best Western Hotel Imperial, rang me to say there had been a mistake and there was no way they would honour the price. My 18 euros could secure a parking space but not a bed.

One amusing row about binding and non-binding contracts later [my credit card hadn't been debited at this point but simply been used to guarantee the room. Have you spotted the irony yet?] and we had nowhere to stay for the night.

All wasn't lost. Fortunately we know people in northern France with far more humour than the Belgian population combined and we had our fun weekend abroad nonetheless. But that's not the point.

To its credit, the hotel had tried to contact Rome-based Venere.com but couldn't get through.

Venere has since replied after a week-long wait to my email asking for an explanation and apology but said merely: 'Thank you for using Venere - Internet Hotel Reservation. We have contacted the hotel and they told us you didn't show up and they haven't charged you any no-show penalty. Best regards.'

You're bloody right I didn't show up. They wanted $180 euros - a 900% mark-up on what was advertised and agreed on your website!

And with no explanation or apology that's customer service almost up there with that of a British company.

We'll be covering in more detail where exactly the financial responsibility for such muck-ups lie separately but for now I hope this serves as a warning to anyone foolish enough to believe the word reservation means something other than not-a-reservation.

 

Related

Travel insurance finder - don't not reserve a trip abroad without it

Ryanair's -£1 (that's minus one pound) air fare

If it seems too good to be true it usually is, especially with Ryanair and its famous list of extra charges. But could Ryanair really be offering to pay me a quid to fly to the south of France today?

It's the kind of ruse a publicity seeking airline marketing executive might try. Isn't it? Sadly, no. They're not.

Somehow, that -£1 converts to £219.99 before adding on the extra charges such as paying to check in and the other stuff. Oh well. (click image to enlarge)

 

Now read: How to get a Visa Electron card to beat Ryanair's credit card charge

Or get hold of: low-cost travel insurance

Q. How easy is it to switch broadband supplier? A. Very easy

As the talk today turns to the official investigation into broadband speeds, or lack of them, I thought I'd share my experiences of switching broadband supplier.

In a country based on a service economy consisting largely of discretionary spending, it should be a source of national shame that we are criminally useless when it comes to service; particularly customer service.

The only way to cope - and it seems to me that companies positively encourage it - is to vote with our feet when things go wrong. And to do this is easier than you might think. Even with broadband.

The trouble with broadband is that it involves computers. And as everyone knows, the only people who know how computers work are either out to take you to the cleaners or are called Charles Babbage, and unfortunately he died in 1871.

I've switched internet service provider several times over the years from MSN to AOL, others I can't recall, to Virgin, where I stayed for about a decade of pretty reliable service - until it let me down.

When Virgin's security software corrupted and the customer service was typically British - there was nothing they could do about it - it was time to go.

I'd also decided it was time to dump BT. I felt its pricing and packages were becoming increasingly sneaky; a view rammed home when I received a quarterly phone bill of nearly £250 compared with a usual bill of around £65, including line rental. It left me with two options of interest: Tiscali, which also had an impressive TV on-demand service, and TalkTalk.

Tiscali was in the middle of takeover talks and there was a possibility that I'd switch and end up back with one of my erstwhile suppliers, so that left TalkTalk.

Oh God, no! Not TalkTalk! Not the company responsible for one of the great customer services disasters of recent years. But it was cheaper, loads cheaper, and the little money-saving light bulb in my head was flashing away. Surely, it couldn't still be that bad? There was only one way to find out.

Step 1: I went to this broadband switching page

Step 2: Repeated Step 1 about 50 billion times just to make sure I was doing the right thing 

Step 3: I signed up and held my breath. And...

...that was pretty much all there was to it.

TalkTalk did the rest, efficiently with such a completely moron-friendly process that I defy anyone to be confused by it.

BT and Virgin were cancelled without my involvement. The box of goodies with software, wireless router and cables arrived earlier than expected, letters and emails kept me informed of the process along the way.

On the switch-over date, I plugged it all in and followed my easy-to-follow-even-for-morons instructions and within about 12 minutes I was a TalkTalk customer, paying £6.49 plus line rental a month for up to 8mb broadband, compared with £17.99 to Virgin plus surreal variations to BT. And my TalkTalk deal includes weekend and evening national phone calls and daytime local calls. The broadband speed is the same as Virgin but then I wasn't switching to improve the speed. This was about cash and service.

Now, a company is only as good as how it treats its customers when things go wrong and so far there's nothing much to report on this front. Nothing's gone wrong, although once, when I was unable to access the internet a little box came up saying something like:' This isn't working, try this,' which I did and it worked again.

Before switching I'd asked around and the feedback these days on TalkTalk is largely positive - a far cry from the days it was considered 'worse than British Gas'.

So if you don't have anyone to ask for their views on switching to TalkTalk, that's my story into the mix. And my conclusion is that if you feel you are being ripped off and want to change supplier, do it. It is very, very easy with TalkTalk and you could save hundreds of pounds a year.

Related

Compare broadband suppliers in your area

(I should add if this tale all sounds rather servile, that I'm not in the pay of TalkTalk. Far from it. But hey, this is a tale of a customer in Britain who is happy with a service. It's surely worthy of a bit of praise.)
 

Sterling, the dollar, the UK and US economies 'are doomed'

In January, he urged everyone to sell sterling. 'It's finished!' he claimed, having put his money where his mouth was. And now, Jim Rogers, the leading investor and former business partner of George Soros is so fearful of the prospects for the US economy (and the UK one for that matter) he has moved his family, including two young daughters, to Singapore.

Singapore? Are things really about to get that bad?

In an interview on BBC Radio Five Live's Wake Up to Money this morning, Rogers explained why we should sell sterling, why government bailouts 'haven't and won't work', why he moved his family to Singapore, why sterling and the dollar are finished and how 'the 19th century was the century of the United Kingdom, the 20th century the century of the United States and the 21st century will be the century of Asia and China'.

Listen again (please wait for the player icon to appear before clicking the link:

Mickey Clark interviews Jim Rogers

Related

Latest tourist rates

Latest forex rates

Share dealing service

Where next for interest rates

George Soros on recession: 'We're through the worst of it' (June 2009)

George Soros on the economy: 'We've averted financial collapse' (May 2009)

Bankrupt Britain: what would it mean?

A Gift to My Children by Jim Rogers - book review

'Sterling is finished': Jim Rogers (January 2009)

Amazon 1p bizarre sale: Is it a rip-off?

As the queues of respectable-looking people desperate to spend a penny form outside the local branch of Marks & Spencer again this morning, one of our tech guys downstairs has pointed out that sometimes when goods are sold for 1p  there can be a catch.

Colin, not his real name, bought four items for 1p each and another for £2.39 from the same supplier on Amazon.co.uk marketplace, the part of the Amazon website where third-party traders sell their wares.

The five items were promptly dispatched in the same A4 envelope for which Colin was charged a separate £4.84 'shipping charge' for each item. Total shipping for one envelope: £24.20.

While I find this rather bizarre - though not nearly as bizarre as queuing to go into a shop - it is perfectly above board and stated within the terms; Colin probably should have known better. But I can't help feeling the urge to remind anyone tempted by offers with the whiff of 'too good to be true good' about them, remember to digest the rules on caveat emptor first.

Click on the images to enlarge:

 

Related

M&S 1p bazaar sale: Is it worth it?

Archive: Ryanair's 1p vs SAS £39

External site: History of the 1p coin

Tony Hetherington: The master financial sleuth investigates scams and rip-offs

'UK vehicle car scrappage incentive scheme - the latest and best deals and offers'

A fine round-up - with links to manufacturers' websites - of current car scrappage deals can be found on the MSN site. Check out...

Car scrappage latest and best deals (MSN)

They say: 'Here are the latest up-to-date scrappage deals on the market. All are subject to change. Where a deal has been confirmed by the manufacturer, then your local dealer should know about it. If they don't send them the URL to this webpage, or better still, print it off and take it down there.

'There is no obligation for car makers to join this scheme, so if they haven't there is no point badgering them about it. Having said that, in these difficult times they can still be expected to do you a good deal if you have cash waiting to be spent...'

Related

Find a low-cost car loan

Cash to scrap old cars (archive)

How the scrapping scheme works (guide)

Funny Asda complaint about a pizza

I'm not sure why Asda seems to attract the prank callers. It always strikes me as one of the better supermarkets with wonderful, helpful and friendly staff. In fact the customer services rep in this clip handles himself with dignity and professionalism - for the first minute at any rate.

If you liked that here's another one from the archives

Tesco/Asda prank call

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Tara's tips: Latest shopping vouchers

Richard Browning