There are many ways to waste your time, money and energy online...]]> The internet is a great way to make money while sitting on your bottom. You lounge around in your pajamas, and the cheques drop in your letter box. Sure, that happens. For some.

There are many ways to waste your time, money and energy online. Many people give up on their internet business because they get caught up in these snares:

1. Content Is King.

You can write hundreds of eloquent, informative pages, only to have them ripped off by a ’scraper’. You can be _the_ definitive site on a topic, only to have sites which have better SEO and SEM outrank you. You need something that is unique, or near it; something a lazy spammer can’t duplicate easily.

Also: Anyone who uses the word ’content’ to describe what they’re offering is halfway to being a spammer. Think about an ’elevator speech’ for your site. How would you describe it in five words to someone? (That someone is also a non-techie, by the way).

You’ve got to be able to tell Joe Public what the main benefit is in a short and simple sentence. If you can’t, you’re probably wasting your time. People don’t want ’leveraged media aggregation services’. They want sex, money, power, beauty, laughter; something that helps _them_.

2. The Latest $197 Software.

You need a script. You try to ’Google’ it. You find one for $197 which seems OK. What you didn’t realise is that you could search through popular freeware directories first; likely there’s a free version of what you seek, that thousands of other webmasters are using. Or a cheaper one you could adapt.

Beware: There’s a class of cookie-cutter one-page internet marketing sites out there. Anyone researching how to make money on the internet will soon find them. They sell over-hyped, latest-trick software which will deplete your bank balance, or worse, get your site banned.

By the time a newbie gets to hear about a wheeze, it’s already been sucked dry by the inventors. In the middle are hucksters who claim to have made $1000s with it, and now they’re letting you in on the ’secret’.

Fact: When you’ve got a sure-fire way of making a lot of money, you keep it close to your chest. You only let it go when it’s tapped out.

3. Reciprocal Linking.

Someone told you this works. Someone else told you it’s useless.

The truth: I’d say it works if you trade links with related, high-quality sites for a while, then stop. You get some search engine attention, then you work on getting links from different sources. This makes your backlink profile more ’natural’.

If all your links are reciprocal you risk being flagged by a search engine algorithm. Engineers are constantly on the lookout for signs of quality, and signs of spam. Too much of one form of promotion too quick, and BAM!, you’re penalised, or banned.

4. Drudgery Which Should Be Automated.

You’ve heard you need backlinks. So you start submitting by hand to directories. This is boring and time-consuming. What you didn’t know was that there are submission services which will do 1000 in a day, for $50.

You need a software. You learn PHP to write it yourself. This takes ages, and bug-fixing is a chore. What you didn’t realise is that a freelance would code it for $200, and support it for six months.

In summary: You have limited time. Spend it thinking up ways to make money. Anything related to computers can be automated; that’s what they’re for.

1. Eat Wholesome Food.

Eat plenty of fruit, fish and vegetables, drink clean water. Depending on where you live, you may need the bottled stuff, or the tap water could be OK...]]> Here are six tips that are guaranteed to work, if you follow them all religiously. There’s no point eating well, then taking drugs and staying out late!

1. Eat Wholesome Food.

Eat plenty of fruit, fish and vegetables, drink clean water. Depending on where you live, you may need the bottled stuff, or the tap water could be OK. Avoid chlorinated water. If you’re in a First World country, and the tap water looks clear, and doesn’t taste of anything, it’s probably OK.

Packaged food is full of additives. These are flavourings, colourings and preservatives. The more ingredients a food has, the less healthy it’s likely to be. The preservatives are poisons, put into kill bacteria.

Try and get organic food, if you can. It’s less likely to be tainted. A healthy diet makes for a healthy body.

2. Sleep.

Get at least eight hours a night. If you need twelve, take them! Ignore those fools who say they can manage on four hours a night; maybe they can, but if you’re like a zombie at work, or you sleep longer at the weekends, you’re chipping away at your health.

Lack of sleep is very ageing. You become more prone to disease. Recovery time from colds is longer, and you get more of them. If you don’t get enough sleep you look haggard i.e. old. Sleep deprivation is akin to being a zombie; your IQ is less, memory poorer, and your reactions slower.

3. Avoid Drugs.

This includes cigarettes and alcohol.

A smoker is essentially in a constant state of ill-health; weaker immune system, less energy, less stamina. In time smoking can lead to serious disease. It lengthens recovery time from other diseases. Doctors tend to write-off smokers; they know their work is being wasted.

Cigarettes contain poisons like formaldehyde, ammonia, arsenic, and benzene. The reason people crave them is because they also contain nicotine, which is as addictive as heroin.

Alcohol is a poison. Drunkenness is a mild form of poisoning; hence its alternative name: intoxication. It attacks the liver, which is vital to your well being. You don’t want your doctor to tell you have the body of a fifty-year-old at the age of twenty-five.

As for illegal drugs: Apart from the direct effects of the substance itself, it may be mixed with additives that end up poisoning you. The vendors have no fear of consumer watchdogs; they can put whatever they like in their products.

4. Take some exercise.

Exercise gets the circulation going, and gets more oxygen into the body. I’ve noticed when I sit at my PC all day, I get stiff. If I do it for days in a row, I feel colder.

When I take a long walk, I can feel my joints loosening up, and I just feel ’better’ at the end of it.

We share a common ancestry with the great apes. They are very strong; a chimpanzee can kill you quite easily. This is partly because they take a lot of exercise swinging around the place and foraging for food; no sitting around for them!

5. Avoid Worrying.

Consider your problems dispassionately. Solve them in your mind, or put them aside. Continuous worry never solved anything; it just wears you down. If you have problems, resolve to deal with them, or deliberately avoid them; but decide, and then put them out of your mind. Stress and worry make you haggard, and pre-dispose you to disease. They keep you awake at night, and ruin the quality of your sleep.

Meditate. Resolve your problems before you go to sleep at night. Observe your thoughts and emotions dispassionately. You may be surprised to find how crazy most are!

Look, all you really need are clothes, food, and someplace warm to sleep at night. Everything else is a bonus. Remember, it all ends in the grave, for rich and poor alike. Today’s major problem will be tomorrow’s vague memory. So cheer up, and get healthy!

My answer would be: yes, with qualifications.

I’ve been running internet chat rooms since 1998. Nothing fancy. The software was freely available...]]> Are chat rooms a menace to your children?

My answer would be: yes, with qualifications.

I’ve been running internet chat rooms since 1998. Nothing fancy. The software was freely available. I just had to make some important modifications: adding bad word filters and automated ’kicking’ (ejection from the rooms).

You think free speech is a good thing, until you read what anonymous, malevolent young men say to fifteen-year-old girls. It isn’t Shakespeare, let me tell you that.

That’s another key point: anonymity. A pillar of the free speech argument. Let freedom fighters and the repressed masses have their say! Except it’s more likely a twenty-five-year-old sociopath pretending to be sixteen and making young girls cry with his sickening profanity.

Free from all social restrictions, and safe from physical retribution, we see the contents of the subconscious pour forth unrestrained. And a hellish stream of psychic sewage it is.

This can be combated by bad word filters and having human moderators. The most important shield of all, I think, is education. "Don’t take candy from strangers", "You don’t need drugs until you’re ill", and now: "Don’t bandy words with trolls" (people who deliberately upset other internet users with provocative language).

Most chat rooms now have an ’ignore’ function. It’s a bit like the hooligan in the street: he’s *looking* for a reaction; if you ignore him, it’s infuriating. To him. You glide on by, figuratively speaking, while he rants on unheard.

Parents should take an interest in what their children are doing online. See if you can find out what service they’ve joined, and join up yourself; get a taste of it. Teenagers define themselves as adults-to-be by choosing a different path to their parents: if you are conservative, they’ll try liberalism, and vice-versa.

Therefore, you shouldn’t try to join in with their activities as an equal; just keep informed.

They may gripe, but secretly they’re glad you care. A parent who lets their child do whatever they want gives them no standard to measure themselves against.

Another problem with basic chat rooms is that you can develop an intense relationship with someone you can’t see and haven’t met in the flesh; there’s a fantasy element. Your thoughts pour forth freely, you believe you’ve met a soul mate. You may even meet them, and the illusion continues …

… until you eventually realise he or she is just a human being after all, and breaks wind like everyone else.

There is hope, however. With the advent of cheap digital video cameras, internet telephony and broadband, people will be less able to hide: "What do you mean, you’re shy? You weren’t shy a minute ago!". Old-fashioned, sensible prejudices will assert themselves: "Soooo, ’Zorro’ from Cambridge is really fat, spotty Darren from Dartford … next!".

Here are some simple tips that will help you make an informed decision about what kind to get, and who to get it from.

First ask yourself: do you really need it?

Can you manage without it? Is it for something frivolous, like a holiday?..]]> So, you want to get a loan?

Here are some simple tips that will help you make an informed decision about what kind to get, and who to get it from.

First ask yourself: do you really need it?

Can you manage without it?
Is it for something frivolous, like a holiday?
Could you get the money by other means: part-time job, from a relative, the sale an asset?

Don’t put a monkey on your back if you can avoid it.

A loan varies according to:

The amount borrowed;
The interest rate;
The type of rate (fixed or variable);
The term (repayment time in months or years);
Deposit (downpayment);
Associated fees (broker, origination, prepayment etc.);
Insurance required by the lender.

You are buying money for more than it cost the lender. Simple.

It’s a mistake to only care about the interest rate; there are also arrangement fees and prepayment penalties to consider. Many ’no fee’ credit lines have a pre-payment penalty. This is how brokers and lenders make their money. Work out the total cost of your loan before committing.

To ensure you get the best terms, keep your credit-line as small as possible. Loan officers tend to count the total line of credit available as a liability.

Pay off small debts before the due date. Cancel credit cards you are not using. Consider their interest rates and fees, when deciding which cards to keep.

If your spending is out of control, don’t put your home at risk by getting a home equity credit line to pay off your credit-card debts.

Shop for rates when the market is calm. Rates change from day to day, so compare lenders. The quotes you get should all be from the same time period.

Submit a neat application form; it shows you’re business-like and efficient. It will be read and assessed by a human being; appearances count.

Only pay up-front fees to well-known institutions, or ones highly recommended by trusted sources.

Don’t sign documents without reading them. As soon as possible, before you close the deal, review the documents you’ll be signing, and make sure you understand them, so you won’t have to sign them in a hurry.

Keep a copy of every cheque you write for your loan. If you call your lender about your loan, make sure you get the full name of the person with whom you speak. Make a note of it. You may be dealing with a large bureaucracy, and will need to refer to this conversation later.

If you find yourself in a dispute with a lender, don’t send correspondence to the same address you send your payment. You need to deal with the decision-makers, not the account clerks.

We understand small amounts of money; we know what they can buy. 400,000 quid is harder to grasp; you can’t fit it in your pocket...]]> It’s a curious fact of human nature that people will haggle over the price of an umbrella, but buy a house on a whim.

We understand small amounts of money; we know what they can buy. 400,000 quid is harder to grasp; you can’t fit it in your pocket. The desire to acquire, combined with the stress of the purchase, can make people do funny things. With this in mind, here are a few tips to review when getting a mortgage.

Watch out for the ’Deal Of A Lifetime’, the deal that seems too good to be true. The company may be saving money by cutting back on their level of service.

When getting a fixed rate: get a written statement which details the interest rate, how long the rate is fixed for, and the conditions attached.

When interest rates fall: try and leave your repayments as they are. You will therefore be paying more than the minimum each month. You’ll repay your loan much earlier. When rates rise again you may not have to change your payment.

Consider a fifteen or twenty year term. Try to pay off your mortgage quickly. Use a mortgage calculator with an amortization function, and see what’s possible.

Keep your mortgage as small as possible. Aim for *comfortable* affordability.

You will find mortgage lenders who will stretch your qualification ratios. They aren’t doing you a favour. The qualification ratio is the ratio of your total mortgage payment to your total income.

The traditional ratios are: The mortgage payment as 28% of your income; the total of your mortgage payment plus your monthly debt payments as 36% of your income.

Try not to ’churn’ your mortgage. Each time you refinance you’ll probably incur completion costs and non-refundable fees.

Beware of prepayment penalties. Many ’no fee’ credit lines have a pre-payment penalty. This can be very expensive if you are planning to refinance or sell your house in a few years time.

You don’t need to sign a mortgage agreement which contains any significant prepayment penalty, if you have good credit. One of the smartest things you can do with a mortgage is to prepay it.

Don’t look for a home without being pre-approved. You will have much more negotiating power with the vendor, and may be able to save thousands of pounds.

Get a full, professional survey. Human beings can be perverse; happy to spend 150 grand on a house after a half-hour viewing, but be-grudge spending 500 quid finding out whether it’s worth buying in the first place!

Find out the true value of your home. Get more than one independent appraisal. Compare it with the prices of similar-sized houses for sale in the same area.

Start gathering documents. Provide your mortgage company with documents in good time; don’t let your rate lock expire!

Verbal (oral) agreements are worthless. When buying or selling property, always get it in writing.

When you do get your mortgage, check your payments are correct - do the mathematics. There’s a one in ten chance you could be paying more than you should.

Review your mortgage regularly - this, and possibly remortgaging, will ensure you pay as little as possible in interest.

Finally, consider the following advice from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development:

Be sure to read and understand everything before you sign;
Refuse to sign any blank documents;
Do not buy property for someone else;
Do not overstate your income;
Do not overstate how long you have been employed;
Do not overstate your assets;
Accurately report your debts;
Do not change your income tax returns for any reason;
Tell the whole truth about gifts;
Do not list fake co-borrowers on your loan application;
Be truthful about your credit problems, past and present;
Be honest about your intention to occupy the house;
Do not provide false supporting documents.

A mortgage is the biggest financial committment most of us will ever make; worth spending a little time on, to get it right!

1...]]> As a man, there are some female fashions that annoy me. We all think of ourselves as unique, yet subconsciously we follow the herd. I propose that Western women have been tricked into adopting certain fashions that make them look unattractive. Read on and see if you agree.

1. Tattoos.

Tattoos used to be the colouring of soldiers, sailors, mafiosi and punk rockers. About fifteen years ago, they became fashionable. The lower-middle classes started taking them up. Unfortunately, unlike last years’ shoes, tattoos can’t be taken to the thrift shop and disposed of.

To a certain class of person, tattoos are ’cool’. To another, they are a graffito on the temple of the soul. They mark a woman definitively as lower class, alienated, depressed, and perhaps a bit daft. They’re also a handy way to identify one absolutely to the authorities. Which shows how stupid some crooks are.

The same goes for piercings. My family are farmers. I associate nose rings with bulls, and piercings with cattle tags. They are a haven of dirt, infection, and their openings look unsightly.

With tattoos and piercings, before you’ve opened your mouth, you’ve already typed yourself to people you meet.

2. Highlights and streaks.

Are you blonde, or brunette? Make up your mind! These might have been novel ten years ago. Now they just look common. Not all gentlemen prefer blondes. A healthy head of untinted brunette hair is a pleasant novelty these days.

It is true that blondes have more fun. I used to be one in me ’alternative’ days. Most people on the planet are dark. A non-blonde with blonde hair looks ’interesting’.

Now this fashion is done to death, however. If they’re doing it in Romford, it’s buried!

3. Big hoop earrings.

Unmistakably part of the wardrobe of the gypsy. Which is fine if you are one. Strangely popular. Perhaps they’re to make the wearer’s head look smaller. Add them to the features above, and an unattractive type emerges.

4. Binge drinking.

Binge drinking, squawking and falling over in the street is hilarious if you are the one doing it. If you are the spectator, it’s less so.

5. Visible G-string.

This is erotic, no doubt about it. Unless you haven’t the figure to pull it off. Likely to provoke a reaction of ’Mother of G*d!’ when adorning the pasty, blemished buttocks of the ’full-figured’ young lady. Bad diet, no exercise, five-pints-a-night, then ’peek-a-boo!’. Agggh!

I used to wonder why so many saucily-dressed young ladies walked the streets hatchet-faced. Now I now. Half are trying to ward off unwanted vulgar advances from men, the other half are annoyed they’re not getting any!

There’s nothing sexy about contrived, blatant eroticism. What’s erotic is what seems to be an accident. ’A glimpse of stocking is something quite shocking’ etc.

Likely to irritate female co-workers also. Assuming your company allows such clothing. It doesn’t? I wonder why?

6. Swearing.

Your gentleman friends might find this amusing, to your face. What they think in private is another matter. Habitual swearing is another sign of a depressed, angry person. It’s unattractive. The more you do it, the more it corrodes your subconscious.

7. Breast Augmentation.

Also known as a ’boob job’. These look fine, from a distance. Compared to a natural pair, they look odd. They are to real breasts what a transvestite is to a ’red hot mama’; no competition. Up close, they’re just not as good as the real thing. A perfectly functional piece of equipment has been turned into a cartoon joke, with possible long-term medical consequences.

Some men like small breasts. Beauty is a matter of proportion. Some women are neurotic about their appearance; nothing will please them.

A good example is …

8. Disappearing Eyebrows.

They get plucked away to nothingness, then get drawn or tattooed back in. And this is better? One can end up looking freakish, even clown-like. Loss of hair suggests illness. Plucking out one’s hair is often a sign of mental illness. Girls, desist! Don’t try to gild the lily!

IMPORTANT NOTE: There are people who’ll encourage you in the above. They’ll say you look lovely. Misery loves company, and some people delight in the fall of others.

Be your own woman. Stand back from yourself, your life and your surroundings, and decide your own destiny.

The latter is the option most new merchants choose...]]> If you want to sell on the internet, you need to accept credit cards. To accept credit cards, you need a merchant account, or access to one. There’re two ways of getting this: Get your own merchant account, or ’pimp’ off someone else’s.

The latter is the option most new merchants choose. You use a third-party to process your payments, and they take percentage. Here are a few popular ones:

PayPal.com ( http://www.paypal.com )

I don’t recommend them as your main processor. See http://www.paypalsucks.com. PayPal is popular because it was ’firstest with the mostest’ on auction sites. For this reason, eBay bought them out. PayPalSucks.com alleges that if you have a bad order they freeze your account, and can even dip into your bank account to make up any shortfalls. Mitigating circumstances are not taken into account. I’ve read enough complaints about PayPal on webmaster forums to heed them.

The usual rejoinder is; "But I’ve never had any problems with PayPal". To which is usually retorted "Just wait ’till you get a chargeback!"

A chargeback occurs when someone asks their credit-card company for a refund. They say they didn’t get the goods, or they never made the order, or the goods were not as advertised. This is passed on to the processor, who in turn debits the merchant. Or drops him entirely. You don’t want too many of these.

I’ve used them for years for small amounts, with no problem, but on the basis of others’ complaints in webmaster forums, I wouldn’t use them for large ones. Don’t leave large amounts ’on deposit’ in any internet-based company; they’re not banks, and even banks go bust occasionally.

The best use for PayPal is to entice customers who already use it. Find another provider to be your main one. One like …

2Checkout.com ( http://www.2checkout.com )

This is a factoring service like PayPal. Unlike them, they have a pretty good reputation with webmasters. Like PayPal, they don’t provide you with a merchant account; they process your orders through their own.

This is why such sites have to be very stringent; they are answerable to their own merchant account provider. Too many bogus orders, and they go out of business.

This is why third-party factoring services like 2Checkout are very useful to a newbie merchant: fraud prevention. They can screen out suspicious orders.

Most merchants would like to think they can sell worldwide. The fact is most of the world is poor; MOST countries can’t afford your goods. So some citizens try to get them fraudulently.

A smart merchant would bar most of the world from accessing his cart, and only accept orders from the USA, Canada, western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and his home country. Harsh, but you’ll sleep better at night.

WorldPay ( http://www.worldpay.com )

A well-regarded service. I found adding it to the Oscommerce cart ( http://www.oscommerce.com ) a bit of a chore, but it worked. More expensive to join than 2Checkout. You don’t hear many gripes about WorldPay, which is rare in webmaster circles.

ClickBank.com ( http://www.clickbank.com )

Handy if you’re selling a few items of inexpensive software to start off your business. They’ll let you up the price once they’re sure of you. I managed to get them to go up to $150 (whoo!). I was very jealous of their system. It’s well designed and extremely ’viral’; they’re basically a huge affiliate program. Join ClickBank, and others will try and sell your product for you.

They allow you to block whole continents from trying to buy your product, and that is good. The odds are that a $25 order for an ebook, from a third-world country, is fraudulent.

If an order looks dodgy, it probably is. Contact the customer by ’phone or email. If you don’t get a satisfactory reply, refund the card.

When you’re making $1000+ a month, get your own merchant account. Look for ’merchant services’ at your local bank. Having one’s own merchant account means paying less in processing fees.

IMPORTANT: You should specify up-front that you are looking for an internet merchant account. Internet transactions are viewed as higher risk than those by bricks-and-mortar businesses. The technical term is ’card not present’.

Some things you may need, if applying for a merchant account of your own:

Business bank account;
Photocopy of a voided cheque for said account;
Copy of the articles of incorporation of your company;
Photocopy of your return policy information;
Trade references;
Photocopy of your driver’s license or passport.

In short, you need to prove that both you and your company are what you say they are. Your account provider is taking a chance on you. You might send them a ton of bogus orders. A bank is a business too, not a community service. Help them to make the right decision! The more you can establish that you are bona-fide, the lower the cost of your account.

Things to avoid, if you can:

a) Expensive credit-card processing software rental or hire-purchase.
b) Monthly fees.
c) High discounts ( the % of your sales they keep ).
d) Fat fees up front ( anything over $500 is a joke ).
e) Salesmen calling you up with a spiel.
f) Getting lumbered with hiring their shopping cart as well.

Things to look out for at sites offering merchant accounts:

If you need to maintain a U.S. presence - full U.S. incorporation, U.S. server, U.S. offices, U.S. bank account - or not.

Also if they want a deposit, and the size of their application fee. And the usual monthly minimums, discounts etc.

Avoid getting into any software purchase or equipment rental. You can sort all that out later, for less money. There are plenty of good payment gateways, like Authorize.net ( http://www.authorize.net ) just itching for your business.

PS: Don’t accept a merchant account from an Eastern European bank. I did, some years ago. The bank went bust. One guy wailed on Usenet that he’d lost $10,000 dollars. Luckily for me, business was bad that year!

1 - Be an intelligent home buyer. Anyone looking to buy a home should do so carefully. Take your time to find the right one...]]> Here are a few tips on buying any property. It’s a major purchase, yet some people spend more time on choosing where they go on holiday, than on buying a new home.

1 - Be an intelligent home buyer. Anyone looking to buy a home should do so carefully. Take your time to find the right one. Do not treat home buying like you are shopping at the mall. A serious buyer looks at their present needs in addition to their future prospects. This will help you purchase the right place.

2 - Consider hiring a buyer’s agent. A buyer’s agent is one who’s there to look out for your needs. They’ll know the best tips, tricks, and solutions to any problem you may have.

3 - Inquire about the owner’s title insurance. If the owner is set to renew the home’s title insurance, save money by buying a reissue. A complete new title insurance policy can range in price. You lose nothing by reissuing insurance. This is one to save money when buying.

4 - Have your money in the right spot. If you are an investor, you need to be prepared when you are ready to buy. Closings can happen in a number of days if you’re ready. If you aren’t, it can take much longer. If you are a cash buyer, you may need to move funds around to afford the purchase. No matter what, the money you need at closing should be available a few days ahead of time. This will ensure there is a smooth transaction.

5 - Get involved in the buying process. Hiring a real estate professional will help you but you should not allow them to do everything. This is the biggest mistakes a buyer can make. You need to know what is going on. You should be aware of the smallest details. These details will keep you informed and help you to know what you are getting into with your purchase.

6 - Bad weather can be an advantage. Most people will avoid going to open houses in bad weather. This is a mistake you won’t want to make. Bad weather is a good time to check out a new home. This is going to let you see how the home handles the weather. If you want to check for leaks and poor roof quality, a rainstorm is the time to do so.

7 - Rate the homes you view. If you plan to see more than a few homes, rate them to keep track of the ones you like the best. This will keep everything in simple order for you. Rate the homes on what you need, want, and their ability to resell at a later date. This removes your worry of remembering if house 3 or 4 was your favorite.

8 - Don’t buy at the asking price. Do not assume you have to pay whatever the seller is asking. As a buyer, you have the right to make an offer. If the offer is not too low and you have financing lined up, the seller may be receptive. Check with your real estate professional to see if your offer is too low. They should have a firm grasp of the current market value. They can tell you what the home is really worth.

9 - Sell your home before buying another. Sellers are more willing to deal with people that are ready to move. If you are looking to buy on the contingency that your old home sells, be prepared to lose the home you want. Unless you can afford an extra house payment, avoid contingency buying and concentrate on selling. Then you can buy when you’re ready.

10 - Don’t let someone else choose your home. You are the one that will live in your new house. Don’t be bullied into choosing something. The average new home is picked out within a week. If you don’t find something you’re satisfied with, wait until you do. Take as long as you need. This is your financial investment and not anyone else’s.

1. Look at vendor reviews.

A vendor having 2000 satisfied customers is a good one to buy from...]]> Internet auctions are a terrific place to find a bargain and also to get ripped off royally. So how can you get the sweet deals, and avoid the snake-oil peddlers? Here are a few tips that have helped me:

1. Look at vendor reviews.

A vendor having 2000 satisfied customers is a good one to buy from. Check that the ratings go back years. Some scammers can get lots of good reviews by selling cheap items. Then they start selling the expensive rip-off stuff to the marks.

2. Look at completed listings.

These give an idea of how much the going rate is for an item. Whatever the price is now, the item will likely hit the standard second-hand value, so don’t get too excited about how cheap it seems.

Everyone bidding knows the true second hand value of the item. They’ve done their homework. So can you.

3. Buy name brand items.

No-name cheapo brands will lose their resale value fast. It’s all about marketing. A name brand will likely have more support and be more reliable. This is especially true of electronics. There are cheap Third World knock-offs of every successful Western good you can think of, even batteries!

4. Look at independent reviews.

Go to a search engine and type in the item name, model number and the word ’review’. You may find that you’re onto a good thing, or that there’s a better model available. Product comparison sites are good for this. You can read what real purchasers of the item think about it.

5. Pay by credit card.

PayPal is useful for buying on eBay. It puts an extra layer of protection between you and the vendor, and it makes purchasing easier.

6. Save time, use ’Buy It Now’.

Save yourself time and emotional energy. Just buy the thing if the likely winning bid, on a regular auction, is near the ’buy it now’ price offered by another vendor. It’s not worth getting hyped up about winning or losing an item you can easily buy elsewhere for the same price, with less fuss.

7. Avoid buying from abroad.

The postal costs will be high. They are more likely to be scams. So you’re offered a top-of-the-range cellphone or laptop from China, at a steep discount? Be _very_ wary.

You’ll not be covered by your country’s consumer laws. You’ll have to wait weeks for the item. You may have to pay import duty. If you have to post it back, it’ll cost a fortune. If it’s damaged, and you have to post it back, you’ll have a long wait before you get a refund. If you get one at all.

Buying on eBay is great fun. You snag a bargain, and wait like an excited child for the postman to call. Using the tips above, your purchase will more likely be a happy one. Good hunting!