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At last,
the contents of Aardvark's "million-dollar ideas" notebook
are revealed for all to see!
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If you have a phone then you earn talking points -- it's Telecom's way of
encouraging you to use their offerings for all of your phone and toll-related
services.
Each time you spend a dollar with Telecom, you earn more points and these
points are accumulated until you become eligible to exchange them for any
of a list of products contained in a regular flyer they send to customers
or featured on their
Talking Points website.
Sounds great doesn't it?
If you rack up charges on your phone bill as quickly as I do then you can earn
a shiny new trinket every few months.
CDs, computer gear, cordless phones, kitchen appliances, tools -- they're
all available to be purchased with your accumulated points.
But hang on a minute -- before you rush off and exchange your points for
products, consider this...
Although they don't make a lot of noise about it, Telecom will exchange your
points for cash to be used against paying your phone bill or other Telecom
charges at a rate of $1 for every 400 points you have.
This means that if your phone bill is $40 you can pay it in full by
relinquishing 16,000 points.
So, using this value metric, just what sort of value do those Talking Points
trinkets represent?
Well you can get
this Black & Decker cordless drill for 65,000 talking
points (that's $162.50) -- or you could save nearly $30 and buy the
same drill from Mitre10
for just $139. Telecom charges you 20% more than retail!
Okay, what about this
Dido CD? You can get it for $40 worth of Talking Points from Telecom -- or
you could save over $15 and buy the
same thing from CDStar
for $24.95.
Telecom charges you 60% more than retail!
Then there's the
Panasonic KXTC1005 cordless phone that Telecom will sell you for
$135 worth of talking points but which
Dick Smith Electronics lists
for just $109. Telecom charges you 24% more than retail!
So what's my point? Why complain -- after all it's not like you're actually
paying cash for these Talking Points goodies are you?
Well hell yes -- you are effectively paying cash because those points could
be redeemed to pay your phone bill, thus leaving more cash in your pocket
or bank account.
So -- don't spend your talking points on the shiny trinkets that Telecom tries to flog
you at greatly inflated prices -- redeem them at 400 to the dollar against your next phone bill and then,
if you really want that shiny chrome toaster or desktop scanner you saw in the
Talking Points brochure, go and buy it with cash -- you'll come out many dollars
better off!
Wanna Buy My Shares In 7am.com?
I currently hold around 30% of the shares in
7am.com -- but I'm looking
to sell them to raise some cash for a new venture.
It's probably very difficult to assign a value to these shares (they're
not listed of course) but I'm realistic and open to offers.
Other 7am.com shareholders will have pre-emptive rights so acceptance of
any offer will be contingent on this.
Contact me if you're interested.
Free Tech/Net News
Looking for some free Tech/Net news for your website from 7amNews/ShockHorrorProbe?
The headlines and stories you see in the reddish box on this page are now available
for others to place on their own website -- free of charge. What's more,
for a limited introductory period, you can include the entire story within
your own pages so that people don't leave your site when they click on a headline.
Check out this page
for more information. Note -- this is in Beta test at this stage so please
report any problems.
Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or
page?
Just add a
couple of lines of JavaScript
to your pages and you can get
a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated
each and every week-day.
Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using
the RSS format. More details can be found
here.
Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and
have any problems.
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now!
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