Mr Feedback

Let’s face it, a bit of bling bling would be nice! Until recently, on the contribute page I had not specified a paid review price. This is largely because I had no idea how much I should charge businesses for paid reviews. I like writing reviews, and wouldn’t writing for free but it would be nice to cover the costs of hosting, and advertising. Besides, it would be more transparent if I was more up front about fees etc.

I am prepared to be a low cost reviewer so set a charge of $5 - $10. I can use the excuse to get out of the house a bit more (a bit hard to do when you’re working nights - i.e.: me, now). It takes me a fair while to write a full review, and do research about it. There may be significant cost associated with it - for example, I reviewed La Spaghetatta, and their dinner bill was $94.00. But that was a review done while I was out anyway, so no loss. If I had specifically gone out that day to review that restaurant, you can imagine the expense.

So I hope the charges are reasonable, but they are negotiable. Businesses can always contact me. I don’t know, what do you think? Is it a fair price?

I am a regular user of Commonwealth Bank’s NetBank. Although it doesn’t look as pretty as Westpac’s interface, its very fast and efficient. I rarely go into a bank these days, until the other day when I went in to the branch at Brandon Park to ask about my credit card available funds.

I have a credit card which has no awards points, and no interest free period. I have purposely signed up for such a card because there are no yearly fees, and it forces me to pay it off regularly. In fact I rarely have any funds due on my credit card at any time, as I use it and pay it off instantly.

Such was the case on Monday 14th (see pic) when I used it to make a purchase worth $550, and paid it off within minutes using Netbank. Usually, the available funds updates instantly and this time it didn’t. I gave it 24 hours, and it still had not. I rang up Commbank, and they said it can take a few days. Still no signs of updating. You see I pay interest on any remaining sums on my credit card, so I was important it updated quickly rather than in “few days” or even “weeks”. Anyhow, I went to the Brandon Park branch, and apparently I had been double charged on my credit card. This is a rare error, because 1) I received an invoice for the amount, 2) the online statement only shows 1 charge being made, 3) Commbank records (in their database) only shows 1 charge being made. Where did the other charge come from? I don’t know, and Commbank were not able to explain it either.

I had my CC reversed back to its full limit instantly after the error was found. This is so weird. Never have I had a problem with Netbank, and hopefully its a once off. So if your statement online doesn’t update instantly, question it quickly - to ensure everything no errors have occurred.

Store
Tort’s Famous Catering
Australia on Collins
260 Collins St
Melbourne, VIC
Tel: (03) 9670 7824

I had a wander around Australia on Collins, and it’s like another world there. I have never been to this place before, and actually ran into it because it was the quickest way to the nearest Police Station. Yep, I got arrested! (kidding by the way). They have a nice little food court on Floor 1, and that’s where I found Tort’s Famous. In my pledge to start eating something other than Indian or Italian, I ordered here.

It’s a neat kitchen, and you can freely see the good preparation. In fact, seeing the food prepared is one of their unique specialties. They have a combo meal for $10.95, which is decent. The service was great, although I was one of the few who ordered from there. The food itself was aaright! I wasn’t a great fan of the chips (or tort chips they call it). The tort itself was quite tasty, and healthy at that. It’s a bit like a Subway sandwich, except its wrapped in a TORT (read more here). They have a few stores in Melbourne (although I had never seen one before), you can find them here. Their menu is here.

If you want organize office catering, then you can do so on their website. The more I think about it, maybe some of my catered food comes from here.

There are plenty of options there, but I am just not a Tort person. I guess I shut down when things become healthy, :-).

Rating: 6/10 (great place, good service, but I am not a tort person)

Refer to article: CPI Figures bad for rates and Record petrol pump gain

I guess there are good reasons why I don’t have a car, although I will be on the hunt in a few months time. According to the article above, petrol prices are set to hit $1.60 per litre. Wow. I remember in the early nineties, it was in the vicinity of 35 cents per litre, and in 2006 when I visited UAE - petrol prices there were in the range of 12 cents per litre. When I buy a car, fuel efficiency is definitely going to be high on the agenda, and the possibility of a hybrid although the prices for these cars are still beyond my budget.

The rise of inflation is not good, particularly for home owners. But if you are in the market for a new home, then I would personally wait a few more months. Interest rates will be raised to curb inflation, and there will be no let down until 2009. According to the article, this is the rise of cost of living in Australia: “Petrol prices rose 5.4% in the first quarter and pharmaceuticals climbed 13.1%, the cost of buying houses gained 1.7% and electricity prices increased 6%. By contrast, furniture fell 3.6% and stereo, TVs and computer prices slid 5.8%”. The cost of electronics is coming down, but state of the art technology is still bloody expensive.

As interest rates rise, more and more people will be selling their houses and going back to the good old fashioned renting. This is because, many people who bought homes and apartments were stretching their budgets at the time anyway. Once this happens, the housing market will be in surplus and demand will decrease as affordability decreases. More people will become “desperate” to sell their houses for lower prices, and this is why it makes sense to wait a little bit longer. Having said this, there is thought that this will rise rents as more people will be in the hunt for rental properties. But, my take is that the rental market (although will rise), won’t be affected as much as more people (like myself) will grab that bargain house when it becomes available and choose to buy than continue renting.

Having said all this about petrol prices etc, we are still considerably cheaper than some European countries. Check out their prices. People in Norway are paying almost $2.50 per litre. Compare that to the Americans who are still sitting under a dollar.

If you want to travel, then this is the time to do it with the Aussie dollar reaching $US0.95 today. That’s some good news (although not if you are exporting).

Note: I do not intend to give financial advice, nor am I am a financial adviser. So, the point is - this is all just my analysis and not official by any means. However, if you have your own take - let me know.

Update (26/04/2008): Woke up to this article in The Age: Rates hit home prices. Part of the article agrees with my analysis, and there is more news to come in this sector. Will keep you updated. ANZ has hiked its interest rates already independent of any move by the RBA. What does all this have to do with Mr Feedback and my mission: its news for starters, but if the economy is dwindling indicated by the share market and housing market downfall, you can expect businesses will also struggle to cope due to less consumer spending and demand. Mr Feedback is all to do with businesses and consumers.

I recently joined up to SMSPup mainly due to lack of credit for my mobile. Yes, I use it up quite quickly so I wanted a free, easy way of being in touch via sms with family. Just the odd sms when I am at work. Besides, where I work - there is poor Optus reception for mobiles.

The way SMSPup works is by sending you promotional emails, and you click on them or sign up to their products (if you want to) and you get points. Each point is worth 1 free sms, which is mainly what I use it for. Their free sms service is quite prompt. So far I have not experienced any delays at all, but I have only been using it for a few weeks.

Anyway, I got a promotion to getting 50 free prints at Snapfish. This is a HP photo print service, and their prices seem reasonable. Anything free must be great right! In true Mr Feedback spirit, I quickly jumped onto this opportunity (sorry GetDigital). Here is my analysis:

The process
The uploading process was quite stream lined, and because my photos were quite small in size I just uploaded them individually. Didn’t bother with their quick upload software. I had a similar experience recently with GetDigital - read here. The best thing about Snapfish is that they offer UNLIMITED ONLINE STORAGE OF YOUR PHOTOS, as long as you buy something at least once every year. I wonder if they accept cheap purchases once yearly to get free storage. Seems like a great way to beat the system, because Flickr and other professional photo storage options can be expensive. Especially if you have thousands of photos. All those memories, and no where to put them. Ok, back to “the process”.

I created my album, and within minutes was able to upload all my photos. Then I confirmed checkout. I got an email confirmation, and I can easily view my “free order” in my Snapfish account. Read the rest of this entry »

Refer to article: A new way to shop - check it out for yourself

It’s a great technological stride when self serve check outs are introduced in almost all Australian supermarkets. Read my earlier post on Big W’s system. Like Jayec pointed out - there is a problem with items with security tags. I did not have a problem scanning basic items at Big W, although I do see a problem with people that are easily bewildered by technology.

Like the article suggests, people with small items, and low number of items will be attracted to these self service check outs due to the “time saving” factor. But, I think expecting people to scan the items one by one is not the way to go. One way to avoid this problem is to place the item on the usual conveyor belt, and let is go through this “3 dimensional” scanner (sounds like a magic trick). Essentially, the item will be scanned no matter where the bar code is, because I can envisage people spending valuable “self serve check out time” trying to find the bar code. This will defeat the purpose of saving time with these check outs, and I can see people standing in line going “Oh my god, it’s there, it’s there you %$#&*”. I am not a tech expert, so I do not know if they have multi-focal point scanners yet.

Another important element is to make these self service check outs only for those with 10 items or less, or a fixed low number of items. Otherwise, people with trolley full loads will start using them, and ruin it for the rest of us. If you want to avoid this problem, then have portable bar code scanners which provide a running total of items purchased, so you can scan as you buy in the aisle. At the end of your shopping spree - the item information can be self served at the check out counter. This system might work better than the manual system, especially for grocery shopping. I believe they have these systems in some overseas stores: Martin’s, Top’s in the US, Pak n save in NZ and Superquinn in Ireland.

What do you think? Have you used any of the grocery store self serve check outs?

Do you want $50 bucks off your Business hosting or Reseller hosting account with Jumba? Then contact me and tell me how you propose to use it and I will give you the promotional code. I suspect there are a lot of these floating around, so you can probably scam off someone else - but mine is up for the takings. I am already hosting with Jumba, and won’t be needing to have another hosting account so am more than happy to give this offer to someone who needs a small business or reseller account.

It only works for business accounts, not personal accounts. I hope to add Jumba to my “to review” list sometime, and it will be an impressive one unless something drastically goes wrong. I want to give them a try for a wee bit longer before I open my “review mouth”.

Hope to hear from you soon (note: I only have 1 promotional code to give, so can’t give it to more than 1 person so wow me with why you want it!)

Update (23rd April): Some people have notified me that this offer is not exclusive somewhat to customers. I went to their website, and put the coupon code and it took that into account. Some ex-Jumba customers have also received the offer as well. The coupon code is: LOYALTYDISCOUNT.

Bhoj Docklands
54 New Quay Promenade
Docklands VIC 3008
Phone (03) 9600 0884
Fax (03) 9600 0865

As you can see, food is my primary source of well being. I love food, especially Indian and Italian which make up all of my restaurant reviews thus far. I promise I will venture outside these realms more often in the future.

I organized a wedding lunch at Bhoj Docklands and found the whole experience quite shocking for a restaurant situated in a prestigious location. It looks pretty good from the outside though, which is deceptive to the level of the customer service you receive.

The pre-service
I visited the place a couple of weeks before the day to suss it out. I noticed them a few times during my visit to the Melbourne Docklands, so decided to give them a try. I went with the $38.50 p/p banquet deal. The guy who explained the whole deal to me, didn’t make sense from the outset. I avoided this warning sign, and decided to go ahead with the booking. Silly me! Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I added a News category where I will provide chit chat about current issues in relation to products/service, and also if I find a great buy - I will promise to post it here. Here is the first of those great buys!

I was checking the 3M website, and noticed a free sample pack banner on the right. I have been on the hunt for non-damaging picture hangars, and of course 3M are leaders in this type of product. There are several imitations out there, but none is comparable to the strength, durability or 3M products.

Anyway, I ran into this page where they are offering (during specific time periods) free stuff. Anything free is good right, so just fill out a survey and get your free sample kit.

3M Office website

I will post an update when I get my stuff, but I suspect it will be a while before I get it. There is no postage fees either, which surprised me.  Go on, grab your free sample pack!

I started to blog on February 12th 2008 (Welcome, let’s roll), and didn’t really think much of it. The way I see is that, businesses need feedback and there is no better way of doing this than direct from the customer. However, I do appreciate that feedback is based on a single experience - but if there are collective feelings and agreements then there is more weight to it.

It has been 2 months since I started blogging, and never really had time for a quick update, so here goes:

The vision
Ideally, Mr Feedback will have contributions from anyone has feedback for a business. Time to write proper reviews may not be readily available to many, but there are a few who may be interested in making some money about it - hence they are able to charge for reviews.

Where I see Mr Feedback going is a community blog whereby contributors post feedback, reviews and suggestions for businesses to improve on. This is different to the usually comments businesses receive. I hope to use this motive, but make sure the businesses get some direction out of it. I am sure businesses will appreciate this. Good businesses are appreciated, and are featured in the Raj’s list section of the site.

The ads
I am not seeking to make any serious income from this at this stage, but any income is good income. I have placed Google Adsense and Adtoll ads on the side bar, and below some posts. Click on those if you feel the ad is relevant to what you are looking for. Of course as the site grows, ad options will vary. Check here for current ad options.

Coming soon…
Here, you can keep up to date on what reviews are coming soon. I feel its important for people to find out about a business before they commit to it, and this is one way to do so.

RSS Feeds
What good is a blog without RSS feeds. Join the feed here.

Social networks
Mr Feedback is available on Twitter (Follow me here). Currently I am experimenting with updating my Twitter followers with up to date blog posts, and updates on posts. For those of you on Facebook, I am also available on it and you can directly be updated on recent blog posts there.

Spotback widget
This is the star rating system I have implemented on the site. I need feedback too you know, so feel free to rate my blog posts on the quality. If you have similar experiences with a business then post a comment below the post.

Paid reviews
If you like my style of writing (which I hope is open and honest), and you want your business to be reviewed - drop me a line at wassup@mrfeedback.net and tell me about it. I have full time job, so it may take some time before I get back to you.

** I hope this summarizes the site quite briefly, but informatively. Join the community!