Advantages: Good online finance tools, easy to use interface, and without off topic clutter
Disadvantages: can take a few hours to get a reply on the forums

...I happened on this site about 4 months ago (Nov 05), and in that time have come to rely on the site for a many of the finance queries that I have questioned. http://www.moneyforums.co.uk The site seems to have an able team of at least 4 finance professionals on hand to answer queries in the finance related forums. I would say the site has a leaning towards, banking, savings and investing i.e. particularly the stock market, more than other areas, though the credit cards section is also pretty good. Also I have noticed that the site has a strong no spam and off topic ethos, where on many occasions such posts disappear, leaving what the member actually wants to know, i.e. without countless pages of nonsense. In addition to the forums the site has some good reference guides on various topics. And quite recently they have... Read review

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Advantages: portfolio, discussion boards, desktoptrader
Disadvantages: no integrated brokerage, can't trade through iii,

...Yeah Yeah, how? In my dreams! I ‘ve heard of all that before. Got my fingers burnt mate, dot com bubble burst, shares have plunged, can’t believe iii.co.uk is still around. They were the ones with lastminute.com who popped the bubble, hyped the share price up to epic proportions and raked in the profits at the IPO (floatation) Interactive Investor had £50 million odd squid in the bank, but they’ve sold out to AMP AKA ample.com but that’s another story. Interactive Investor basically missed the boat when they opted not to start an integrated brokerage platform with their superb portfolio. They have now lost market share and a lot of subscribers, which may be their eventual undoing. They should have really charged for their portfolio services, but hey they had money to burn.. So why should you use iii.co.uk... Read review

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Advantages: A truly great resource for ANY writer
Disadvantages: Not a single one

...The book Writer's Market UK 2008 is billed on the front cover as: "The essential new annual resource for all writers." I bought this book in W H Smith's as part of a three book deal. which included the Kyle MacDonald book One Red Paperclip" . The other book was so memorable that I cannot recall which it was! Although they say that "self praise is no recommendation" I have to report that billing the book Writer's Market 2008 as: ""The essential new annual resource for all writers" is pretty much an accurate description for this new publication. It is in paperback at £12.99 and is only just shy of 1,000 pages, at 976 pages in length to be more accurate. The book is logically arranged in sections and is very well laid out. This makes it very easy to use. Some books designed for writers contain all the information that you want... Read review

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Advantages: Reliable Online Shop
Disadvantages: No finance plans

..., there are plenty affiliates working with Amazon who will have product. Price-wise Amazon is one of the leaders in online shopping. If you look for specific product on Ciao, always check Amazon price, and see it for yourself. In many cases they offer the best price. That specially applies to electronics, CD’s DVD’s..etc I have bought almost 90% of products such as CD’s, DVD’s, books and electronics on Amazon.co.uk because they were always cheaper then others resealer. Only thing they might consider is finance plan for products over few hundreds. Lots of online resellers have that option, but Amazon haven not. It is a shame because some people might like to have new camcorder but they can’t afford it immediately. They might have money in 2-3 months. I that case, you’ll have to go somewhere else because Amazon... Read review

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Advantages: Competitive, Backed by Halifax, Excellent service
Disadvantages: early days

...I went to see a mortgage lender who was supposed to represent most of the lenders on the market. I was offered a ridiculously low borrowing amount and hastily started looking elsewhere. I looked on the net and quickly found that I could easily get £5000 more than was offered earlier. I then saw a recommendation for Intelligent Finance. I was advised that they were offering a very good mortgage deal by the Tesco.com mortgage supermarket and again in the Sunday Express. This led me to look into what the catches were. The low interest rate was a 1.5% reduction for 6 months then payments would return to normal at the variable standard rate of 6.1% The mortgage had no booking fee, no Lenders arrangement fee, no mortgage Indemnity premium, and a remaining fee of £150. The loan had no Loan conditions such as early redemption penalties... Read review

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Advantages: Technically good, donations to charity
Disadvantages: Paid surveys are rare

...Opinionworld.co.uk is yet another online survey/market research site. What makes this one stand out from the rest? Well, firstly, paid surveys are RARE, at least for the time being. According to a message I read on their site a while ago, they hope to add more paid surveys soon but for the moment, payments are restricted to surveys which are especially long or require more input than most (I've never seen a survey longer than 25 minutes, most are between 10 and 20). It's always obvious from the emailed survey invitation when it's a paid survey, and the payments seem to vary from £1 to £3. My payments have always made directly into my paypal account but the timing seems a little bit random, and it's not possible to see your account balance from the website (would be a nice addition, perhaps a use for their "Suggestions" link... Read review

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Advantages: Competitive borrowing rates
Disadvantages: Woeful call centre expertise and supporting systems

...I decided to move to an offset mortgage because I needed something akin to a large overdraft facility. I had a look at Virgin One, but their lending rates were very expensive compared to IF. Some bright spark in marketing had the idea of calling the accounts jars. To make any practical use of the offset facility you more or less have to have a current account "jar", with a normal sort code and account number. The other jars are like ordinary bank accounts but lack these attributes which are vital for actually interacting with the rest of the banking system. There is a big problem about having a large credit balance to offset the mortgage account, because the direct debit mortgage payments are based on the gross debit balance, not the net balance (as I assume it would be in the more straightforward unified account, "Virgin One... Read review

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Advantages: Top Spec Machine for a Reasonable Price
Disadvantages: Purchase made by cheque/bankers draft/paypal - no credit cards.

...that said, "Build Your Own Masterpiece with PC Specialist" and it claimed that their computers were probably the cheapest computer's available in the UK today. They had a website, so I thought it would check it out. On the home page there were links to the "ready made" towers High Spec Gaming Machines from £600 - £1000. Affordable from £350 to £500. Power systems £1000 to £2000 Neon Extreme (with lights) £600 to £1000 Recommended systems (from other customers' queries/purchases) £600 to £1000 All in one systems £800 to £1000 Whilst I have learned a fair amount about computers, having stripped mine down on a couple occasions, adding firewire ports, USB 2 ports, extra memory and hard drive etc., I am still no expert on computer terminology. The gaming machine for instance, (which needs to be powerful for graphics) had an athlon... Read review

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Advantages: flexible, available for 95% mortgages, interest calculated daily, no arrangement fee, no indemnity premium, no tie in period, online/ telephone 24hrs
Disadvantages: lacks personal touch, not available for 100% mortgages, (mortgage deeds not stored), may not suit older persons i.e. up to 65 years due to age restrictions

...it…it’s a subsidiary of Halifax –the largest mortgage lender in the UK. IF have also heavily invested in Information technology making mortgage applications easier and accounts accessible via the internet and telephone they have very large Customer Service centres based in Scotland working round the clock. The mortgage product – what do you get? ----------------------------------------- Intelligent Finance only offers one variable rate mortgage, which allows 2 options 1. ‘Repayment’ mortgage: which is a straightforward mortgage whereby you are paying back both the capital and interest each month and hence reducing the loan. 2. Interest only: whereby you pay only the interest and will need to set up a separate investment account to repay the money you've borrowed (a bit like an endowment... Read review

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Advantages: 24 hr access to money, good comprehensive web site
Disadvantages: Poor customer service (phone), not easy to pay money into the account

...When it comes to banking I have no loyality what so ever to any bank, I mean lets face it, would they have loyality to you as individual. Most will take your money without giving you a second thought. I have had an Intelligent Finance current account for about 4 years. They are my no means the best bank account around and they arent the worst. If I could describe them in a word - mediocre To be fair to them, when they first appeared on the market they did offer a pretty good deal. They offer the following products 1. Mortages 2. Loans 3. Current Accounts 4. Savings Accounts 5. Credit Cards They also offered a very attractive offer called offsetting. This offsetting allowed the customer to off set the balance of a current or savings account against the balance of a mortage, credit card or loan. A very useful item... Read review

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