Meritline.com - good e-retailer for electronic gadgets. Can find some good deals from time here. I recently found a free (after mail-in rebate) pen drive here. Found the deal from www.deals2buy.com. 1 GB Fugitsu pen drive for $13 (free after mail in rebate). They processed the order promptly. The drive worked fine. I filled mail-in rebate and received the promised rebate after around 10 weeks. I am glad about having received the rebate. E-mail customer service quality is questionable. I did not receive replies to 2-3 e-mail inquiries I sent regarding mail-in rebate. No toll free number. When I called to inquire about the mail-in rebate, got a person who promptly provided the status on the mail-in rebate. Mail-in rebate arrived within the time he said it would arrive. That was good. Meritline.com has my vote based on this experience. I hope they can be more prompt with e-mail inquiries.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 1:27 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality." - Clifton Fadiman

Good one!

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 1:33 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." - Samuel Goldwyn

Let alone serious matters that require written contract, most of the stuff is better written down. Always have it that way. How do you like? Written down.

First when you write down anything, it gives more clarity. It opens up several unanswered questions which may require additional discussion.

One best advice I got was to reserve 30 mins prior and after a meeting. First 30 mins is to think and jot down your ideas for the meeting. Second 30 mins is to write down all that happened in the meeting. This is especially important for the meetings that you have called. If there is not a 30 mins time slot before or after the meeting due to your calendar being full, immediately allocate 30 mins in that day itself at the earliest.

You may be better off jotting down notes in your note book and expand it on your computer. Computer and keyboard do not lend themselves very well for quick writing with all sort of short hands and symbols. Divide the sheet in to 3 parts. Left one part serves as margin, right two parts for note. Write down in short phrases and sentences. Put marks for action items, decisions, follow ups etc. Expand on your computer using the notations.

This has proved to be one of the best things to make most of discussions and meetings.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 1:23 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

There is a simple litmus test to find out what is really important to us in our lives. This simple test and the data it generates can really pinpoint to our priorities even if our conscious mind fails to identify them.

Test is simple. Just track where and how you spend your wealth, health and time. Those are your priorities in life and they are what really matter to you. This realization may come as a rude shock. Once the shock subsides, if you are someone who can reflect on the data from this test, you also know how to go after what you really want.

Take time. What do you spend time on? Mostly on work? So, whether you like or not, work has taken hold of your life. It is a different matter if you are proportionately successful at work or not. There is no direct correlation between effort and success. Right effort applied in right way will produce success.

Take money. Where is your money going? If most your money is going to maintain your day to day life, then no point in worrying why you are not able to build wealth. For your subconscious, building wealth is not a priority although externally it may seem so.

How do we change our priorities? Just change how you spend your health, wealth and time. Want to get ahead in your profession? Devote health, wealth, time on those pursuits. Shell out money to get advanced education. Spend week ends taking courses. At least by channeling your resources on priorities that matter you, you will have the satisfaction of having done your best. Despite this you do not succeed, your priority was not right in the grand scheme of things although you may find it wrong. We always find things we do not understand utterly wrong. Grand scheme of things are beyond our understanding for a long time to come.

If family is your priority then health, wealth and time go there. If this results in less than expected progress in professional life, so be it.

Bottom line is not knowing our priorities correctly, we grope in the dark. We keep doing things which have no relation to our "so called' priorities and wonder why we are not achieving what we want. In reality, we are not spending resources on them at all.

Borrowed insight from one of Brian Tracy's books, I think.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 4:36 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Absolutely correct. However, "thank you" has become so routine that many times even when we really mean it, people may not care much. So, in order to get most out of saying 'thank you', always make it a habit to specify precisely what you are saying 'thank you' for. That will go a long way in making the receiver very happy and appreciate your thoughtfulness. Otherwise, it is going to sound like another bland 'thank you' or 'how you doing?'

If you seriously examine, our daily courtesies all have become too routine to have any real value. Most of them seem to be asked or said out of some requirement or conversation starters. But, we can become little creative and bring back some meaning into such conversation openers. If you know a person, remember to ask about something that matters to them. Of course, you have to open with 'How you doing?'. But, do not have to stop there. For example, a coworker had told something about a sick relative a while back. So, I chose to ask about the relative after the routine 'how you doing?'. What a difference it made?

In today's world of mad rushing, we sometimes feel that we may be wasting other's time by enraging in such talk. Far from the truth. Like it or not, everybody is interested in them and in things that matter to them. Even if they are killing themselves at work, it is a means to some end for which they are killing themselves in much bigger way. Find out what that end is and try to ask a little about that and you would make his or her day. There need not be any ulterior motives behind your questions. It may be just as simple as strengthening relationship. Ultimately relationships and the capital you have invested in them is what going to be of any use. Rest all as they say 'extra'.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 4:25 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

This book is an interpretation of Bhagavad Gita, great Indian spiritual classic. This is the first volume of three volumes. This volume covers first 6 chapters of 18 chapters that are there in the Bhagavad Gita.

For many people, Bhagavad Gita may come across as a set of verses which do not make much sense. There is certainly a need for scholarly interpretation for common people like us to understand this classic. Many great scholars have attempted to interpret this classic with a sole view that the extraordinary wisdom hidden in Bhagavad Gita became available to common people. However, the need of the hour is to be able to interpret timeless wisdom in a way that is applicable to current life conditions. Bhagavad Gita which must have been first developed thousands of years ago if read in verbatim may not make much sense to people of today.

That's the void Sri Easwaran fills in this three volume commentary of Bhagavad Gita. Easwaran has very nicely developed these volumes. Having been trained in English and Sanskrit and more importantly having the benefit of spending his life time in the 20th century, he is the best position to help us understand and gain from the wisdom of Bhagavad Gita. It is one thing to be able to give a scholarly commentary. It is altogether a different thing to be able to describe the gist of Gita from self experience. Easwaran being one of the great spiritual master is able to drive home the point effectively because he is no mere a scholar full of intellectual hot air but someone who spent more than 50 plus years of his fruitful life practicing the spirituality.

If you have been wanting to know more about Bhagavad Gita, this is the set of books you want to try reading. The book is organized in short essays which take one verse at a time and Easwaran comments on each verse using day to day parables, anecdotes and how the particular verse applies to our lives today. What we can learn from it. What we can take out of that verse and apply to our lives today. No wonder this books has been considered one of the best books on Bhagavad Gita and has been translated to more than 20 languages.

The more information about Easwaran, his spiritual foundation and life can be found at www. easwaran.org.

This is a life changing book. Life changing for good. So, pick it up and immerse yourself in it and see your life change for good.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 2:33 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Investing in real estate is probably one of the best investments one can make. As long as mankind exists, there is always a need for place to have a shelter above one's head. Space on this earth is limited. So, technically, it is one commodity which is going to be always in demand. It is also a hard investment. It does not evaporate like companies such as Enron which showed profit days before their demise.

Historically, as you can find many books on popular finance, real estate has not performed as well stock market in the long rage. Say 20+ years. But, it is still an attractive investment that is tangible which can be passed on to the future generations. One of the reasons why real estate has not done as well as stocks may be due to the fact that managing real estate can be quite tiresome. Paper work is extensive. In some countries, risk involved in real estate investments can be very high due to unscrupulous people and no easy legal recourse if you are cheated and so on. By any means, investing and managing real estate is far more difficult than managing a stock portfolio.

So, isn't there a way to invest in real estate without much hassle? One option is Real Estate Investment Trusts (REIT). REITs are companies which own real estate properties such apartments, commercial real estate and so on. They sell shares of their stock and public can buy them. REITs also have some special regulations by which they are required to distribute majority of their earnings to share holders in the form of dividends. High dividends also make them very attractive to people who want regular cash inflow.

It may be expensive to buy individual REITs. That's where mutual funds which specialize in REIT stocks come into picture. They are like regular mutual funds but focused only on REITs. There may also be ETFs which specialize in REITs. There are index mutual funds which track the entire REIT market. They are one of the best for people who want invest for long term and would like to have a real estate component in their portfolio. Vanguard offers a good choice of REIT index funds.

REITs have done very well during the last real estate boom. Even after real estate bust, they are doing reasonably well.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 12:49 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"If you don't allow God to be your summer guest, he won't be there during the winter." - Swami Yukteshwar (Teacher of Paramahamsa Yogananda)

From the book 'Autobiography of a Yogi'.

Summer here means prime time of our life. Winter means terminal years of life. If we do not become God conscious early, it will be difficult to develop that during later years. If not impossible, it will be difficult. I think that's why they say - belief in God is the beginning of wisdom.

More about Paramahamsa Yogananda at - www.yogananda-srf.org

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 2:16 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Recently, I was admiring a friend of mine who is employed as "Senior Vice President" in a investment bank. I told him I was impressed that he has reached such a high position at relatively young age. I did not understand how come he still did a very technical job and did not have responsibility that normally went with such a title. He burst into laughter and explained me the story behind titles in certain industries using a joke. The joke goes like this.

A super market worker came home one evening and proudly announced to his wife that he has just been made Vice President of Grocery Bags. Wife was very happy. Next day she called the super market and asked if she could speak to the Vice President of grocery bags. Voice on the other end quipped - "Paper or Plastic, Ma'am?"

So it seems in banking people start at Assistant vice president then become vice presidents and then senior VP and so on. So it is like a principal software engineer or software development manager or something of a similar title in our industry. People with gold always make golden rules. These banking guys are like that. Regardless, title sounds too good. Especially a great pick up like and a conversation carrier in cocktail parties where cock and bull stories run amuck. So, it becomes easier to move in such crowd using these fancy titles.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 7:31 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Some people asked me why I so much like to write about quotations from famous people.

There are several reasons. Let me explain one of the reasons with an apt quotation itself.

"The dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant sees more than the giant himself."

The giants(famous and great people) have left a large "virtual" shoulders for dwarfs like us to stand on and attempt to see at least a fraction of what they saw or understood in a hard way. When things have been made so simple for us, why not make best use of them?

Quotations also help me drive home the point very well. By constantly adding useful quotations to my repertoire, I tend to become more effective when the situation calls for it. Quotations help me understand a concept better than I would have if I simply read or reflected on a concept.

Another usefulness of quotations is the chain reaction they produce. I learn about people from their quotations. If I like a quotation from a person, I look for more from that person and chances are I find some more excellent quotations from the person or the persons referred to by that person and so on. My sphere expands.

Quotations pack so much insight so tightly in a few words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I would add that a quotation is worth a thousand sermons.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 3:42 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Recently I met a friend after a long time. We talked about lot of things. Here are some tid-bits of wisdom that came out of this conversation. Before I forget them, writing them up here.

1) Worry, stress causing you sleeplessness - I think most of us have those nights when some worry or stress does not let us sleep. It varies from person to person and kind of situations they are in. Here is one of the best ways to do something about that is causing you worry to death and not get sleep. Wake up. Write down all your worries and they try to go to sleep. Just write it down. OK, it does require some action. That is the key. Doing something about anything is the way to go about it. If you are not able to sleep even after writing down all your worries, take one worry at a time and analyze it. Once again, analyze on the paper. Make mind-map which helps clarify the worry. Bottom line, anyway you are tossing and turning with all that churning going on your mind. Why not use that time to do something about the worry? I am pretty sure this is going to help reduce the worry quite a bit.

2) Savor the experience of every situation - One of the reasons why this friend of mine is very successful at a fairly young age is his willingness to get into any situation just for the experience of it. He says - many times he has to take up responsibilities or do work he would not have liked to do under normal circumstances. But, there is no way not to do it. So, he just gets into them without worrying about the actual tasks. He gets into them to just experience them. I asked how do you manage to get into such situations time and again because it might be becoming boring after a few time. He has a solution for that too. Make the experience different by trying to do things differently.

3) Meetings - Many people in corporate world think meetings as necessary bane of working life. We hate them but also know that when we have to get something done, meetings are invariably required. Sometimes, people who we need for a meeting routinely do not show up. What we do? Keep getting frustrated? First, do everything you can do to get a reputation that you are a master meeting organizer. That means you take your meetings seriously and conduct them to get maximum out of them. Despite all your efforts if your meetings are not being attended. Do what you think is the best. If something blows up, let it be. Sometimes, it takes a big blast for people to take notice. Nothing is going to be that serious to kill your career. Hmm...this is one piece of advice, I do not know how to implement. But, the guy giving this advice is running a large unit of a very large company.So, it probably has some value in it.

4) Have belief that things that are helping you carry through your current situations will help you carry through all future situations also.

5) In the grand scheme of things, all your worries and problems of today look like minor blots if any. So, do not worry. What worried you a month ago or an year ago is not likely worrying you today. So, probably what is worrying you today is not likely to be of worry after a month or year. Why worry now when you are not going to worry about them later? OK, I remember this from Dale Carnegie's book. But, this a true jewel and I do not mind everyone I meet repeats it at least once.

6) Work less, achieve more. This seems like a contradiction. However in knowledge industry, it is all about thinking and planning. Higher you go in the organization, you will have more people to do it for you. What they expect you to do is to pave way for the people under you to do the things. So your job become predominantly thinking. Sometime you can think better when you are away from the confines of your office. My friend in office only for 8 or less than 8 hours. Does not sit before his computer all the time. Carries blackberry but not a slave to it. But, he spends tonnes of time thinking deeply about issues that need his attention. As he thinks, he commits his thoughts to paper. His most hi tech gadget - you may be surprise - a notebook and a pen. I opened his notebook and was impressed. It is full of idea, thoughts and plans. All he does is as thoughts come up, he just jots them down. He also has devised a way of short hand which uses his custom notations liberally. This saves his time. I asked him if writing thoughts does not reduce the speed of thinking or if he does not lose continuity of thoughts. He said that is the very reason. Thinking should be slowed down to produce quality thoughts. Without slow thinking, what mind produces are mainly junk thoughts. Writing one thought at a time helps the mind think through completely. What an insight? Work smart and not work hard.

These are some bits of wisdom from someone who I think has achieved quite a bit pretty early in life.

Cheers! Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 1:44 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"Money is not the key to happiness. If you have money, you can buy the key."

From a recent issue of Readers' Digest humor special issue.

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 9:03 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Read the following statement attributed to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar somewhere.

"Hindus have always needed someone from so-called backward caste to write their important epics. When it was time for Ramayana, it was Valmiki who was a hunter by caste. When it was time for Mahabharata, it was Vyasa who was a fisherman by caste. When it came to writing our constitution, it had to be me." B.R. Ambedkar belonged to one of the so-called lower castes and had contempt for caste system of Hinduism. He later converted to Buddhism as a protest to concept of castes in Hinduism.

It would be interesting to learn more about the circumstances under which he may have made above comments. Without the context, the above comments can be interpreted in variety of ways some of which may not go well with majority of Indians.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 2:02 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"Remember that as you have freedom of speech, other have freedom for their sentiments too." Not exactly the original quote was said. But, meaning is same. In our zeal to exercise our freedom of speech, if we do not care for other people's sentiments, chances are our freedom is no good.

Sometimes people take the saying -"trying to please everyone is sure recipe for failure"- too far. They get the meaning wrong. Note that the saying says that if we try to please everyone we fail. Trying to please is totally different than not hurting other people's feelings. As long as we do not hurt other people's feelings, we can still avoid failure. It is not required to hurt feelings to not to please some. Just not hurt. That's all.

Some people think sugar coating is bad. They think it amounts to being hypocritical. What is hypocrisy? Being or doing what we are not and what we do not want to do is hypocrisy. Is hurting other people's feelings our true nature? Is our real-self so stupid as to hurt itself? If we realize that you and I are not we but one, then we realize if we hurt others, we are hurting ourselves too. We are all from the same indivisible unity. We are all cut from the same fabric. So, do not assume being frank, being straight forward means requiring to hurt other people's feelings.

"When we are good to others, we are best to ourselves." - this is a golden saying to remember. There is a easy way to avoid harsh words. Just ask three progressively blocking question for every word that we would like to utter. 1) Is what I am going to say true? 2)Is what I am going to say kind? 3) Is what I am going to say necessary? If the word does not meet any of the above criteria, just cut it out and stay shut. Lincoln said -"if you keep quiet, people may think you are stupid. If you open your mouth, you leave them with no doubt."

Nice guys(&gals) do not come last. They come first in the long race. Think of long term and imagine the good will your will accumulate by being nice to people and returning kindness for rudeness. Over the time, your goodwill will be so much so that you can get even complex of complex tasks without much hassles as everyone is on your side.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 12:49 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

Do you like certain books which you read over and over again?

If we enjoy reading some books over and over again, it may be a good idea to record when you read them. It is easy to do so with a pocket digital recorder which records in WMV or MP3 formats. You can then listen to them on your MP3 player.

I can not read some books as many times as I would like to do. This because reading requires far more attention and energy than watching a movie or listening to a recording. I can listen while driving or working out or killing time on a long flight. I can read for say 30 minutes. But, I can listen for hours at a time. It is true that we do not comprehend as well as when we do reading. It may be ok if we are listening for second or third time. We would have comprehended enough when we read for the first time and subsequent listening will help fill some missing points.

With this in mind, I recently started recording my readings every time I picked up some of my favorite books for reading. It has worked out well. I make sure I add enough details about the section of the book I am reading at the beginning of the recording for easy identification. I also organize my recording by chapters so that it gives nice structure to store on the media.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 11:51 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

" First impressions is the last impression."

"You do not get a second chance to make first impression."

These sayings pack a lot of insight. We can get more out of these sayings if we think about how it applies to judge others and be judged by others.

There are only so many 'smart' people who know first impression can be extremely deceiving. They are the only ones who can get even an average worker produce superior results. Most of us belong to the category of 'dumb' people who base some of the most important judgments based on first impression. Read somewhere that most of us judge people within 3 seconds of the first impression they make on us. How wrong such decisions can be?

Since world is full of people who are going to judge us by first impression, we should make every attempt to make a good first impression. Different people prefer different first impressions. It depends on their own background and how their life has been up to that point. As long as we try to make a good first impression which is line with commonly accepted social norms, we are doing our best. If there is some weirdo, who bases his premature judgment based on some weird norms, hell with him or her.

Now, we have to look at the other aspect. That is how we judge people. If we want to move towards that small population of people who do not judge entirely based on first impression, we must not attach way too much importance to the first impression. This especially true when we are trying to judge people with far less experience, education and exposure. Imagine a situation when a rank and file employee is meeting a CEO. Don't expect the employee to be little awkward due the situation he or she is in? In such cases, if the CEO is dumb enough to judge the person based on first impression, I worry about the company having such a CEO.

We must suspend our judgment of people who matter for as long as possible. One of the smartest thing we can do about any judgment is to defer it as long as possible. This does not mean we should procrastinate the judgment or decision. What is recommended is that we should set a deadline for a judgment. Till that time comes, we should not even think about the actual decision or judgment to be made. What we should during that time is to doing best due diligence possible. Collect data, analyze data and use final few moments to make the decision.

People naturally make better first impressions as they get varied experiences in life. A person who goes to a new country for the first time is going to be center of fun and ridicule occasionally till he or she learns about the customs and rules of the new country. So is the new employee of a company. So, if we believe that people are who really matter and people who work with us or work for us are the ones who really determine our success, we should defer our judgment of people for a long time and give them every benefit of doubt as long as circumstances permit.

Deferring immediate judgment is a skill we can all learn. We just need to practice and practice for a long time each time learning from the mistakes of our premature judgment.

As a person who is going to be judged by many people during the course of our life, all we have to do is to try our best to make the best first impression possible and hope that majority of the people who judge us belong that small category of smart people and leave rest of the God. If we are judged wrongly based on some criteria for 'correct' first impression, let's not make the same mistake of judging other person's judgment as misjudgment. Learn from other person's mistake and vow not make similar misjudgment if we are faced with similar situation in the future.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 11:31 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness." - Josh Billings

Revenge may be rather a strong word here. Transformation may be more adequate in the place of revenge. I guess since revenge goes well with forgiveness, it is used here. But, this quote is a jewel indeed.

When we 'completely' forgive someone for something they did, real or imaginary, the transformation, we produce in the person is hard to miss. First it transforms you too for better. Your heart grows bigger and allows more space to forgive others. It slowly but surely fires up something in the person forgiven to realize his mistake and get closer to you. Was it not your objective in the first place? To win over the person to your side?

So, it can be aptly said - forgive and feast on the fruits of forgiveness.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 9:57 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom." - Hannah Arendt

You may be thinking about forgiving others. But, we may be good at forgiving others. Are we equally good at forgiving ourselves? I guess not. If we were so good about forgiving ourselves for our mistakes and learn from them, we would have achieved 10 times of what we may have achieved today.

We do everything other than forgiving ourselves when we realize we do something wrong. We brood. We regret. We break heads over something stupid we did. But, admitting our mistake, taking necessary action and ultimately forgiving ourselves seems to be the last thing we do.

When we do not forgive ourselves, we hesitate to take action. It is like - 'burnt child dreads the fire.' Yes, it is true that child should dread the fire but if the child never learns about the fire, it can put fire to any good use.

So, take time to forgive yourself. Realize your mistake, make amends, seek forgiveness, easily forgive others and move on. Avoid making same mistakes. But, even if you end up making similar mistake, do not get disheartened. It takes many shots before you hit the bulls eye. That does not mean all the shots that missed the mark were useless. They were all part of the practice. As they say 'life is the biggest do-it-yourself project.'

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 9:48 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

"Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act." - Jack Welch

If a manager fails to do anything else but follows this advice from great Jack Welch, he can easily become one of the best managers.

The above saying goes well with another saying - "I rather be looked over than over looked."

The essence behind both sayings is that without affirmation from someone we trust, it is very natural for ordinary mortals to feel diffident about our chosen path from time to time. There does come a time after a long time when we do not need affirmation from anyone on our chosen path. But till then people we look up to like parents, managers and bosses can do a great deal good to us and themselves by catching us doing something right and not just when we do something wrong.

When people do something we did not want or expect them to do, it is very easy to catch them doing that as it stands like black blot on a white shirt. However, when the person does something we expected, we take it for granted and do not make any effort to positively affirm the person's act.

Without positive affirmation, many people will take one step forward and waste twice the amount of time to make sure that they are in deed correct. Does it not make sense for others to proactively let people know that what they did or doing is correct and they should continue with that. With such positive affirmation, I will stop to watch my steps, say, once in every 10 steps and not after every step.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 9:37 AM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink

www.greatfunsite.com - this is a site which offers discounts at several stores. Depending on your needs and habits, you may find it useful. There is another interesting aspect to this site. You will normally come across a pitch to join this site when you shop online. At the end of your online purchase, many times they offer you to join this site. They normally offer 1 or 2 months free to become member of this site. Then they charge something like $15 a month. Depending on which site refers you, you may get interesting rewards for trying out www.greatfunsite.com. In my case,I was referred to www.greatfunsite.com after buying air tickets at Orbitz.com. They promised 15% discount on Orbitz's purchase. Sounded like a great deal. So, I signed up. Anyway, first two months of trial membership were free. Although you may have to spend some time and effort to get the actual reward. First www.greatfunsite.com is supposed to send you the rebate form which you have to fill out and send back. I had to call them to have it sent. Interestingly they sent a wrong form which would allowed me to claim lesser reward. What shall we call that? Honest mistake. May be. Another 2 phone calls and they sent the right reward form. Then on it was smooth. Rebate for $75 arrived after a few weeks. Good deal it was to get $75 off of $500 air tickets. Most of these rewards bank on the fact that people are simply diligent enough to claim such rewards because of required paper work and follow up. But, if you are up to the snuff, rewards like this galore on the net. Some things to keep in mind. First, always maintain scrupulous records in the form of e-mails, phone call logs etc. Make sure to ask for id number and names of people you may speak on the phone. Be prompt with correspondence. Be relentless with follow up. Always ask to speak to supervisor if the person on the phone does not provide right information or gives you a run around. With enough patience and diligence, you can get the reward check ultimately.

This was not a mail-in rebate. But, even in the case of mail-in rebates, experience if more or less the same. Staples stood out for its better practices regarding mail-in rebates. Refreshingly, they automatically do the paper work for your mail in rebate. As soon as you buy any article with a mail-in rebate, they set up an account at their rewards' web site. That's it. There is nothing more to do. No rebate form or UPC bar code to mail and worry that it may get lost in the mail. After a few weeks, check arrives. I do not understand why other retailers can not do this. As everyone understands, businesses use mail-in rebate to improve their cash flow temporarily and to get free working capital. 4-6 weeks that they hold to your money is like loan without interest for them. I have no objection to that at all. Even after that, why make customers go thru the hassle of making copies of receipts, sending UPC bar code from the package, give run around before mailing the check etc. You promised to reward, just do that after you have held the money without interest for certain time. Staples deserves to be praised for its ethical and customer friendly practice of processing rebates without unnecessary paperwork. If other retailers do the same, they can hope to get better responses. Many retailers probably do not realize. But, the fact is many customers find mail in rebates a big turn off because the paper work involved to get a small amount back is simply not worth many times. So, they shop elsewhere. If the same people come to know that getting rewards is not that bad, they will happily buy and wait for their rebates. Staple should actually give publicity to its nice practice. Otherwise, people may shy away from Staples too.

Cheers!

Powered by Qumana

Posted by Mahesh at 7:02 PM EDT

Share This Post

Post Comment | Permalink