Random Announcements

[dinobarnesberlin]

congrats you two crazy kids 

[Nik]

Awesome pics, congratulations

[Giles]

Many congrats….

[Daniel San]

Congratulations
you look awesome
all the best for your future!!

[ARNC]

Congratulations and thanks for sharing the pics.  You both look so happy!

[jerkules]

Aww you both look so happy! And totally amazing outfits, both of you.

[Oaktavia]

Thank you all 

[John Galt]

@Oaktavia  Great pics!  Congrats!  Words of wisdom :  Happy wife, happy life.  Enjoy the journey for no matter how long it is, it is always too short.

[Matt]

New (to me) Dark Arts hack…

Pay Pal credit will let you pay your credit bill using your balance.  First 6 mos is intetest free if you pay it off by then.  Now I can make a big, otherwise noticeable purchases and pay it off slowly using my balance which I periodically load using relatively small amounts without attracting unwanted attention.

[Giles]

[jerkules]

@Matt exactly what I do - in the UK it’s only 4 months interest free though. For me it’s a bit too easy to rack up the outstanding balance quicker than I can pay it off, so I have to exercise (modest amounts of) self-control.

[Matt]

That’s always the tough part.  Slippery slope.

[EdH]

@Matt:

New (to me) Dark Arts hack…

Pay Pal credit will let you pay your credit bill using your balance.  First 6 mos is intetest free if you pay it off by then.  Now I can make a big, otherwise noticeable purchases and pay it off slowly using my balance which I periodically load using relatively small amounts without attracting unwanted attention.

Don't y'all in the states have PayPal's 'Pay-In-3'? I use it a lot to spread the cost of a larger purchase over 3 monthly payments - like outfitting my garage gym during lockdowns. PayPal over here in the UK is playing catch-up to a similar spread-the-cost fintech start-up called Klarna.

[Giles]

We do take Klarna in The US, but one of the limitations with Klarna is that you have to nominate a country and currency for them to be able to assess the credit risk.  That's doable in US where we only accept USD, but impossible for the ROW, because we don't dictate the currency customers can pay in.

[jerkules]

This is interesting, as I’ve noticed in the Klarna app that you can generate a “one-off” credit card number that you use to complete the transaction. I guess klarna pay the vendor the full amount, and the customer pays it back in three.

I’ve never used this feature on the IH site, but have considered it. I’ve wondered how it would work in practice, since the final amount charged by IH is not exact to the amount given on the website. It can be a few pence over or below the listed amount. Would it be safer to round up any item value to the next nearest pound so that the transaction covers the full price?

[mclaincausey]

Happy Pride to all of my LGBTGIA+ humans!

[seawolf]

@mclaincausey:

Happy Pride to all of my LGBTGIA+ humans!

Woot!

[EdH]

@Giles Not sure if you're aware, but the way PayPal is set up on the site in the UK, one has to pre-approve the IH site with PayPal. Good thing is that I can pay with PayPal in a single click. But one side effect is that Pay-In-3 is not available to UK buyers - the option only shows up if you are forced to go through the 'I-approve-this-transaction' process with PayPal.

To be honest, that's probably a good thing as far as my bank balance is concerned*, but no doubt there are people out there who wish they could spread some of their purchases out a bit.

*I'd probably have pulled the trigger on a pair of bibs if I could have spread the payment… no one tell Mrs H!

[Alex]

@EdH we are aware, thank you. I’m currently investigating various lenders to offer the buy now pay later on the .Co.uk website

[EdH]

Noted @Alex . It would be nice if PayPal had the option to do Pay-in-3 even with pre-approved vendors.