Online Banking Checks (HSBC)

With Wachovia, I have never been clear what would happen to an on-line bill pay check if the recipient did not cash it. This mainly had to do with the paper checks that are sent to people or small businesses rather than corporations… corporate bill pays tend to be electronic.

At Wachovia, my account would be deducted right away, and I had no way of knowing if the person had received or deposited the check. I didn’t like that.

At HSBCdirect.com, the “laser checks” act more like a real check. It only comes out of my account when the recipient deposits the check, and I see an image of their endorsement on the back. So I like HSBC’s on-line bill pay better than Wachovia’s.

Of course, none of this is good news for my company.

Letter attached.

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eMusic.com Joe Purdy and Ray

Found an offer for 25 free songs from eMusic plus a free audiobook in Fast Company. I went through the set up process and downloaded two albums by Joe Purdy, Judy Blue and You Can Tell Georgia, and three songs by Ray Charles. Since I did not install the download manager, I had to download each song one at a time, which was not too bad.

I was disappointed album art did not come with the songs. I had to find the art using Google’s image search and then paste it in once I had the songs in iTunes.

I tried to download a 7 hour audiobook of Mark Twain short stories, but the site said the download was not available and to try later. Meanwhile, it ate up the credit for the audiobook, and I saw no way I could try to download again without being charged.

I’d rather read the book, anyway, so I canceled the trial subscription. I found the whole eMusic.com experience to be far inferior to the iTunes store… except for the free part.

I used a secure online Discover card number to set up the eMusic account, just in case.

Oh… it turns out if I had not followed the Fast Company Free 25 URL, I could have just gone directly to the site and gotten 50 free songs!