the richest man in atherstone

I created my own online contact management system a year or two ago that was designed specifically for my own needs. Recently I've been working on sprucing it up so that it can be used by others and it is now at an advanced stage.

The next stage is to thoroughly test it and so I need a number of volunteers to use the system and report any bugs or problems they can find. Therefore, you are cordially invited to set up a FREE lifetime account and try out the system.

By registering and using the system (named FABDEX), you discover just how easy contact management can be and will gain access to many fantastic functions that are useful to internet marketers and anyone looking to create and maintain a mailing list. This includes:

- Powerful contact search functions
- Saved searches
- Easy creation of user signup/subscription forms for your website
- Quick and simple contact management
- Categorisation of contacts using tags
- Import & export utilities
- Access to your contacts from any Internet-connected computer

As a BETA tester, you will get priority response to any technical issues you have as well as having the opportunity to shape how FABDEX evolves in the future.

I have limited the number of BETA Testers to 10 to ensure that there are no capacity issues, so if you're interested be sure to get in quick.

Create your FREE account by clicking on the link below:

FABDEX

and I look forward to working with you on this exciting project.

I've been using the A+L Premier Direct Current Account for around six months and thought it was about time I shared my views and experiences of it.

Background
My original motivation for opening a second current account was to keep my personal and business earnings separate. I looked into a number of dedicated business banking accounts but they generally had poor interest rates and additional fees and it seemed the only benefit I would get would be the ability to cash cheques using my business name instead of my real name. Being self-employed, all my business income was in my real name so I decided that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain by using a personal account for my business pursuits. I was not planning to change my day-to-day personal banking provider - Lloyds TSB - although I am now seriously considering it.

About Alliance + Leicester
Originally a Building Society, the Alliance + Leicester floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1997, where it has been part of the FTSE 100 (the top 100 shares) ever since. It is the UK's seventh largest bank and has five and a half million customers. They are members of the Financial Services Authority Compensation Scheme, which means that in the unlikely event of them going bust, account holders can recover up to £35,000. They also subscribe to the Banking Code, which ensures that banks offer a fair deal to the public.

Opening an Account
Opening an account was relatively straightforward. I applied online and over the next week or two I received a number of letters from A+L in the post. The main letter contained a welcome pack filled with lots of information about how to use the account. Other letters included my debit card, card PIN, telephone banking PIN and Internet banking PIN.

That is more or less all there was to it, however I didn't opt to have my salary paid into the new account. A+L state that their 'Premier Switching Service' will make sure that salary, direct debits, standing orders etc. will all be transferred from your existing website without fuss, but having not experienced it, I cannot comment on this aspect of the account.

Benefits
I primarily chose the Alliance Leicester Premier Direct Account because of it's table-topping 6.5% interest rate (recently increased to 8.5%). Not only is it the best interest rate on the market for a current account, A+L guarantee that this rate will remain fixed until April 2009. Unfortunately, this interest rate only applies to the first £2,500 in the account. For anything above two and half grand, the interest rate plummets to 0.10%. This was not a major concern to me as I only planned to keep a maximum £2'500 in the account at any one time. Any extra would be siphoned off to a high-interest savings account.

When opening the Premier Direct Current Account, A+L also open a PlusSaver Savings account which has a 5.5% interest rate on balances up to £50,000. Although this interest rate is far from poor, I haven't really used my PlusSaver due to the better rates I get from other institutions such as
IceSave (6.10%).

My Premier Direct Account also came with a 0% overdraft facility of up to £1000 for 12 months. The size of the overdraft does vary according to personal circumstances but if you need to borrow a few hundred quid, this account can provide you with an interest-free solution . This was beneficial for me in the first few months for another reason (see below).

Finally, the account also has an optional 'Reward' credit card that earns a 'point' for every pound spent on it. The points can then be exchanged for gifts, but having taken a look what was on offer it didn't seem like a good deal. I decided to keep with my 4% Cashback Capital One Card instead. NOTE: The Capital One card is no longer available, however the Amex Platinum is a great alternative.

Requirements
To open a Premier Direct Current Account, you need be at least 21 years old and be able to deposit at least £500 each month. When I first opened the account, I didn't have the income to fulfill the latter requirement (due to my salary not being paid into it). Fortunately, I was able to use A+L's kind offering of a 0% overdraft - I transferred £500 of the overdraft to my regular current account and back again. I still don't earn £500 per month regularly, however my balance is now large enough that I can bounce the surplus between the two accounts.

Internet Banking
For a month or two after I opened the A+L current account, I found that the Internet Banking was quite slow and occasionally I would get an error. They now seem to have sorted this out and haven't experienced any problems at all this year.

Login comes in two phases. The first is a regular Customer No. and Password combination. On the next screen, A+L display an image and phrase that is chosen by the user the first time they login. This helps to ensure that you are indeed on the Alliance + Leicester website and are't been duped by an impostor. Also on this screen, you have to enter a PIN number before being taken to Internet banking.

The design of the A+L Internet banking website is not the best I have come across - I much prefer the simplistic design provided by Lloyds TSB. Despite the design, I found running the account via the Internet relatively straightforward and all operations are intuitive.

Summary
The primary advantage over other current accounts is the unbeatable 8.5% interest rate but the comparatively low monthly deposit requirement of £500 (most banks require £1000 or £1500) and the 12 month 0% overdraft facility go a long way to making this the leading current account for both personal and business use.

All in all, I've been very pleased with the Alliance + Leicester Premier Direct Current Account since I opened it six months ago - so much so that I am now thinking about migrating my personal banking over to it.

This article is now deprecated as the offers contained herein are no longer available. However, the same method can be used with other offers, so it is still worth a read. HINT: Take a look at the Post Office Credit Card.

Today, I'm going to share with you a quick and easy method of Doubling £15 to over £30 in just 30 minutes. This method, however, has the potential to earn you a lot more (hundreds of pounds) in the same amount of time.

All you need is a credit card, an email address and a little time to spare - oh, and because my journal has an international appeal, I must point out that you also need to be a resident of the UK.

The method involves simply signing up to a cashback website and playing a bit of bingo. It's remarkably easy to do but I'll walk you through the whole process and I know that it works because I've done it myself!

What are Cashback Websites?
Companies are always looking for new customers, so sometimes they will offer third parties a set sum of money to point new punters to them. If the consumer makes a purchase, the third party is paid. Cashback websites play the part of the third party, but instead of keeping all the money for themselves, they share some of it with the consumer.

Join The Cashback Website
First things first, click on this link to sign up with the cashback website. In the fields on the right-hand side of the homepage, fill in your email, first name, surname, username and password. Read the terms and conditions, tick the corresponding checkbox then click the 'Join Now' button.

Congratulations! You've just earned £2.50 simply for joining up. Unfortunately, you need at least £25 to get your cash out of the account, so you need to take advantages of some of their offers to pump up your balance.

Bingo Cafe
The first offer to take up is the one from Bingo Cafe. In the 'Search for' box at the top of the cashback website, type in 'Bingo Cafe' and click the 'Go' button. You will see from the Bingo Cafe company information that they are offering £20 when you deposit and play through £10 or more in their online bingo rooms.

Click on the 'Visit Bingo Cafe' link and you will be taken to the Bingo Cafe website. Here, click the big 'Download Games' button. The Bingo Cafe software will then be downloaded to your computer. Once downloaded, you'll need to install it on your computer and double-click on the 'Bingo Cafe' icon to run it. Next, fill in your details and login to Bingo Cafe. Click on the 'Bank' button followed by the 'Purchase' button and deposit £10 in your account.

Then enter one of the bingo rooms and play bingo until you have spent the £10 you deposited. At this point you have fulfilled the requirements needed to get £20 from the cashback website. If you're lucky, you might even win at Bingo, in which case click on the 'Bank' button again followed by the 'Withdraw' button to get collect your winnings.

At the time of writing Bingo Cafe are also offering a 100% matched bonus, which means that when you deposit your £10, they will give you a further £10 to play Bingo with.

If you need help using the Bingo Cafe software, take a look at their useful 'How to Play' guide and FAQ.

Back to the Cashback Website
Having finished your first stint of bingo, close the Bingo Cafe software and go back to the cashback website. You'll now have £22.50 in your account (note it takes a day or two to update so don't worry if it's not showing up yet) but you need a minimum of £25 before they will post the cheque so it's time for another game of Bingo to fulfil this requirement.

However, before doing this you will need to give the cashback website some more details so they know where to post the cheque! Click on the 'My Account' link (on the left-hand side under 'My Info') followed by the 'Update Account Profile' link. Then fill in your personal details and click the 'Submit' button.

Now, type 'gala' into the 'Search for' box and click the 'Go' button. Gala Bingo should be shown in the results and by looking at the text, you'll see that they are offering £10 cashback when you deposit and play through £5. Not as lucrative as Bingo Cafe but a nice little earner and enough to get your cashback balance over £25. Click on the 'Visit Gala Bingo' link and you will be taken to the Gala Bingo website.

Gala Bingo
You don't need to download any software to play Gala Bingo. Simply join up and deposit £5 into your account. Then click the 'Play Bingo Now' button and play through your £5 to earn your cashback. At the present time Gala are also giving an extra £5 to new customers, which is added to your account after you've spent your first £5, giving you extra chances to win. If you do win at Gala, Congratulations! The prizes are all pretty good there, so cash in your winnings. If you don't win at Bingo, don't worry because you've still made a profit.

What Now?
You'll now have £32.50 in your cashback account - £20 from BingoCafe, £10 from Gala and £2.50 for joining up. As I said before, don't worry if it hasn't shown up yet because it can take a day or two to update.

You've spent £15 (£10 on Bingo Cafe and £5 on Gala) so you've made a profit of £17.50, more than doubling your money in half an hour. In a month or two, the cashback website will post out your cheque and you can do whatever you want with the free money.

If you were lucky enough to win at Bingo, then you've probably made even bigger profits.

It is worth taking a look through the other offers on the cashback website to bump up your profits even more. There are plenty more Bingo offers to try as well as cashback offers from a wide range retailers.

The important thing is to not deposit any more cash on the gambling websites after you've played through the initial requirement to get the cashback. The odds are stacked against you so once you've got your cashback, move on to the next deal and retain your profit.

This is a neat little way to earn a bit of extra spending cash so be sure to have fun and Good Luck.

Legal Disclaimer: Because this method involves third-party websites that are subject to change, I cannot guarantee that everything will work as stated and disclaim all inaccuracies in this post. See my Website Disclaimer for full details.

This evening I had a rare few hours to myself and tried out a money-making experiment I've been meaning to test for a few weeks.

I've read a few articles on the Internet about making money from Online Casinos. The basic idea is to sign up with a Casino Website that is offering a 100% matched bonus on your first deposit - this means if you deposit £10 they give you a free £10 or if you deposit £50 they give you an extra £50 for free.

Unfortunately it's not as simple as signing up, accepting the free money and withdrawing it. Casinos are wise to that, so they insist that you gamble your free cash many times over before you can withdraw it - I'll explain this in a bit more detail later. However, there is a tactic to reduce the risk on the roulette table.

Anyway, I decided to sign up with 888.com to test out the ideas I'd been reading about. I deposited $50 (around £25) via my cashback credit card - as this was my first time, I didn't want to risk spending the maximum $200 - and I got another $50 of bonus money making a total of $100 to play with. The process was relatively painless and I did my due diligence by reading the terms and conditions. 888.com explain that the bonus money must be gambled at least 20 times before it can be withdrawn. That means I had to gamble $1000 ($50x20) before I could withdraw the free money. Although this sounds a lot - this can be got through relatively quickly using the method I am about to explain.

My strategy is based on many other roulette strategies I have read on the Internet, however I chopped and changed it a bit to suit my own preferences. The theory is that if the colour you pick hasn't come up in a number of spins, it is more likely to come up in the next one.

The roulette table allows you to take free spins (i.e. you can spin the wheel without making a wager). My strategy was to keep spinning the wheel - without any money down until either the Red or the Black had not been selected for three spins in a row. On the fourth, I bet $1 on either Red or Black (whichever the ball hadn't landed in for the previous spins). If the ball picked my colour, I won a dollar. If it didn't, I would make another bet of $5 on the same colour. If I won this time, I earned $4 profit ($10 winnings minus 1$ and $5 stakes). If again, my colour didn't show I would keep doubling my stake on the same colour again and earn $4 profit if my colour eventually appeared - the alternative being I would lose all my money.

As I only had $100 in my account, I could only double my stake up 5 times ($1 + $5 + $10 + $20 + $40 = $76). Fortunately, the colour I needed always popped up before I lost all my money. Knowing my colour had not already appeared three times before I made the first bet increased the odds that it would appear within my 5 chances.

After I'd won enough cash to get 6 chances ($1 + $5 + $10 + $20 + $40 + $80 = $156), I did actually need that extra chance. I was very glad I didn't need it when I didn't have enough in my account to pay for it!

Towards the end of my experiment I had over $230 in my account but ended up losing some of it when my colour didn't show up for 6 spins (9 spins if you include the three that I didn't wager on). I was down to around $85 after 6(+3) spins had come up as Black and decided to just put it all down on red again and, luckily, I won. This bought my total gambled up to over £1000 and I decided to call it a day and withdraw the $175 in my account.

I played roulette for three and a half hours and came away with $175 (around £87). I deposited $50 (around £25) so I more than tripled my money and earned around $40 (around £20) an hour. A nice little earner.

Most of my time was spent spinning the wheel waiting for the ball to pick the same colour three times in a row, which was very tedious. Also, on occasion - perhaps once per hour - the applet would stall and I'd have to restart and log in again. Annoyingly, this seemed to be after I'd got three of the same colour and was about to make a bet.

Needless to say, this strategy is not 100% risk-free. It's not impossible to get the same colour ten times in a row resulting in a loss of all your money, however by using this method you do reduce the risk somewhat. I would recommend that if you try this, you use only money that you can afford to lose. I would also advise keeping a note of amount of bets you have made so you know when you can take your money and run.

I enjoyed this experiment and the profit I made was worthwhile for the time I spent. However, it did get quite boring at times waiting for the ball to spin round the wheel and for same colours to show up. Also the risk of losing money is always there and it is imperative to stick to the plan, even when things look bad. There were many times I'd wagered the last of my money and sat praying for my colour as the ball went around the wheel. Luckily, it always seemed to come up when I needed to but it could easily have gone the other way.