ABC Childcare is in big financial trouble, has been for weeks. The crazy thing is childcare is in heavy demand, and there are government subsidies which should make it all very profitable. I guess not if your childcare company gets too ambitious and borrows heavily to expand and then comes up against a worldwide financial crisis.
In March I wrote about Neville and Pat, who sold their centre to ABC. Given it’s now on the list of centres in doubt, maybe they should buy it back now at a bargain price, Packer/Bond-style.
I think phones could do with an address book search-by-number facility. It’d be the easiest way of telling from looking at a phone bill, who you called.
Being a St George customer, I’ve traditionally had less choice of ATMs than back in the days when I was a Comm Bank customer. But the St George/Westpac merger means that from 1st December, people with cards from either can use both banks’ ATMs at no extra cost. Cool. (I still find it hard to believe they’ll keep all the branches open indefinitely though.)
I’ve not shopped at Harvey Norman for years after hearing horror stories about their after-sales service. Gerry Harvey’s comments earlier this week that donating to charity is “just wasted” certainly won’t have me going back any time soon.
PS. Sunday — Gerry Harvey clarified his position in this article.
9 replies on “End of week brief things”
Reading the Phone Bill #22
Concentrate on all charges, as you do with your bank statement. Ignore mobile phone calls on you phone bill or you will waste precious minutes of your life on the unfathomable but ultimately the traceable. Sometimes you just have to trust.
Daniel
I wouldn’t shop at Harvey Norman because of their
” Before sales service ” , they just dont want to help , ie … do you have this ? ( show picture from paper )…answer, NO , can you get one in for me ? … answer NO , end of conversation . Salesman walks off
My phone searches the address book when entering a phone number. It’s a Sony Ericson W760.
Nice and brief. And Gerry Harvey is a ponce…and due to the nature of most ponces, they have no sympathy.
Yes.
The list is questionable.
Yes.
Don’t bank with either of them.
Can’t stand the store or that person.
Yeah, the new Sony Ericsson phones have the functionality of being able to search by number.
The current Gerry Harvey news story seems to me to be a classic example of the media taking a quote out of context and making a big fuss about it. When I read the quote it seems to me to be quite accurate – you could indeed argue that giving to homeless charities doesn’t ultimately help society. But he doesn’t say don’t give to those charities and further he does give to those charities.
I don’t have an opinion either way about the man but you should try not to be caught up in the media hyperbole.
Mary, you are of course, correct…but it’s just that society is designed so we help the less fortunate. Gerry Harvey is being exceedingly pig-headed and arrogant (to say the least) by considering them a waste in society. If anything, it’s millionaires like him who are a waste: chasing trivial political causes such as tax cuts.
Mary-Ellen I have to agree. I thought when I read the report- WHY ON EARTH would he say that- it damages his brand’s reputation publicly. Then the next day he responded furiously, talking about how Harvey Norman gave beds to the homeless etc. The lesson here is to get information as close to the source as possible- read the quotes etc, QUESTION EVERYTHING!