New on-line company offers free help to college students

(PRWEB) November 18, 1999

Company Press Release

SOURCE: StudentCredit.com

SUBJECT: New Online Service Offers Free Information to College Students about handling Credit

In an effort to counter the problem of credit debt among college students, a new company, StudentCredit.com, has started a nationwide campaign to get good credit information and education to college students.

The average student obtains their first credit card by running into a table marketer on a college campus offering a free T-shirt or bottle of soda to fill out a credit card application. Usually there is no information given out by the marketer on how the student should handle credit, and in this process, students rarely read the fine print of the specific card they apply for. Very often there are interest rate changes or hidden fees the student may not be aware of.

The student fills out the application without this information presented. A few weeks later, the card arrives with a credit limit of $ 500-$ 1000. Now the student has the similar buying power as his or her parents. Normally, that student will go out and buy some clothes, CDs, eat at restaurants, and buy drinks for friends, etc. The student may even use the card to purchase textbooks for the year.

Suddenly, the credit limit is reached. Students usually work only part-time, and they end up making minimum payments. It is a fact that credit card companies usually give students a credit limit equal to or more than what they earn in an entire year. So that student may also miss a payment. Now there are late charges involved. Students very often have to go to their parents to help pay the bill.

This happens to college students all across the country. It is a fact that credit debt has been a problem for students, as well as adults. According to the Consumer Federation of America, aggressive marketing by banks and lack of initial information towards college students has resulted in many students running up unmanageable debts. There have even been extreme cases of desperate students taking their own lives. (See the following link on this story)

From CNN.com: http://cnn.com/US/9906/09/college.kids.debt/index.html

Credit card companies actively seek out college students because they are the next generation of consumers. College graduates make more in the work place and the card companies want to get a head start with those future workers. Unfortunately, in order, to attract these new consumers, the credit card companies often resort to cheap gimmicks to get people to sign up.

Recent college graduates created StudentCredit.com specifically to help college students. The emphasis of the company is to provide information for students to learn good credit management skills before they acquire a credit card. StudentCredit.com offers extensive information about how credit works, how to get and how to maintain good credit. The students can also get information on how to get a copy of their credit report and how to repair their credit if it is already damaged. The company web-site features a variety of credit cards the students can apply for at their convenience, not under pressure from a table marketer or a flashy mail campaign. StudentCredit.com does not want any student to apply for a credit card until he or she has acquired the skills to manage one responsibly.

"StudentCredit.com is a free service that provides a convenient, responsible way for students to learn about and obtain credit. Credit is something the vast majority of College Students are seeking and we felt there was a need for a more educational approach by providing key information and education about good credit," said David Ogden, CEO.

As part of its national campaign, StudentCredit.com has printed good credit brochures for distribution to college students. This brochure is not a credit card application. In the brochure, cards are not mentioned, nor is there an application to fill out. The brochure simply lists an overview of the good credit information on the company's web-site. Over one hundred thousand (100,000) of these brochures have already been passed into the hands of students across the country. Many colleges, Duke and Clemson University, to name a few, have worked with the company to get these brochures to their incoming freshmen for this school year.

To date, over 250,000 students have visited StudentCredit.com and utilized the free services. No other web-site offers the combination of good credit information, services, and variety of cards.

For further information:

CONTACT:

David Wise

David@StudentCredit.com

(407) 453-2206

Or

Russell Gentile

Gentiler22@aol.com

6755 South Tropical Trail

Merritt Island, FL 32952

GIFT BUYING TREND: Old Books Create New Memories this Christmas with the help of a Canadian website

(PRWEB) November 10, 2002

With so many choices in today’s consumer world, giving a unique gift—-even if it’s secondhand-—shows that time and thought have gone into its purchase. This holiday season many shoppers are turning to used and secondhand books.

Parents are buying out-of-print books they read when they were young to share with their own children. Avid readers and bookclub members are giving their friends unique signed first editions of best-selling authors. And spouses are searching for that special book of poetry that they first shared when they were dating in college.

Where to find rare books?

How do shoppers find rare or old books that are often out-of-print? They turn to Abebooks.com, a Canadian Internet site that lists the used, rare and out-of-print books from 10,000 bookstores around the world.

Abebooks began as the secret online source for book collectors searching for rare books but has grown to become a favorite site for groups such as:

·gardening buffs looking for out-of-print gardening classics

·cookbook collectors looking for signed copies of “The Joy of Cooking” and other classics

·avid readers searching for cheap bestsellers

·students looking for secondhand textbooks

I don’t remember the title, but there was a dog named…

Can’t remember the title? Try posting the details you can remember (such as a character’s name) on the Abebooks “BookSleuth” board. Readers from around the world write in to solve your book question. “BookSleuth” is a free service and a fun place to visit—see if you can help “solve” someone else’s puzzle.

Is “used” a bad word?

Some people wonder if it’s okay to give a “used” book at Christmas. Yes, especially when it is a rare signed edition. These gifts are special because they are truly “unique”—no two copies are exactly the same. Prices range from outrageously cheap to outrageously expensive. For example, there are 3956 copies of “Winnie the Pooh” on Abebooks.com. Prices range from a ten-cent copy listed by a bookstore in Hopatcong New Jersey, to a $ 45,000 first edition in its original book jacket offered by a bookstore in Varen, France.

Thoughtful gifts—quick purchases

People don’t have time to browse used bookshops in person but they can browse for used books online. Online shopping lets you shop from home or the office and Abebooks makes it possible to browse the bookshelves of 10,000 bookstores in less than a minute. Once a book is purchased (through secure online credit card processing) the book is mailed from the bookstore to the buyer, or sent directly to the gift-receiver.

Gifts with interesting stories: “I bought it for you in Paris!”

Part of the fun of giving secondhand books relates to the stories and histories that these books carry. When asked where you found such a treasure you can say “In a small bookshop in Paris,” or “Somebody’s garage in New Zealand.” And you won’t be lying! Over two-thirds of Abebooks’ ten thousand booksellers sell books from their home.

Buying a book from a different country adds a nice story to a gift and makes the receiver feel that you searched the globe to find such a one-of-a-kind book. A suitable effort for those one-of-a-kind people on your holiday shopping list this year.

END

Background: The Abebooks Story

Abebooks began as the Advanced Book Exchange in 1996 as a mere scribble on a notepad. Keith Waters, then a government web programmer, and his wife Cathy were running a used bookstore in Victoria, BC. Cathy often spoke of how difficult it was to find certain out-of-print titles for her customers. She knew the books were available in bookstores somewhere, but how to find them?

A short time later, during a dull business meeting, Keith began to scratch out a solution, one that combined books, databases and the Internet. He sought the help of a friend and together they came up with Abebooks, a collective of independent booksellers united by the Internet through a massive searchable database.

Abebooks found immediate success and quickly grew from a group of four booksellers to a network of ten-thousand booksellers offering 40 million books.

Today Abebooks is a global company based in Victoria, BC Canada with sites dedicated to book buyers in North America (Abebooks.com), the UK (Abebooks.co.uk), France (Abebooks.fr), and Germany (Abebooks.de) and strategic partnerships with Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and eBay/Half.com.

Media Contact:

Marci Crossan [e] mcrossan@abebooks.com [t] 250.412.3258

HelloMetro Launches World's Largest Network of .Mobi Sites with GoDaddy.com's Help

Jeffersonville, IN (PRWEB) May 3, 2007

HelloMetro has launched the world's largest network of .mobi sites with more than 600 of its city-based, local search websites now available globally on practically all mobile phones. These specially designed sites are formatted for a mobile phone's screen and bandwidth, enabling users to access HelloMetro local internet sites on the go without having to wait until they have access to a computer.

All of HelloMetro.mobi web sites are registered through the world's leading domain name registrar, GoDaddy.com