| Bookstore double-billed purchases
An error of double billing has left Chemeketa Community College students grappling with overdraft fees, officials said. Students who made purchases at the Chemeketa Community College bookstore with MasterCard and Visa cards on Sept. 25 -- the second day of classes -- were billed twice when the college's transaction processing company reprocessed charges, said Eric Howald, Chemeketa's public relations coordinator. The error affected about 1,400 students, with charges totaling about $150,000. Officials do not know how many of the charges were made with debit versus credit cards. Chemeketa officials are investigating the cause of the error, Howald said. The mistaken charges were reversed last week, meaning money has been put back into students' accounts, officials said. A lag in processing the refunds has led to many students being charged overdraft fees.
Avril Lavigne Promises 2008 Jaunt Will Be Her Best Damn Tour Yet
After spending nearly a year promoting her Best Damn Thing album (which, lest you forget, came out all the way back in April), Avril Lavigne is finally getting around to touring behind it ... but not until 2008. Dubbed the Best Damn Tour, the jaunt kicks off March 5 in Victoria, British Columbia, and will crisscross North America until coming to a close May 9 in Spokane, Washington. Shiny-new emo-punkers Boys Like Girls will serve as the openers on all dates. Best Damn tickets go on sale to the general public November 17 through LiveNation.com, but members of Lavigne's "Crossbonez" fan club get first crack through the singer's site. Lavigne announced the tour Tuesday at a press conference/mini-concert at the Whiskey in Los Angeles. Flanked by her band, clutching a hot-pink microphone and backed by a star-spangled Best Damn Tour banner, she promised her fans a real show.
In the papers 19 November
France Telecom to take stake in Telkom Kenya | Emuse lands contract with ITV The Irish Independent says that shoppers can save themselves hundreds of euros by shopping online this Christmas -- but it pays to compare prices carefully. A survey by the newspaper shows that you could save yourself as much as EUR340 on a big-ticket item such as a widescreen plasma TV, and for smaller items like computer games and CDs, savings are also substantial. The Financial Times reports that valuable radio spectrum used mainly by broadcasters is to be opened up to broadband services from mobile operators under a new UN agreement. For the first time, the decision will provide a common chunk of spectrum for mobile broadband services globally, boosting the market for new wireless technologies.
Capital One, Austin's NetSpend change acquisition plans
Regional bank instead will take a minority partnership stake in prepaid debit card company. By Dan ZehrAMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, November 20, 2007 NetSpend Corp. and Capital One Financial Corp. called off their $700 million acquisition plan Monday, saying they would seek to expand their existing partnership instead. The companies said in a press release that they had mutually agreed to suspend the deal, in which Capital One would've bought NetSpend, an Austin company that provides prepaid debit cards for more than 1.5 million customers. They announced the deal in August. .
Lenders may not pass on rate cuts
Homeowners will miss out on the full benefit of interest rate cuts next year because mortgage lenders are planning to tighten their belts in response to the credit crunch. The Bank of England signalled earlier this week that interest rates could be cut twice by next summer, but mortgage lenders have indicated that they may refuse to cut their standard variable rates (SVR) in turn, as they try to protect their profit margins. This will further stretch homeowners whose finances are already under pressure. The proportion of homeowners who pay out more than half their pre-tax salary on their mortgage has doubled in two years to 4.8 per cent, according to Bank of England figures released earlier this week. One in three mortgage borrowers now devotes more than 20 per cent of gross income to repayments, the figures showed.
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