I have noticed that eBay have been making a few changes recently. The first is that they will be introducing higher charges for selling items. Although the fee for listing an item will decrease from 15p to 10p, EBay’s cut of the final selling price will actually increase. This will mean that the fee charged will increase from 5.25% to 7.5% that’s roughly 68p extra per item sold. It doesn’t sound like a lot and perhaps it isn’t if you just list the odd item every now and again. For those people that make a living selling on eBay however, it is likely to mean they will have increase their prices in order to make it worthwhile. Personally I have stopped listing on eBay altogether recently because it is expensive to keep relisting products and I often find that I spend more on fees in a month that I actually make from the listings. Not only do you have to take into the listing fee, the final value fee but if your customers pay via Paypal (owned by eBay) then they take a another cut for the transaction. There is good news, however for power sellers who will get discounts of up to 40% on the final value fees, but it does make me wonder if eBay is pushing out the small sellers.

The second change is that eBay are making changes to the way their feedback system works. The change means that eBay sellers will no longer be able to leave neutral or negative feedback for buyers although buyers will still be able to leave negative feedback for sellers. eBay are introducing the changes because they believe that it will encourage buyers to be more honest when leaving feedback as they will not fear receiving negative feedback in return. On a quick visit to the eBay forums I noticed that this change has left many sellers wondering what they should do if a buyer proves to be untrustworthy. The majority of comments are from people who have experienced fraudulent transactions from buyers in the past and feel that the new feedback changes will leave them unable to highlight these fraudulent buyers so that other users know to avoid them. It will be interesting to see how these new changes affect eBay but one thing is for sure there are certainly a lot of very unhappy people out there at the moment.

If you need a new suit but are a bit short of cash then you might want to head down to your nearest Asda. They are currently selling a pair of black boot leg trousers and a classic women’s white shirt for just £5. The outfit will be on sale until the 26 February. Asda also sell a men’s suit for only £15. At that price there is no excuse not to wear a suit although personally I wonder how well made the items are at this price. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has purchased one. I might see if I can purchase one so that I can review it here.

I went to my first ice hockey game on Saturday. It was at the Guildford Spectrum, home of the Guildford Flames. The game we watched was the Guildford flames playing the Chelmsford Chieftains. It proved to be a rather fast moving game that ended 10-5 to the Guildford Flames. Throughout the game I was impressed with the player’s skill and agility on the ice. I was also impressed by the level of sportsmanship shown. Although ice hockey tends to be a rough game whenever a player was knocked down they got straight back up and commenced playing whereas in a football match for example, they tend to look for any excuse to pretend to be injured and claim the advantage. I also found the mix of people at the game very interesting. There seemed to be a base of elderly people who are obviously devoted followers as well as lots of families with their children. It appears to be a game that anyone can enjoy, one thing I would suggest though is take a thick jumper with you, as it tends to get a little cold.

I read this article that suggests some coffee sold by high street chain can contain a third of the recommended daily calorie intake. The article highlights coffee such as Starbucks large white chocolate mocha which contains 628 calories. In comparison a medium mocha with whipped cream from Caffe Nero contains 326 calories and a medium mocha flake from Costa Coffee contains 297 calories. Whilst this may seem a lot, all of these coffee brands contain whole milk, chocolate and cream so personally I would expect them to have a high calorie content.

A man who managed to build a castle behind a haystack could face having it demolished. Robert Fidler built the castle over the course of two years but kept it concealed behind a 40 foot stack of hay bales. He then lived there for four years before revealing the castle in August of last year. He claims that because the castle has been there for four years with no objections that it is no longer illegal. However, the council planners say that the law does not apply in this case because no one has had the chance to see it.

When Kelly Levy lost her cat Gracie Mae she looked everywhere without success. It was only later that she got a phone call from Texas. Rob Carter had picked up what he thought was his suitcase at the airport and taken it home. However, on opening it, he was surprised when a cat jumped out. It transpired that he had picked up a suitcase belonging to Kelly’s husband Seth, which contained his luggage and a rather curious cat. Rob later called the number on the cat’s collar and Gracie Mae made the 1,300 mile trip home to Palm Beach Gardens on an $80 plane ticket.

Nobody like paying fines but some people go to extraordinary lengths to avoid them. Shafkat Munir had been caught speeding three times in the space of two months and fearing he would lose his driving licence, he hatched a rather cunning plan. He had already contacted the police to try and contest the fines but having no luck, he instead tried to pretend he had died. A man called Rashid Hussain called the ticketing office to say that his friend Shafkat Munir had died in Pakistan in 2002. The same man then forwarded a death certificate to the police. Although the certificate had several errors Hussain still insisted his friend was dead. However when the police rang the mobile number given by Hussain, Shafkat Munir answered the phone. Not the brightest plan. Munir was later arrested.