Up until Facebook got them, anyway, I had been a WhatsApp user since the early days. Almost everyone I talk to uses it as their primary chat channel and as far as I can tel, it's the defcato chat tool in Europe. Different countries seem to latch onto different apps though, people in other countries often use Viber for instance. Another plus over SMS (give that with 5,000 free texts a month, price wasn't an issue) is that I'm in a semi-rural location and often have no phone signal so being able to chat via WiFi is useful.

Why not Telegram? I've just closed my WhatsApp account and moved to telegram. Did I miss something?

Bullshit. Having choice is always good.

OK, just keep telling yourself that, you'll make the government and big business very happy. Here in the UK we've had all sorts of services turned to junk as the government privetise everything they can in order to give us the mythical choice we apparantly all want (guess they must have interviewed you for that one). Sorry but a lot of research has been done on this one and choice is not always good. it' sjust the current mantra and you've bought into it.

Choice is only good to a point. After that it works backwards and puts people off or paralyses their decision making. Supermarkets found they sell more jam if there's 4 types than 40...

you can't pay an electronic debit / transfer without having a positive balance.

Or within your overdraft limit. Pretty much everyone has an overdraft limit here. Being in credit certainly no limit to spending.

I think its a sad commentary that some of the posters on my comment have basically admitted that they have a debit card / account (that might get cleared out fraudulently) and another different (more secure) account that they keep cash in for their important payments that need to be made.

Debit and Credit cards have exactly the same security - Chip and Pin. The only difference is the account the money comes out of. If anything, the Credit card is the dodgy one if you have a big limit but generally, any fraud is not the problem of the card holder.

We have IBANs but people tend to just use the sort code/account method which means any UK bank account can pay any other account, irrespective of who it's with. We also have systems like PingIt where you can pay someone via their phone number. Using my Bank's home banking software on either PC or phone, I can pay anyone, any time and if it goes via the faster payments system, it will be in their account in seconds.

If you're interested here is a slightly dated but still mostly accurate opinion piece about why credit cards are the better choice.

It's not a case of Debit OR Credit, you have both. One for paying from your current account (checking for you US types) or credit card if you want to borrow the cash. That way you have a credit risk profile and convenience of being able to use whatever account you want.

all your checks bounce

Wow, I haven't written one of those in about ten years. They did try and stop them altogether in the UK but the oldsters pointed out they were good for Christmas gifts so until the banks come up with something wrinklies can grok, they're here to stay.

Plus most credit card companies have pretty good fraud detection software. 3 times I've had a card compromised and everytime, within minutes of the first attempt, I got an automated message from the CC company saying did I recognise the transaction for GBP X, press 1 if yes, 2 if not. Each time, there were 2 or 3 transactions that were tried. Some were declined for being unusual for my spending pattern, the others went on the account and once I signed a form to say 'Not me' were removed in days. One of the wierdest was a card that was simultaneously used to buy Jewelry in a New York store and a London HiFi shop. Can't be in 2 places at once, CC rejected.

You do realise replacing the signature strip is trivial? When I used to work in a bank branch, we always had to run a thumb nail over the strip to check if it had been replaced/covered with a new one. Some fradusters also just wrote over the top of fading or small signatures with something big and brash to hide what was there. Signature ID sucks, basically.

Fingerprint readers also look for a pulse. Chopping off a finger won't work.

http://www.cixonline.com/

And why does he have such a silly name? Oh yes, FUCK BETA.

I'm guessing the person who designed it has never used it.

Exactly. It reminds me of another once very successful system that was owned by people that used it every day. Then it was bought by some others as an investment opportunity and everything they did annoyed, nay enraged the userbase. For years the users screamed 'You don't get it!' and the owners said 'We do! You'll love it!'. Well, it was sucky, and the users didn't love it. And they all left by and large. Given that they were so tight knit that they used to arrange BBQs around the country, attend each others weddings, chip in cash when someone needed help etc, it was a very, very loyal userbase but the total failure of the suits to 'get it' meant it became a shadow of it's former glory. It's still there but it's changed hands many times and is now basically tumbleweed on the internet.

until we're confident that the new site is ready

For very small values of ready, no doubt.