WAHMaholic

Yep. You read that right. Bidazzled.com, which launched early last month, is all about bidding. You can get the gadgets which you have long salivated for at 90% off regular market price if you win the bidding. Yes, you read that right again. Up to 90% savings. It’s fairly easy to get started as they have prepared a Bidazzled For Dummies section which guides you through the whole process in just four steps. There’s even an engaging video explaining the concept of Bidazzled in order to get you started on bidding faster.

What’s great about Bidazzled is that the lucky bidders are not the only ones who win, because part of the site’s earnings go to fund a lung cancer charity whose aim is to educate people about Small Cell Lung Cancer, its alternative treatments as well as resources for the said affliction. What’s also great is that they accept payments through PayPal, which we all know is the safest way to make payments online. It must be noted though that currently, they only ship to the United States (excluding the U.S. sovereign territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and PO Boxes or equivalents are not allowed).

The referral program of Bidazzled is also something to be excited about. You are rewarded bonus bids for referrals up to five levels deep. The more you refer, the more bids you have in your account without actually having to buy bid packs. And if that isn’t enough, you can also get extra 15 free bids upon registration (there’s already five free bids normally), you just have to enter the following codes on the registration page, which are valid until January 15 2010:

Blog: BBP1202A
Twitter: BTP1202A

A while back, out of over-enthusiasm, I decided to upgrade my PayPal account to business. Well, kids, I tell you this. Don’t get too excited about something unless you have carefully planned for it and you know you have ample time in your hands to carry out that vision, okay? So long story short, do not be like me. So, since I don’t want to be reminded of that foolishness any more and since I won’t be selling anything on a daily basis, I requested my PayPal account to be downgraded to Premier. What did I do? Fairly easy. Here’s what you need to do:

Log in to your PayPal account.

At the bottom of the home screen, there’s a Contact Us link. Click it.

At the landing page under Email us, click Send us a question by email.

Select My Account –> Changing Account Type.

Summarize what you want done with your account. In this case, to downgrade it.

Select “I want to downgrade my account type” then click continue.

Proceed to the page where you have to input additional details of your request.

Sit back and wait for confirmation from PayPal.

In my case, the confirmation came less than 24 hours after I sent the request. You gotta love their customer service:

Thank you for contacting PayPal, my name is Dayna. Good news, I just went ahead and downgraded your account Premier. All of your business information were already been removed. I’ll be glad to hear from you if you need clarification, please email us again and we will try our best to give you immediate answers. Thank you for choosing PayPal for your online payment needs. We appreciate your business.

And here’s my account now:

And no. That’s not really Your Majesty that’s in there.

So what’s the difference between the three PayPal account types, you say? Well, as far as my understanding can take me (which is not very far, I warn you ), if you only buy stuff online, then a Personal PayPal account is perfect for you. If you work online and receive your wages, commissions and whatnots through PayPal, then having a Premier PayPal account is best. However, if you want to sell stuff online (meaning you expect to receive payments from buyers on constantly), then a Business PayPal account is in order. Clear enough? Good.

I’m not really big on giving extravagant gifts, for the main reason that I have no money to spend on such presents and because I believe that it’s not the monetary value of the gift that’s important. Poor people like me believe that “it’s the thought that counts.” And what better and cheaper way to spread the love than to give away greeting cards! Yes, that old school. But I’m not really patient when it comes to these things being finished on time. The faster I can get those cards printed and sent, the better. So since I’m all for saving money (read: cheapskate), why spend them on expensive print shops when I can get those greeting cards printed online?

I can get them at 40% off the total cost of printing over at PsPrint. I can even choose to use recycled matte paper for the materials, so I can be eco-friendly at the same time. Plus the turnaround is quite fast. I can order it now and have it on my recipients’ doorsteps by the 24th without paying so much for the speedy printing. Less than a dollar each for the cards? Is that a steal or what? I can even have PsPrint mail those cards for me with no worries about the service charge as they have discounted postage rates. So yes. We don’t need to break the bank to let our loved ones know we remembered them this holiday season.

Yugatech is holding a series of Christmas giveaways every week, and this week the contest is called “Merry Tweetmas“. There are several ways to join, and here they are:

#1 – Through Twitter:

1) Follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe on Twitter.

2) Post a tweet “Just entered to win a Modu Phone. Quick! Go follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe and retweet: http://bit.ly/6e2q7O #thanks2yugatech”.

Twitter contestants will have a chance to win a Modu phone, 10 Globe Tattoo and 20 Php500 prepaid call cards randomly. That’s 31 winners in all for the Twitter giveaway.

#2 – Through Your Blog

1) Blog about the “YugaTech Great Gadget Giveaway”. Include the photo posted here and link to this contest page.

2) Don’t forget to include in your post the mechanics for the Twitter contest above.

3) Leave a comment here with the URL of your entry.

Yugatech will be giving away another Modu phone, 10 Globe Tattoo and 10 prepaid load cards worth Php500 each for the blog contest. That’s 21 additional winners for a total of 52 winners this week.

I’m sure most of us have a Twitter account and/or a blog, but for those who don’t, here’s yet another way to join the fun:

Leave a comment on this contest page with the answer to this question — “If you’re stuck in an island with a phone and only have one call left, who would you call and why?“.

Ten most witty or creative answers will each win Php500 worth of prepaid load cards from Globe.

You can join in any of the 3 separate giveaways above but you can only win once for this round. If you win twice or on all 3, you get the bigger prize. That’s a total of 62 lucky winners this week alone. Come and take your chances!