Xoom - Money Transfer to India and other countries - Who/How are they

I have tried Xoom more than a couple of times for money transfer and as they say, they are pretty fast. Yes !! They are !!!

If you haven't tried Xoom yet, I would strongly recommend it !!!! - Click here

Here's what makes Xoom unique in their way,

1) As soon as you submit a money transfer request, it's processed.

2) The exchange rate is locked for you -- this means that the rate which you see at the time of initiating a transfer is the one that you will get even if it decreases or changes when the amount reaches your recipient. So, you don't have to worry about what exchange rate will be applied after you did a transfer. When you think exchange rates are good for your country, go ahead and Xoom it, you will get advantage of it right away !!!

Xoom

3) Their transaction tracking page gives the full details and it's very clear how the money gets transferred and at what time, in each of the stages it goes through

4) Their new-user sign-up page is simple and fast

5) "Quick Send" feature is their best. Once you have transferred to a recipient, the next time you login, his/her details automatically come-up and all you need to do is enter the amount and just submit. No hassles of going through a full wizard of information again. If you still want to do it that way, you can do so in Xoom, but, trust me, that is also fast :)

6) Their help pages provide ample amount of information and clarity. I usually go through the help pages of sites like these which offer payment services, at least once, but haven't seen anything like Xoom.

7) Reliability - Yes !!! At first, I even thought if it is safe to transfer through Xoom. But, it is !!! Friends around me regularly use this site and they strongly recommend Xoom

8) Customer Service - Yes, they are available round-the-clock. I had been with them once and they are courteous and answered each and every silly question I had before I could make a decision to go with their service. They were not aiming to make a sale with me or force me to sign-up, all they were doing was clarifying my questions and making me understand the process.

9) Use the bank account method to pay for your transfer since it is the cheapest !!!

Things to know before doing any money transfer service, not only Xoom

1) Read through user agreement and help pages go get clear-cut understanding, so that you don't rant in the future that you are not told about anything that is contained in these pages

2) Learn about the timelines of when the money will reach the recipient for your destination country. Xoom provides money transfer to many countries. It also depends on when you transfer the money. Some countries like India have Bank holidays on Sundays and they work half-day on Saturdays. So, if you have done a transfer on Friday night 11 PM PST, it would have been Saturday 12:30 PM in the afternoon when the NEFT/ACH processing gets to close, so your money may be transferred at the earliest on Monday IST morning. If you could transfer by 8 PM PST on Friday, the money would reach the same day IST Saturday since it would get processed in the 10 PM batch of NEFT.

3) Understand the charges for the service. Some services charge a standard fee for all amounts, which sometimes may be costly. Xoom offers a variable method where it charges $2.99 for anything transferred up to $500, $4.99 for upto $1000 and it is free for anything greater than $1000. These charges are for their bank transfer way of paying for your remittance. (as of 2012)


If you want to sign-up for Xoom, don't miss this offer. You can get rewarded through this offer link. Click here to learn more and sign-up.

Let me know how you felt when your money Xoomed :) fast, secure and safe to your friend, relative or family

ChannelLive.tv Review - Roku

ChannelLive is a IP based Television Channel provider who provides the services through online live streaming for viewing through web browser, Roku and through their own setup box.

In this post,
1) I am posting my review on their service via Roku, the small and smart entertainment box. 
2) I have also not seen their service through their own set top box, but I would highly recommend to choose through Roku since I have personally experienced it. Also, if you have Roku, you can watch many other channels as well and not only ChannelLive.

If you do not have Roku yet, you can try getting a instant discount here
3) I am reviewing this on May 2012, so they might have already fixed the issues that you may have read in other reviews in the web which may be old (or) those issues may not be related to their service through Roku.

Package Collection: Most of the major South Indian Channels (Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam) are available. It's like a bowl full of meal enough for a perfect entertainment platter.

Connection-speed: Excellent. Even if you forward or rewind back and play, the buffering speed is excellent. I have Comcast Internet and have Roku connected to WIFI along with 3 of my other devices. So, imagine the load that is already there on the WIFI. But, ChannelLive is superb and I have not seen any connection timeouts or hangs.

Archived Videos: This is the best and significant feature they provide. You can view recorded programs archived for last 15 days. So, if you have missed any program, no worries !!! Just use the "On-Demand" section to choose any date and there you go !!!

Picture Quality: 10/10, Clear picture, no distortion

Sound: Perfect and clear 

Value for Money: Yes

Support

Phone: Yes
Email: Yes
Ticket System: Yes

They have the fastest support system I have ever seen. I have received a direct call within 5 mins of sending an email to their customer service. If they are not able to reach you, they leave a voice with clear information on the reason they called you, any solutions to your issue and also the call-back number. When I gave them a call-back at 6:30 PM PST, it was around 8:30 PM MST (Chicago time) at their end (Ph.630 246 4788). They were curteous and patient and responded to my questions.

How to connect Channellive to Roku? 

Step 1: ChannelLive is available public in Roku's Channel Store. Just go to ChannelStore on your Roku and check the "International" section which will show up ChannelLive. Add it there !!!!

Step 2: Go to the ChannelLive channel in Roku and choose "Settings"

Step 3: Follow the instructions there which will give you a code that you may have to enter in ChannelLive's website. That's it, your Roku will be linked to your ChannelLive account and you can start viewing.
You can also find instructions here

Okay!! Now that I have talked much about their best, let me tell what areas of improvement they may need,

1) The on-demand archives of a program sometimes have the content of the previous week's episode until it's current day's version is uploaded. For eg, if you go to a program on Saturday May 12 PST 11 AM and load it, you will see the previous week's (May 5) episode. By end of the day of May 12 if you try to load the same program at 6 or 8 PM, you will see that the latest episode for week of May 12 is uploaded by that time. Don't worry, but you won't lose your program at all.
Note: This does not happen all the time and all the weeks. But, have seen this 1 in 20 times.

2) Getting along with the point above, the details of the list of programs of a time range are sometimes confusing. For eg; You go to the Vijay Tv programs on Sat May 12 PST at 4 PM. If you check the program list for time ranges 6-9AM, 9AM-12PM, 12PM-3PM,etc, you may notice that it the list shows the name of the programs that are telecast on weekdays and they are not Saturday's programs.  But, if you load video of the time range, you can see Saturday's programs of May 12. When you check again after 11 PM, you can see that program details of a time-range reflect the right list of names.


Both the above seem to be typically a fixable and solvable issue, which I am sure ChannelLive folks will surely count on them.


By the time you read this article beyond after July 2012 or 2013 and later, these issues might not be even there.

- Raghunath Krishnan