Naveen’s Blog

This Virtual Credit Card creation method is for Indians who does not have a valid credit card and wants to make online transactions where credit card is mandatory.

What is a Virtual Credit Card?
Virtual Credit Card (VVC) is a one-time usable credit card with a preloaded amount and comes with few months of validity. It is the safest way to pay online.

My Method!
Following is a method I am using since 2005 to make online transactions. At that time, I did not have a credit card and getting a credit card was very difficult thing. I found this facility in HDFC Bank, explored its full strength, and able to make online transactions since then.

How to get these VVCs?
For this method, you need to have an HDFC Bank savings account with International Debit Card. If you have a normal debit card, apply for an International Debit Card. Visit an HDFC Bank branch nearest to you and submit a simple application for International Debit Card, which takes around a week or two to get your card. If you have not opted for online banking facility, go and get it.

You can create unlimited virtual credit cards using NetSafe by HDFC Bank. Go to the homepage of HDFC Bank and select “NetSafe/ Verified by Visa/ MasterCard SecureCode” from the different account logins available on the homepage. It pops up a window where you can register for NetSafe using your International Debit Card.

Once you registered, login into your account and it will show your balance and option to create a virtual credit with a specified amount. Fill the amount and click “GO.” It will create a virtual credit card with expiry date, CVV, and the amount you have chosen.

Don’ts:

• Do not use this virtual credit card where physical goods are delivered at your doorstep upon presentation of the card to the delivery boy.
• Do not use this card where recurrent payments are made because it expires in a month or so.

Except the above, you can now use the virtual card for online payments safely.

VCCs Benefits – From my experiences
Though I have a credit card now, I still use virtual credit for online transactions where free trials are offered upon entering the credit card.

• Past year, I have signed up for a hosting company, which offered one year free hosting. I just needed to signup with my credit card to get this offer. They told that if I am not satisfied with it, I have to cancel it before next renewal. I found that their service was crap and when I tried to cancel it, I found that I have to contact their customer service team to cancel it. There was no option to cancel it from the control panel I have been provided with. Assume, if I have provided my original credit card and at the time of renewal, I mailed them to cancel, but they did not turn up on time, then I had to lose the renewal free, which was more than 150 dollars. Fortunately, I have signed up with them with a VVC of Re.1, which already expired. So, happily I have just mailed them to cancel it and forgot. Because, it was a VCC and I do not need to worry about it anymore.
• I get a lot of free trial offers for webmasters where I need to signup with a credit card to available the trial offer, but I need to cancel it before the trial offer expires. Sometimes, I get offers that are just 1 or 2 days valid. After that they bill my credit card without any notice. For these, I always use VCC with a value of Re.1. I just concentrate on getting more benefit from the offer than worrying about the automatic re-bill because they cannot rebill my card with their huge fees as my VCC can be billed for Re.1 only and eventually, they can’t bill it and the offer expires.

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After making usage of any bank ATM free, RBI now moves towards changing the interest calculation of savings accounts. It is really a good change and our savings accounts will earn a better interest income.

How savings account interest is calculated?
At the present time, banks are calculating the interest rate on the lowest amount available in your savings account from 10th to the end of month. The disadvantage is that if you have a low balance on any of these days, you will get interest on that amount only. For example:

If your account shows the following balance for the month of February 2010:

You will get interest only on 1,000/- rupees, which is the lowest balance available in your account at 3.5% per annum, which turns out to be, Rs. 2.92.

According to the new circular from RBI, banks have to calculate the interest on a daily product basis and this must be implemented from April 1, 2010. This way savings account holders will not lose interest for even a rupee.

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Mobile Number Portability is going operational from January 1, 2010.  You can change your mobile operator retaining the same mobile number at your will at just Rs. 19.  TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has released a Press Release fixing the porting cost at Rs. 19 and porting will take a maximum of 4 days.

TRAI explains Mobile Number Portability (MNP) as “it allows the subscribers to retain their existing mobile telephone number when they move from one Access Provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same Access Provider, in a licensed service area.  The facility of retention of existing mobile telephone number despite moving to a new telecom service provider helps in increasing competition between the service providers and acts as a catalyst for the service providers to improve their quality of service.”

These days, I can see a lot of people carrying SIMs of other networks just because it has low-priced call rates.  Here in Hyderabad, TATA DoCoMo entering the market with second pulse rate made a huge impact.  Dual SIM mobiles have got sudden demand and everyone has got two SIMs, one DoCoMo SIM and one their good old number.

Now with MNP going operational, things will change a lot and there will be a huge competition between the mobile operators to retain their customers as the customer can change their operator if service is not good or others offering a low tariff, which TRAI thinks will intensify the competition thus by making mobile communication so cheap.

TATA DoCoMo’s one second pulse rate made a revolution in the cellular industry and intensified the competition between the service providers to a level that now every one has to offer one second pulse billing to retain their customers.  Mobile calling charges have come down to 50 paise per minute.  Roaming charges are also coming down these days.

Download a copy of Mobile Number Portability Press Release in PDF form here.

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As per RBI’s circular, with effect from April 1st, 2009, you can use any ATM in India for money withdrawal, account balance, or printing mini statement for FREE irrespective of your card issuing bank.  RBI issued instructions at the beginning of this year to all the banks not to levy more than Rs.20 per transaction done by other bank’s account holder.  For example, if you are an ICICI Bank account holder and if you are using ICICI ATM card to withdraw money from an SBI ATM, you will be charged a maximum of Rs.20 per transaction.  This will be in effect till March 31, 2009 and from April 1st, irrespective of your bank account, you can use your ATM card to do the above transactions at any bank’s ATM for free.

I am really happy to see this.  Before this, if I am going to a new place, carrying all my bank cards was necessary because I would not know which ATM I can find first.  As the charges have come down to Rs. 20 lately, I have been using other bank’s ATMs frequently because I am not worried about Rs.20 as I can find other bank’s ATMs in my colony in just few steps.  Now, even this Rs. 20 per transaction charge is going to be taken off from day after tomorrow and I can simply walk into any ATM and withdraw the money

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Being in the field of transcription for the last four years, associated with a company or a home-based transcription provider, I wanted to write a review about this field.  I get inquiries about medical transcription training and future prospects in Orkut and other forums where I participate.  This article can help the people whether or not to choose this field.  This review is limited to choosing medical transcription as a career in India, especially Hyderabad, and not in foreign countries.

I started my career as a medical transcriptionist in the year 2004.  At that time I was in the field of express cargo and logistics and there were frequent transfers to anywhere in India.  At that time, it was necessary for me to be in Hyderabad because of my education and my brother’s.  So, I started looking at other opportunities where I can get good salary, less stress, and somewhat interesting job.  At that time, medical transcription was catching up and heard good things about it.  So, I took the test, succeeded, and joined for transcription training.  Within a year or so, I was able to make the salary, which I was earning in my previous job.

It was good.  It has improved my English, communication skills, and presentation skills.  Being a Telugu medium student, it was so difficult for me to express my thoughts in good English.

After working hard for three years, I started realizing that there is little growth in this field.  Unlike other fields, it is difficult to reach higher levels.  At the same time, it is also easy to reach if you have exceptional listening skills.  There are three levels in this field, medical transcriptionist, proofreader, and quality analyst.  Becoming proofreader is very hard.  It requires exceptional listening skills, which everyone may not have and lot of transcriptionists end up at the stage of medical transcriptionist itself.  90-95% people leave their job after few years realizing that their pay is not going to rise.  A senior transcriptionist can earn anywhere from 10-15 thousands and proofreaders can earn anywhere from 15-25.  QAs will earn 5-10K more.  But, these salaries will become stagnant and one would get easily frustrated.  If you start your career lately in MT and realize after three or four years that your salary is not rising at the phase you thought, you certainly want to leave this field, but at that time you will also find that you have become “age barred” for other fields.  So, while choosing it as a career, think about it twice.  As soon as you realize that your skills are just limited to MT, then leave it as soon as possible and jump into another field.

Pros:

• Education and age are no bar in this field.  You just need to pass out a general English test.  That’s all!
• You will get chance to improve you written and spoken English skills, which are mandatory to succeed in any job.
• You will get an immense knowledge related to health, which is going to help you throughout your life.
• Flexible working hours, which is a hard-to-find thing in any other job.
• Low stressful job.
• You can work from home.  There are lot of companies ready to provide you work to do from home.
• Getting job in another company is just two or three days matter.
• You can walk into any MT company at anytime to see if they have openings and almost all companies will be ready to take the MTs/Proofers/QAs throughout the year, which you cannot see in any other job.

Cons:

• As stated above, pay hikes are limited, which is the main thing 90-95% people leaving this job after working for few years.
• Few MTs cannot progress towards the next level, proofreader, because of poor listening skills, which is not going to be improved with hard work.
• This experience will not help you get a job in any other industry.
• Wearing headphones, listening to voice, and typing keys for a prolonged period of time may cause significant health issues.

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This post is to answer all the blog comments asking how to withdraw money from PayPal to Indian banks.

PayPal allows you to withdraw money directly into your Indian bank account for free if you are withdrawing more than Rs.7,000. If it is less, it charges Rs. 50 as fee. This is the better way than requesting cheque because it takes few weeks to deliver, a month for realization, and more over PayPal charges $5 fee and your bank charges approximately Rs.150 to Rs. 250 for clearing international cheque.

Follow these steps to withdraw funds from PayPal to Indian banks:

Log into PayPal and click the link “Withdraw” Then, select the option “Withdraw funds to your bank account” and click “Add Bank Account” It will ask First name, Last name, Bank Name, IFSC code, and Account Number. The thing in question here is IFSC code.

IFSC is Indian Financial System Code assigned by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for every bank branch for easiness in transferring funds and communication. If you have an ICICI account, you can see the IFSC code printed on the cheque book itself. Get the list of participating banks and its branch codes in an xls sheet by clicking here. This is the link to the main listing page where you can find the updated list in case if it is updated by RBI and you are not able to get the XLS sheet. IFSC code is an 11-digit character and numeric code and looks like BKID0003322, which is an IFSC code for Bank of India, Gandhigram branch in Gujarat State. 3322 is the branch code and BKID is the bank code. Enter the appropriate IFSC code for your branch followed by your account number. You can also confirm it with your bank branch. After that you can select the amount to withdraw into your bank account, which readily converted into Indian rupees and showed to proceed with withdrawal.

Once you are done, you will get the money directly into your bank account in three to seven business days. I have tried to transfer the money to an ICICI account and it took only three days for getting the money. Still have questions? Post in comments.

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Note: I am not a pharma student to answer your complex pharmaceutical questions.  Please do not ask me to provide some brands data names in excel sheet or the copy of electronic drug reference.  Please go to the above site and purchase it.  Whatever I can provide, I have provided here.  Need more? Then, log into MedCLIK and explore.  Thanks in advance!

When I was in medical transcription training, we were provided with Quick Look Drug Reference for medicine search and its dosage details.  I was surprised to see its features.  It was extensive with all the drug names, brand and generic names, therapeutic category, usage, dose, and dosage forms.  We learned that a generic drug can be sold with different brand names produced by different companies.  For example: aspirin is a generic drug (original formula), which is available under brand names of Ascriptin, Bayer Aspirin, Easprin, Ecotrin, Halfprin, ZORprin, etc (in USA).

After looking at this electronic drug reference for American drugs, I thought that there will be an Indian electronic drug reference.  I searched a lot over the net for nearly one month, but was unable to find it. After passing through class training and on-job training, I was put on regular roles and started searching again.  While searching the Indian Medical Association website, I came to know about the site MedCLIK, which provides an online drug reference for Indian medicines.

Go to http://www.medclik.com/General/pages/drugmanual/Index.asp and select the criteria for search, Generics or Brands. Then it will ask for login name or email ID.  Just put “test” and go on.

In MedCLIK, besides the above information, they also indicate the manufacturers’ name and price.  I think it is very helpful.  If you know a brand, just key in and you can find the generic name of the drug and the list of brands available for that with price and company information.

You can see the below screenshot I have taken for brand search for “gentamicin,” an eye drops preparation.

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