by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in Creative, News and How-to's

On October 1st 2014, over 35 million UK road tax disc holders became obsolete overnight.

These plastic, often magnetic, disc holders are roughly 4mm thick on average. If 35 million of them currently bound for landfill were stacked one on top of the other, you’d end up with a tower 140km high. It would stretch more than a quarter of the way to the moon!

If you hate waste (or just giant towers of magnets?) don’t bin your tax disc holder just yet. Give it a new life with something new we’re providing FREE to every member.

driver-info-discOur Notify Driver Disk lets police, parking authorities, local residents or business owners, or others, contact you in the event of an emergency, property damage or risk, or even if you’re just causing an obstruction.  You or a secondary contact will be notified instantly by email and SMS.

Crucially, your identity and contact details are 100% secure, so they can’t be stolen or abused in the event of a car theft or break-in.

driver-info-disc-LNBQ96-2

The Disc is FREE to every WhosMyOwner member – just log into your account and download your personalised disc from the Download Labels page.  Click the image to zoom.

 

by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in News and How-to's

UK personal finance guru and MoneySavingExpert Martin Lewis has a great tip if you’re worried about losing your shiny new £600+ iPhone or Android smartphone.  I’ve included a link to the full article below, but here’s a summary.

MoneySavingExpert’s cheapest insurance deal that includes loss cover is currently £5 per month.  That’s £60 per year!  Peace of mind, but at a stiff price!

MSE’s tip is to “self-insure” your phone: pay the money you WOULD have spent on insurance premiums (more if you can) regularly into a top-rate savings account.  Earmark that money toward replacement costs in case you’re unlucky and DO lose your phone.

The benefits are obvious: if you do lose your phone, you’ll already have at least some cash put aside to replace it, and if you haven’t parted with all that cash for unneeded insurance!

At WhosMyOwner we’d take this a step further (of course!).

Do the above trick, but put the first few saved pounds toward a WhosMyOwner membership. If you lose your phone with our label attached, you’ll have a great chance of getting it back.  Label as many phones as you like with the same reference code at no extra cost.  While you’re at it, why not label the whole family’s phones, keys, backpacks, wallets and passports.  Did I mention there’s NO EXTRA COST ?

Worth checking out this big money-saver?  Enter coupon code MSESELFINSURE at checkout before 31st October 2014 and get 20% off your WhosMyOwner starter pack.

If you’ve missed the deal, bad luck – but it’s only £15 to join anyway (and only £10/yr to renew). That includes a set of durable key and luggage tags, all the downloadable and print-at-home tags you could ever need, and if you’re not happy, just cancel.

Here’s the full article on MoneySavingExpert about self-insuring and here’s how WhosMyOwner works.

 

by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in Creative, News and How-to's

Good article here with a round-up of even more gadget-based solutions for finding your lost keys.

The advantages of a battery-powered solution include a separation alarms (so you won’t walk away from your keys in the first place), and some great-looking Bluetooth apps for locating your misplaced keys, even if they’re just down the back of the sofa. Several of these gadgets will emit a homing sound, similar to Find My iPhone, which is often all you need.

On the downside, they’re moderately expensive, require maintenance (battery or whole gadget replacement), and need to connect with other devices for tracking to work beyond bluetooth range (10m).

But these are all very clever solutions to a common problem, and I predict at least one of these start-ups will get acquired this year and suddenly become an everyday part of our lives.

by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in News and How-to's

Great article from The Telegraph about the cost and sheer trauma of replacing keys for a modern car.

I know, I know – it’s just a key after all – how expensive can it be?   Turns out it’s WAY more complicated than just a key!

With over 5 million keys lost in the UK every year, and over 18,000 key-related car thefts, not including theft FROM cars, simple arithmetic tells us it’ll probably happen to someone you know.   Don’t let it be you!

 

 

by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in Frequently Asked Questions

We have worked with a few great UK suppliers of custom fabric labels, including both the stitch-on type shown here, and iron-on.   Send us your request using the Contact form and we’ll send you some details.

We have also successfully used TZFA3/TZeFA3 fabric tape for Brother P-Touch label printers (we love this line of printers, understandably!).  Both the tape and the printers are inexpensive and widely available on the Internet.

by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in News and How-to's

Tagging your property with just a WhosMyOwner tag has some of advantages over just writing your name and address on things.  If you want to write something, let’s see if we can convince you to write your tag, not your name.

Here are just a few things to think about.

  1. If you lose something important, and before it shows up you move home or change jobs, chances are any personal details you wrote on a traditional label won’t be valid any more.  This makes you MUCH less likely to recover the missing item if it ever shows up.  Sure, people don’t change addresses or jobs too often, but they change phone numbers all the time!  WhosMyOwner tags will survive any of these life changes unscathed – just keep your account up to date and all will be fine.
  2. If you lose your keys with any kind of label that could be used to identify you, it’s not hard to imagine an opportunist thief finding your address or your car, and helping themselves next time you’re out.  By showing only a reference number, WhosMyOwner stops this type of crime in its tracks.
  3. With a WhosMyOwner code instead of a name on expensive school wear such as a blazer, you never need to replace name tags when you pass items on from one child to another.  The code just stays on the item, and it’s still protected from loss no matter who is now wearing it.

The more you tag with WhosMyOwner, the more you’ll realise it’s a simple and sensible approach to labelling your stuff.

by WhosMyOwnerPosted on Posted in Creative, News and How-to's

The most common item left behind in hotel rooms is the humble mobile phone charger.

Click image to reveal this story’s happy ending!

That makes complete sense to me, and on reading that I was actually amazed I haven’t already lost mine several times over.  After all when you quickly scan the room on departure, a white plug sticking out of a wall socket isn’t the sort of thing to grab your attention, is it?

Unfortunately these babies are not cheap.  Especially the ones that come with modern smart phones and tablets.

A branded replacement charger from Apple or Samsung could easily cost you £20 or more.

If you have that £20 to spend on replacing just one charger, why not spend it on a year’s WhosMyOwner subscription – and protect your charger, your mobile phone, and everything else you travel with, against losing them.

Wondering what other items are often left behind?   The list has changed over the years, with chargers usually at the very top.  Other items range from the mundade to the downright weird.  A quick search might surprise you.