It dawned on me this weekend that so many people out there do not know about all the latest cons and scams out there and it is quite alarming. We do not even know of half of them until we actually fall into their traps.

It is amazingly easy to obtain information from anyone living in the United Kingdom through a single phone call. You need a few basic details and you are set to rob them blind which really makes me worry and that is why I chose to talk about this topic.

A lot of companies in the United Kingdom ask for proof of identity when you call them or when they call you. It has now become second nature for you to give out your details over the phone as we are too trusting. Never under any circumstances should you give out any personal information when somebody calls you, they call you so they should have the details. No need for them to double check them with you over the phone again. Remember that you are not obligated to give out any personal information, not to anyone.

Make these people nervous and ask them about their privacy policies as well as why in the world they want information from you, AGAIN.

It has finally dawned on me that there are better search tools out there for finding your way around London than just relying on good ol’ TFL’s journey planner. In the past it used to be the A-Z in the one hand and the address in the other. It took you ages to find something and you always felt nervous on the bus and travel going somewhere new but all of that has changed.

I now use a combination of tools available online to find my way around London. London is a big city and I have met people that have lived here their whole lives that do not know any of the other boroughs in London. Imagine finding your way with a paperback map in your pocket and a postcode that looks gibberish in the other.

Someone introduced me to the beauty of Google Earth and ever since then I’ve browsed on it looking at new things to explore in London. You had to download Google Earth and let it go onto the internet to connect to their servers but I have now found a website which does the same and fairly quickly as well. Awesome tool to be using when going for a job interview, a new nightclub or even discovering a bit more about London. Be curious, I dare you!

Have you ever heard of this term or seen it all over every second website when you type in “living in London”? When we first came over to the United Kingdom, we were bombarded with information about tax refunds. Our initial thought was, wow, these people really want to give me back all that money and I won’t have to pay any tax when working in the United Kingdom!

That is not true at all, reality soon kicked in. It is called clever advertising; it caught your attention, didn’t it? Tax refunds are big business amongst all the people coming to the United Kingdom on working holiday visas. Why is it big money? Well these companies take a certain percentage from what you get back, IF you are due something back and all they do is complete a form and send it off to the tax office for you. They make it sound complicated but it is not.

I was a sucker for it the first year but soon learned that I could do it myself and guess what, it worked and now I know a bit more and have been doing it myself ever since. No middleman means I get more of my tax money back.

Want to know how to do it? Leave me a comment and I’ll respond on this post. The information is really for free but it’s better if you ask me questions rather than other websites copying my writing!