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Consumers will suffer at the hands of the credit crisis this Christmas, as the credit crunch makes it increasingly difficult to get approved for credit cards and loans.

England's economy is likely to suffer losses of around £2 billion after the England football team led by Manager Steve McClaren failed to qualify for the finals of Euro 2008.

A new report from uSwitch indicates that a 2006 Department of Trade and Industry investigation into the sending out of unsolicited credit card cheques has failed to clear up all the issues surrounding the practice, which it considers unethical.

Credit card firms are tightening the screws on the amount of credit being offered to their customers by slashing borrowing limits in an attempt to protect themselves from the growing number of debtors.

Cracks in the UK economy following the Northern Rock fiasco may be beginning to widen as high street sales start to fall. The Office for National Statistics reported a 0.1 per cent decline in the volume of sales in October for the first time in nine months.

"More and more parents have access to high speed Internet access and are getting familiar with online payments," says Dov Abramson, operations manager at PayPAMS (Payment Account Management System). The compnay contracts with school districts in 23 states, including Miami-Dade County, Fla., San Diego and Prince George's County, Md . "Four to five years from now, the majority of the parents will pay online not only for school lunch, but for all school activities." Four to five years from now, the majority of the parents will pay online not only for school lunch, but for all school activities. According to Galen Reigh, MySchoolAccount.com's system administrator and lead developer, each school district decides how it will allow parents to pay for lunches. "Some school districts do what we call ACH payments, and some school districts do credit card payments and some do both," Reigh says.

Parents say they like the peace of mind that cashless lunch payment brings because they know exactly how their money is being spent. Another automated lunch payment provider -- New Jersey-based PayPAMS.com -- allows parents to use its Web site to pay for more than just meals. School activities such as community education classes, after-school care, athletic events, donations, summer school and transportation are among the student payments that can be processed online. Johns, the Food Service Solutions CEO, says school districts pay $5,000 plus $1,000 per cafeteria in software fees to install his company's automated system and another $1,800 to $3,000 per cash register for hardware. Additionally, parents pay a transaction fee of between 3 percent and 6 percent to add funds to an account using a credit card, and a flat rate of $1.50 for all ACH debit transfers, regardless of the amount.

Proponents of the payment systems point to another advantage of cashless cafeterias. How much each student pays for lunch is kept private. In districts where students from low-income families receive reduced priced or free lunches, they are scanned through checkout like all other students. Classmates in line behind them do not know these students are receiving reduced priced meals -- a potential source of embarrassment for some students and families. "It is certainly better than giving the children money to buy lunch," says Tom Miller, who enrolled a middle schooler in the PayPAMS program in Miami-Dade County schools, the nation's fourth largest school district.

Automated payments are not perfect, however. Students can still lose their ID cards or reveal their PIN to others who can fraudulently debit their accounts. The fingerprint scans help reduce the likelihood of these things happening. Both PayPAMS and Food Service Solutions say parents are spreading the word about their services and asking school districts to set up online lunch payment accounts. Says Reigh, the MySchoolAccount.com developer: "We're getting more and more calls from school districts that want to get in the system and as parents learn about it, they say, 'Hey, we want to do that too.'"