COMMON PROBLEMS

Page Summary: Click on the questions for answers to administrative and technical Frequently Asked Questions

1. Help

Possibly the answer to your query is somewhere on this page. If it isn't, there are several places to look depending on the nature of your query.

• Review a table of contents - Try the SiteMap which is arranged by chapters like a book. The title of each chapter contains a punchline describing its contents, followed by the further punchlines that provide a synopsis of each page.
• Persuing a train of thought - Go back to the Home Page and click a likely-looking bubble in the imagemap, each of which is designed to lead you down different paths through the site depending on your train of thought. You can also use conventional links below the imagemap in the text describing the site.
• Digression to related subjects - If you want to know what is available on subjects related to the page you are viewing, use the navigation bars at the bottom of each page.
• Browsing the user manual - For explanations about investing using Investors RouteMap look at the GuideBook. On technical matters, try the Help menu of your browser.
• Requesting personal service - If you want specific personal financial advice, we can also help you. Just send us an e-mail for Professional Investment Advice.
• Resorting to the last resort -  If you still need help, send us a query using the Feedback e-mail.

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2. Trust

The full answer is in the Security page, which deals with a wide range of related issues. The short answer is that you can confirm that Professional Investment Tools is a company incorporated in the United Kingdom at Companies House and that we are authorised to conduct investment business by the Financial Services Authority.

We hope these arrangements give you confidence about subscription payments. They do not, of course, cover the possible success or otherwise of any investments you may make on the basis of advice provided by Investors RouteMap, for which you should read the Financial Health Warning.

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3. Payment Options

For your convenience we can accept payment in a variety of ways: -

• Credit cards -  Go to the Authorisation page of the Paperwork section in the Site Map. Your order will be sent using Secure Socket Layer technology for processing to our merchant account at WorldPay, a card clearance company associated with NatWest Bank. We can accept payment by Delta, EuroCard, Mastercard, Switch or Visa. You don't need to wait for our introductory phone call.
• Sterling Cheque - Simply make out your cheque to Professional Investment Tools Ltd. and post it to us at 9 Daniels Court, Island Wall, Whitstable, Kent, CT5 1ET, Great Britain (together with confirmation that you are an Expert Investor if appropriate). Please note that these should be drawn on British banks. You don't need to wait for our introductory call.
• Euro-Cheque - These should also be made out to Professional Investment Tools Ltd. and posted to us at 9 Daniels Court, Island Wall, Whitstable, Kent, CT5 1ET, Great Britain (together with confirmation that you are an Expert Investor if appropriate). Please note that these should be drawn on banks within the Euro-Zone. You don't need to wait for our introductory phone call.
• International Money Orders - These can be sent direct to our bank accounts in London for Pounds Sterling or Frankfurt for Euros. However please wait for our introductory call, for us to give you our banking details. When we call, we will need to ask you the name of your bank, your account number, the number of the bank branch and preferably also its international Swift payments number.

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4. Credit Cards

Because we appreciate concerns about credit card payments over the internet, we don't actually process credit card electronically ourselves. To maximise confidence among subscriber we have outsourced this task to WorldPay, a recognised leader in third party merchant services, that is associated with NatWest Bank. WorldPay use industry-standard SSL technology to encrypt transfers. This means that we do not hold an electronic record of your card details at all on our web server. If you are still unhappy with the thought of electronic payments in principle, you can use traditional alternative Sterling or Euro banking arrangements. This is one of the reasons we introduce a human touch in the signing on process and why we ask for your phone number when you register.

If you want to know more about WorldPay, after you leave us, visit their site at www.worldpay.com   

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5. Payments Clearance

Once you have completed and sent off the Registration form, we will phone you to introduce ourselves, obtain your payment details and answer any questions you may have about our service. Our call may not be immediately as we are human - we work Greenwich Mean Time business hours - but if you haven't heard within a few days, send us a query using the Feedback e-mail.

Authorisation should follow once your payment has cleared, which may take a few days, depending on how you choose to pay. We offer a choice of UK or Euro-Zone banking arrrangements and are can handle credit card transactions.

Please note that there is no need to panic if you don't get immediate authorisation. As a consequence of designing this site for long term investors, we announce changes of opinion only at the end of each month, so unless you are contacting us near month-end, you won't miss any hot new recommendations.

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6. Password Expiry

If this happens, it is probably the case that you forgot to renew your subscription. If there are no changes in your personal details, you can simply send us a new payment, but if there are any changes, please complete the Registration form again. If you are using our services as a Professional Investment Adviser, please also advise us of any changes in your financial circumstances that may affect the suitability of investment recommendations.

If there is any other reason, check out password problems below. 

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7. Cookies

Information about your account may be stored in a cookie on your computer when you subscribe. This is a small text file, whose path is restricted to our server, so it can only be accessed by PIT. Cookies do not download e-mail attachments or otherwise obtain control over your PC. Please note that you will only be able to receive our subscription service if your browser is set to accept cookies. However the public pages are available without using cookies.

Please do not alter, copy or delete any cookie we may send you as access to the subscription part of the site depends on cookies. We hope you share our view that it is not fair to other subscribers, let alone ourselves, nor indeed in your own interests to put valuable money-making analysis in the hands of others who might then be in a position to act on our advice ahead of subscribers.

"Are you sure you want to delete the selected Cookie(s)? If asked this question during routine PC maintenance, please remember to answer NO, in respect of any coookie from ourselves. Our cookie can be identified by the initials "PIT" in its file name.   

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8. New Passwords

For security reasons there are controls on the choice of passwords, as described in the Registration page. These are intended to reduce any risk of theft or misappropriation. It is also possible that your chosen password has been already registered by another subscriber.  If you find that your proposed password is rejected, please try a new password and/or user name.

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9. Digital Certificates

A digital certificate is an electronic signature. It is designed to let the other party to communication over the world wide web know that you are who you claim to be. Digital signatures consist of two parts, a public key that can be publicised to the whole world and a private key, known only to you and stored on your computer, that unlocks the public key. To identify who owns the certificate, it will contain information about you, which must include your e-mail address but may contain other data. These certificates are increasingly used for electronic commerce to ensure that both parties honour an agreement, protect personal data stored on servers and control subscription services, such as Investors RouteMap. While certificates are a recent innovation, millions have already been issuesd and they are rapidly receiving legal recognition in more and more countries.

Once you have obtained a certificate, you don't need to tell us the details because our server is programmed to check it automatically for the information we need. However please make sure that the email address you enter in any form on this site matches that on your certificate exactly, otherwise access to subscription pages will be denied.

To find out more about certificates go to the Contents section of the Help menu in your browser and within Index look up Certificates, if you are using Internet Explorer, or Digital Certificates, if using Netscape Communicator. 

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10. Obtaining a Digital Certificate

If you do not already have a certificate, you can easily get one. Your browser has a procedure for linking you to one of the certification authorities. You won't need any additional software or hardware. You may be offered a certificate free for a short trial period, but if you are prepared to pay the modest charge for the annual agreement, you should have your credit card close at hand. Here are the instructions: -

• Netscape Communicator -  follow the menu tree - Security Info / Certificates / Yours, then click on "Get Certificate".
• Internet Explorer - follow the mene tree - Help / Contents & Index / Index / Certificates / Protecting your Identity, then scroll through the text till you find the link "Obtain your personal security certificate"

NB Should either of these suppliers of browsers change their Help pages, you can get the necessary information from verisign.com, the leading certification authority. You may be directed to the website of their national distributor, but may have to ignore that instruction. For example this is what the UK distributor tells customers to do: -

" Although BT no longer sells this particular type of VeriSign certificate, you may instead order a replacement direct from VeriSign (sold from the US under the name Digital ID). Please therefore enrol for a new certificate by visiting: http://www.verisign.com/products/class1/index.html. On entering the VeriSign site, you may experience a notice advising international (non-US) customers to contact their local affiliate instead of ordering direct from VeriSign.Please ignore that notice but instead click on the "Enroll Now" button to continue their enrolment process"

When you have applied for a certificate, how will you know that you are doing the right thing?

• Firstly you will be sent an email, which confirms to the certifying authority and yourself that the certificate and the user match.
• Secondly, you can check that the certificate is loaded properly in your browser by following the meun tree in Internet Explorer: Tools > Internet Options > Content > Certificates. Then highlight the appropriate certificate in the list box.  If no certificate appears in the list box, you haven't succeeded in purcahsing one. This turns the background blue and changes the View button from its normal greyed out status. If details of the certificate appear, then it is loaded correctly. If other messages appear, you haven't completed the procedure properly and should take expert advice from an IT professional.

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11. Invalid Certificates

When entering the subscription section, there are a couple of reasons that you may not gain access, even though you may be quite certain that you installed the certificate exactly as required. Before contacting us, please check these possible explanations: -

1. You obtained your certificate through Internet Explorer and have now decided to access Investors RouteMap through Netscape or vice versa. If so, we regret that incompatibility between these two browsers is something we cannot handle, so please re-try using the browser through which you purchased the certificate. N.B. You should have no difficulties if upgrading to a later version of the same browser.
2. Your annual subscription to Investors RouteMap has expired, in which case it is time to renew it. In this case the message box will tell you that your logon is invalid. N.B. Did you recommend a friend to us in the past year. If so, check that they subscribed and let us know about your introduction in the Referral Form, to apply for half price renewal for yourself.
3. Your certificate has expired, in which case you will need to renew your certificate. This is the likely explanation if you subscribed 12 months ago, and this was the first time you needed a certificate. In this case the message box will tell you that your logon is invalid. NB If you previously wanted to change your default browser when you access Investor RouteMap, this is the time to do it.
4. When subscribing, you took advantage of a free trial from the certificate authority. Such free trials typically expire after two months. This is the most likely explanation if that is the length of time since you subscribed. In this case the message box will tell you that your logon is invalid. NB When obtaining a new certificate, you will need your credit card details at hand, as the certification authorities only operate using e-commerce.
5. You have forgotten exactly which User Name and Password you chose when subscribing. In this case the message box will tell you that your logon is invalid. If you printed out the Confirmation page that was automatically served up after Registration form, you will find this information on it. If that can't be found you can email us from the Feedback form or phone on 01227 282626 (UK).
6. You have changed your PC since subscribing. In that case it is possible that your PC support service did not know that you needed the certificate re-imported. Either it can be exported from the old PC or it   can be imported from the diskette on which you should have made a back-up copy, when you purchased the certificate. NB Please make sure that you select the option to include the private key. In this case the message box will tell you that your logon is invalid.
7. Your PC caught a virus, which erased memory. If so, re-importing your certificate is one of the tasks that needs to be done when re-installing your software (as described in option 6 above). In this case the message box will tell you that your logon is invalid.
8. You forgot to check a radio button to select one of our RouteMaps. If so you should see a message box asking you to specify which zone you want to visit.    

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12. Service Denied

Our service is set up to recognise only one computer user per subscription, and identifies you by your computer through the use of cookies and digital certificates. If you have been cut off, please contact us using the e-mail Feedback form. However before complaining, please ask yourself the following questions and include any relevant information in your e-mail. Please note we may charge for repeated reconnection requests.

• Have I changed to a newer PC?
• Have I changed my email address?
• Do I delete cookie(s) during routine PC maintenance?
• Has my hard disc crashed?
• May someone unauthorised have accessed my PC?
• Did I give my details to a friend?
• Have I chosen an easily guessed password?
• Has my subscription expired?
• Do I subscribe to additional personal services from PIT?

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13. Best Viewing

Investors RouteMap is designed for best viewing on Internet Explorer 4.0 or Netscape Navigator 4.5, or later versions (see below), using a monitor set to 800 x 600 pixels on a PC running Windows. If you personalise colour settings, please note that our colour scheme is set to Background = Navy Blue, Text = White, and uses Ariel Narrow in medium or normal size as the default font. If that is not the case on your computer, you may wish to adjust the Windows or browser default settings, and if the problems remain, consider upgrading to a newer version, which can be obtained for free at the addresses below, after leaving our site.

                                                           
microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/windows.htm             netscape.com/computing/download/index.html      

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14. Dead Ends

This site uses frames. All our charts are designed to appear on the right hand two-thirds of each page, leaving room on the left-hand side for explanatory text in the public pages and for the chart menu within the subscription section. To test that this is the issue, try this page for example and you should see text on the left separated from a chart on the right by a vertical scroll bar and the word "frame" is likely to be part of the page name in the Address bar. If not, there are three possible causes: - 

• Charts may appear in pages without explanatory text in Internet Explorer (but not Netscape Navigator) if the browser does not fill the whole of your screen. To correct this, click on the Maximise / Restore button, which is the middle one on the right in the title bar at the very top of your browser.   To undo this and return to your previous setting click the same button again. If the problem still arises, it is probably necessary to upgrade your browser, because older browsers were not built to handle frames pages. What you should see is this and not this .
• This may also happen if you have the Microsoft Office toolbar showing vertically on the right of your screen. You can either drag it into a horizontal position at the bottom or minimise it by right clicking the top section of it and selecting Minimise from the menu.
• Irrespective of your choice of browser, it may also be the case that your display monitor does not show sufficient pixels to display our frames pages. To adjust the settings in Windows, click on the Start menu in the bottom left corner and follow the menu tree Settings / Control Panel / Display / Settings. there you will find a slider control called Screen Area, which you should adjust to 800 by 600 pixels. Nowadays it is highly unlikely that you would need to upgrade your monitor.

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15. No Response

Within the subscription section it sometimes happens that after several successful requests for charts, the next one fails to appear. This is not because the server can't generate the chart in question, but because of transmission delays. Click on the Refresh button. If that does not produce the required chart, clicking on it a second time will return you to the menu page of the RouteMap you are using. Reselect your chart parameters and hit GO.

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16. Chart Size +/- Zoom

The charts are of fixed dimensions and will occupy about 70% of a screen set to 800 x 600 resolution.  If you are using higher resolution, the charts may appear smaller. Switching to lower resolution will increase the size of the charts to fill the allocated space. To adjust the settings in Windows, click on the Start menu in the bottom left corner and follow the menu tree Settings / Control Panel / Display / Settings. there you will find a slider control called Screen Area, which you should adjust to 800 by 600 pixels. In addition you can change the relative proportions of the windows by adjusting the frame size. To do this click on the right edge of the vertical scroll bar in the middle of the page. A bi-directional left/right arrow will appear. Then drag this left to expose more chart or right to increase the width of the text or menu column.

If you are using IE5 as your browser, you can enlarge or shrink charts using the Zoom facility. This can be done by right-clicking your mouse anywhere in the chart, and selecting Zoom In or Zoom Out as required. Combined with a high resolution screen, you may wish to drag the vertical frame boundary to the left and Zoom In to see part of a chart in greater detail. This is especially useful for the Chronology Charts about each market's financial history. Should this facility not be installed, you can add it by downloading the Web Accessories pack from Microsoft after you leave our site.

To do that, within your browser, select the Windows Update within the Tools menu, install Windows Update (if not done previously) then, when Microsoft's Support Centre page appears, go down the list of downloadable updates to select Internet Explorer 5 Web Accessories, among which are Zoom In and Zoom Out features described in the link called Read this first.

http//:support.microsoft.com

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17. Page Size

The pages in this site may not be the same size as your screen, if your screen is set to a size other than 800 x 600 pixels. To make Routemap pages larger, reduce the pixel size, and vice versa. If you want to correct this in Windows it can be done via Control Panel / Display Properties / Settings / Screen Area.

18. Alignment

If the images in the left hand column do not align with the appropriate text in the main column, this may be because your screen is set to a larger pixel size. Then each row in the main column will contain more text, so less rows are required. If you want to correct this in Windows it can be done via Control Panel / Display Properties / Settings / Screen Area. Mis-alignment can also arise if you have chosen not to use the default size of font, i.e. normal or medium. This can be changed using the menus View / Text Size in Explorer or View / Increase & Decrease Font.

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19. Full Screen

Many of our pages are longer than the normal screen height. If you want to expose more of your screen to Investors RouteMap, you can temporarily hide the toolbars while visiting this website as Investors RouteMap does not require their use. To do this in Explorer click on the Full Screen button in the standard toolbar (or use the menus View / Fullscreen). Click on it again to bring all your toolbars back into view. If the Full Screen button is not showing, you can add it, using the menus View / Toolbars / Customise / Full Screen.  To achieve this effect in Navigator click on the vertical tab on the left of each toolbar. When hidden the tab appears horizontally under the remaining toolbars.If you hide the standard toolbar, you will temporarily loose use of the Back and Forward buttons, but you can use the navigation bars at the bottom of our pages to get around the site without them.

It may also be the case that you want the screen width for the charts expanded. This is useful specifically for viewing the Chronology Charts that overflow the available screen area and may be generally useful if your browser has a zoom facility, such as available in the Web Accessories pack for IE5. The vertical division can be moved between the chart and the text alongside by dragging it sideways to the left hand border. This will be at the expense of text, but that can be restored by dragging it back afterwards and in any event it will be restored next time the page is opened. This facility can only be used individually for each page.

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20. Text Wrapping

There are several possible explanations for this problem.

• Investors RouteMap uses Arial Narrow as the default font to maximise the amount of text in each line. If your computer does not have this font installed, or has a default setting to use another font, then text may overflow the lines allotted, which would put images out of alignment with the relevant text. You can check whether or not you have this font installed in Internet Explorer by selecting from the menus View / Internet Options / Fonts / Proportional Fonts or in Navigator by selecting  Edit / Preferences / Appearance / Fonts / Variable Width Fonts. There is also the option of using document-specified fonts.
• Our pages are designed to be displayed in normal or medium size fonts. If your browser is set up differently, you can adjust this. In Internet Explorer, select View / Fonts / Medium. In Navigator, select View / Increase Font & Decrease Font.
• Within frames pages, the amount of text in each line will vary with the width of the text window. If you don't like the default setting you can adjust it, as described in Chart Size, which is discussed immediately above.

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21. Loading Speed

While the public pages may suffer normal delays depending on internet traffic, we have done what we can to make our service load as quickly as possible by minimising the memory requirements of pages and charts. It is also possible that our Internet Service Provider may experience peak-time overloading, for which we apologise. The rest is down to your modem - if it takes too long, you should consider upgrading to a faster modem.

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22. Transmission Delays

Subscribers should normally receive charts quickly and without difficulty. However transmission delays may cause problems and your screen may freeze. Such problems are caused by the internet backbone and are regrettably beyond our control. Hit the Refresh button twice on your browser. This will take you back to the default chart for the relevant RouteMap. It is not necessary to re-enter the secure subscriber zone. Then please reselect the chart or table you requested before.

When starting a session logged on to any of the Routemaps, some drop-down menus may appear blank. Just click on them and the contents will quickly appear. If you accidentally hit GO, before the blank menus are filled, an error message will be shown.

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23. Blank Drop Down Menus

When starting a session logged on to any of the RouteMaps, some drop-down menus may appear blank. Do not be concerned about software problems at our end as this is caused by transmission difficulties over the internet beyond our control. Just click on the drop down menu and the contents will quickly appear. If you accidentally hit GO, before the blank menus are filled, an error message will be shown. In that case please hit the Back button.

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24. Certificate not Recognised

When entering the subscription zone to access any one of the RouteMaps, a succession of dialogue boxes will appear. These are part of the normal SSL secure connection system. This message may appear "HTTP Error 403 - 403.7 Forbidden - Client Certificate required". This means that you either do not have a personal certificate on your PC or that it has been installed incorrectly. Our notes above about digital certificates show how to handle certificates, but if you still have difficulties you should contact your normal PC support for assistance.

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25. Slide Show Reverse

Sometimes the Reverse Button seems not to work. This is a design feature, but may appear to be an error if you select Reverse before Forward, or if you select Reverse repeatedly after going Forward. In either case the programme is intended to stop when you have reversed as far back as the settings at the top of each drop-down menu which are the defaults shown when you access any Routemap. For reference the default settings are: -

• Country = United States
• Chart Type = Summary
• Perspective = Local Currency
• TimeScale = 10 Years
• Style = Growth

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26. Colours

This site is designed primarily for ease of viewing charts, so uses a dark blue background, with light fonts, except for tables. If you don't see this background, it is because your browser is set to over-ride our settings. To adjust it, using Internet Explorer select View / Internet Options / General / Colors or using Netscape Navigator select Edit / Preferences / Appearance / Colors. Then set Text=White and Background=Navy or check Use Windows colors. If you prefer another colour combination, you can make your selections there. However the colours of our charts will not change.   

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27. Printing

This site is designed for viewing charts electronically, rather than for print media. While your browser can reverse background and text colours, images will be printed in original colours. As our charts are delivered to you as images, your browser will print them in the original colours. If your reason for printing is to distribute information to other parties, you may be infringing our copyright and breaching the terms of your user licence. Please bear in mind that we reduced rates for multipe access are available to professional investors who purchase a Site Licence and we offer half-price renewal to individual subscribers that introduce a friend.

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28. Switching Browsers

If you have changed your browser, you will encounter difficulties using your digital certificate. This happens because of incompatibility between the main suppliers of browsers. Regrettably you will have to obtain a new digital certificate through the new browser and send us the Registration form again. However you won't have to pay a second time, if you also send the Feedback form to tell us what has happened. The problem won't arise if you are simply upgrading to a newer version of the same browser.

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