As well as the pension changes, the Budget also announced a new breed of tax-free Individual Savings Accounts, which will allow £15,000 in cash or shares, or a mix of the two, to be invested each year. They’ll be launched in July. Check that the charges on the investment ISAs do not outweigh the tax benefits. Remember there will be no tax to pay on gains up to £10,900 even outside an ISA wrapper. And if you want to play safe with a cash ISA remember that banks like to lure in savers with high rates for the first year […]
Category: Money Fight Club
Supermarket special offers. No more two-for-ones on sneaky please!
Supermarkets are as sneaky as they ever were and, in our opinion, getting worse. The good news is that you’re all getting sick and tired of it. The fake discounts and multi-buys that are more expensive than buying individual packs are finally catching up with them. A survey by Netmums for the Sunday Times found that 80% of customers want better regulation of supermarkets. At Money Fight Club we agree and say you need to go into supermarkets armed and prepared to be ambushed if you don’t keep your wits about you. A basic supermarket self defence weapon is the […]
FCA credit regulation takeover
In a month’s time the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) will take over the regulation of credit deals for consumers ranging from the downright dodgy payday loans and doorstep lenders to the seemingly more respectable High Street banks and mortgage lenders with their tricks to confuse customers into paying more. FCA credit regulation The FCA has warned them all that it is going to take a tough approach to credit regulation and will clamp down on poor practice. It’s expected to ban misleading advertisements from the payday loan companies. But they are not the only culprits even though their interest rates […]
Boiler room scams and energy companies who don’t return your cash – as bad as each other?
Two events in today’s news were, in some ways, so very different from each other and in others ways appallingly similar and showed off how badly people are treated when it comes to money matters. In the first event, police arrested over 100 people involved in so called boiler room scams. Their many thousands of victims were tricked into buying worthless shares by slick, slithery con artists with super smooth phone techniques. People have lost millions of pounds to this appalling crime. In a totally unrelated news story, the UK energy regulator, Ofgem, told the big six energy companies to […]
Our banking standards submission
Money Fight Club has been through a few rounds with the High Street banks as they have invented new ways to part customers from their money over the years. The mis-selling of personal pensions, endowment mortgages, payment protection insurance and interest rate swaps have cost customers billions of pounds and damaged the reputation and the finances of the banks. Now the Banking Standards Review headed up by Sir Richard Lambert, former editor of the Financial Times, has proposed the setting up of an independent body to raise standards and to bring ethics into banking. It does not go far enough, […]
Hit by bad weather rail failures? Compensation letter
Record numbers of train journeys have been delayed or cancelled due to floods and strong winds. The problems are getting worse, with more rail failures and more lines affected every day. Network Rail, which runs and maintains Britain’s rail tracks, has agreed a new five year plan to get the trains running on time. But, in the meantime, if you can’t travel it is important that you claim compensation from the rail company who should have got you where you needed to get to. As you might expect each one has a different system. Any other approach would make it […]
No energy bills direct debit? Then stand still while your energy provider gives you a pounding
Last week we used more gas and electricity in our house than any other week so far this winter. We’ll try to cut our consumption over the remaining winter weeks but we’re also confident that the financial impact will even out out over the year through monthly our direct debits. But for millions of energy consumers there is access to no such ability. And guess what? Energy companies add to the pain by charging these consumers more than the rest of us. If you don’t pay by direct debit the average bill is £100 higher a year than for those […]
Credit card repayments seem to be down? It’s all an illusion…
February has arrived and the bleakest financial month (January) is behind us. But we still need to be very careful when using and paying off on credit card. The payments required by the card company may appear to be getting smaller even though our spending has not. This is because card companies have been sneakily reducing the minimum amount they require customers to pay each month. The minimum credit card repayment used to average 2.15% of the amount outstanding. This now they are down to 1.53%, according to figures from the TotallyMoney comparison website. This is not good news. While […]
40 year mortgage loans – it’s only lenders that win
Lenders have a new wheeze when it comes to lending money to home buyers. Now interest-only loans have been outlawed for all except buy-to-let borrowers they have moved to the next best thing (for lenders, that is, not borrowers) – 40 year mortgage loans. In particular, lenders are circling first time buyers who are back in the market. According to the mortgage statistics for last year, mortgage approvals rose by 122,000 to 734,969. First-time buyer numbers are well up. For example,they took out 27,000 loans in November, 2013, a rise of just 0.7% compared to October, but up 24% compared […]
Complaints about packaged bank accounts double – have you got one?
Yet another report shows how careful we have to be when visiting our bank branch. The latest statistics from the Financial Ombudsman reveal that large numbers of bank customers are complaining that they have been mis-sold expensive packaged bank accounts. These are the sorts of accounts that come with all sorts of bells and whistles on them, such as travel insurance, all fine and dandy if you need everything you get but otherwise an expensive way to bank. Complaints have more than doubled on 2012-13 and some bank customers were unaware that they had “bought” a packaged account. The most […]