Read Consumer Editor Phil Reay-Smith's blog and get insight into the latest consumer issues
July 28th
Once upon a time, British-built cars were the butt of every motoring joke, thanks to a reputation for shoddy workmanship. But a survey released today by What Car magazine shows that these days some cars made in the UK, at least, are among the most reliable.
At the top of the list for the sixth year in a row is Honda, who of course make the Civic in a factory in Swindon. Honda say they build their cars the same way in every factory around the world and this uniform manufacturing process helps them keep their standards high.
What surprised me was that a number of German brands, who have a reputation for good engineering, actually featured near the bottom of the reliability league table.
Audi and BMW appeared in surprisingly low positions but worst was Mercedes-Benz, which What Car say has been sliding down the reliability scale for the past five years.
More than half the Mercedes CLs in this year’s survey failed, taking on average more than three hours to fix. And the Mercedes SL is notorious for generating an average repair bill of £776.
Here’s the full What Car 2011 Reliability Survey:
Manufacturers
1 Honda
2 Toyota
3 Suzuki
4 Lexus
5 Mitsubishi
6 Mazda
7 Subaru
8 Hyundai
9 Kia
10 Nissan
11 Skoda
12 Smart
13 Daewoo
14 Ford
15 Citroen
16 Porsche
17 Fiat
18 Mini
19 Peugeot
20 Volkswagen
21 Rover
22 Volvo
23 BMW
24 Seat
25 Jaguar
26 Audi
27 Vauxhall
28 Mercedes-Benz
29 MG
30 Chrysler
31 Jeep
32 Saab
33 Renault
34 Alfa Romeo
35 Land Rover
June 27th
I know holidays are meant to be about getting away from it all, but I can't help checking Facebook and Twitter while I'm away, and I'll even admit to checking my email on holiday too, not that I get paid for it.
The popularity of smartphones like the iPhone and BlackBerry mean more of us will use them to access in the Internet while we're on the beach this summer. A survey by Carphone Warehouse has identified that 4 out of 5 smartphone users expect to go online while abroad, and that we will run up charges of more than £500 million doing so, a lot of which could be avoided.
The European Union has imposed strict caps on the cost of making and receiving calls and texts while abroad, but when it comes to data roaming, which means using the Internet on your phone overseas, the only cap is £49 a month within the EU. Outside the EU, in popular holiday destinations like Turkey, America and Canada, charges are potentially limitless.
So here are some simple tips to keep your bills down:
- Turn data roaming off. Many smartphones will access the Internet automatically to check for email and update twitter of Facebook. This costs money. And then if you use Google Maps, YouTube or any other data-heavy apps then bills could come in at hundreds if not thousands.
- Use free public wifi. You can go online to sites like www.myhotspots.co.uk, www.free-hotspot.com and www.hotspot-locations.com to find free wifi locations at your holiday destination.
- Ask about travel bundles. Mobile phone companies don't often publicise these, but you can get special packages of call and data for use abroad. There is an extra cost, but it will usually work out more economically than using your usual calling tariff.
- Buy a local Pay As You Go sim. You'll have a different number and network, but for a fixed fee you can get online. Some apps might not work properly and you'll have to make sure you phone is unlocked first.
June 20th
The collapse of the recorded music industry has had an unlikely benefactor: fraudulent ticket websites. For just as artists have realised the only way to make money these days is by live performances, so the old-fashioned image of a ticket tout loitering outside concert venues has been replaced by organised crime making sack loads of money from ticket scams online. It's an industry estimated to be worth £168 million a year and it's growing.
This weekend revellers at the Glastonbury festival are forced to take exceptional measures to ensure the tickets they buy are real, including registering in advance online and supplying photos of themselves for the tickets.
But the summer festival season is also a prime opportunity for scammers and so the police and Get Safe Online are taking the opportunity to remind people how to protect themselves from such scams.
I was shown around the offices of the National Fraud Intelligence Unit, where they identify the illegal websites and prosecute them, and they have their work cut out. They have devised some simple guidelines for people to follow to avoid being caught out.
- Use your credit card to buy online. If the tickets don't turn up, the card company has to refund you.
- Use only reputable website that you recognise. If you don't recognise the name, check it out online. If other people have had problems, they may well have complained about it.
- If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If your looking for tickets that have been sold out for months, and you suddenly find a pair, you should be highly sceptical.
For more information, check out <http://getsafeonline.org>
June 13th
The amount of money scammed from British citizens makes my eyes water: £3.5 billion a year (roughly the amount raised in revenue from all of us by the licence fee to fund the BBC). Marilyn Baldwin, who founded Think Jessica after her mother fell victims to scammers in a most horrendous way, told me this morning that a single mailshot sent out to 22,000 people brought the scammers revenue of £500,000.
And it may surprise you to learn that it is traditional mail outs still, and not the internet, that accounts for the majority of the fraudulent revenue.
The fact mail scams are so lucrative shows how many people are taken in, and yet they are a very difficult problem to tackle. School children from Bristol created a papier-mache sculpture made out of seized scam letters to try to bring awareness to the problem as part of a campaign they’re calling ‘Silence of the scams’. But the problem is, people who are victims don’t realise they are. And if they do, it’s too late and they often try to cover it up.
The letters are designed to con recipients into investing in bogus schemes such as fake lotteries, share frauds and inheritance scams. They depend of persuading victims to hand over money based on promises of valuable goods, services or benefits that are never received.
It means families and friends of particularly vulnerable or elderly people have to keep an eye out for scammers taking their loved ones in. If you suspect a problem, there are websites that can help: both Action Fraud and Think Jessica.
Phil on tents
The ‘staycation’ is back! Thousands of people have shunned holidays overseas and are instead turning to pegs and poles. Thanks to increased airport security, the poor exchange rate between the pound and the euro, the hottest April on record and another hot spell on the way, a holiday on our shores has never seemed more appealing. And it’s reflected in the sales of tents, which Halfords say have increased by 60% over the past three years.
There are over 3000 camping and caravanning sites in the UK and even more tents to choose from! But with the help of polar explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, I put three to the test.
The first on the list is the Highlander Glastonbury 3 (£26, Cotswold Outdoor). It’s a three man pop up tent and as the name suggests, it’s really more of a tent for a summer festival rather than a family holiday. It’s so quick and easy to put up it’s ridiculous. But as our Great British summer test revealed (by pummelling it with a pressure hose), it’s a bit flimsy.
And £26 isn’t even the cheapest tent around. I found one for £14.99 from Argos, and another from www.camping.co.uk for £9.99! I haven’t tested either of them, nor have I tested the Terra Nova Heavy Duty Cosmos which would set you back £3,960!
The next tent we tested was the four man Robens Doubledreamer (£279, Cotswold Outdoor) which is roomy, and has to separate bedroom compartments so is ideal for a family with two kids. The elasticated pole system will be familiar to anyone who’s been camping, but our guinea pigs found it tricky to put up. In fact, of the three, it took longest. It’s the kind of thing to get dad swearing at the start of the holiday.
Finally, the Vango Airbeam Infinity 400 (£490, vango.co.uk) is new on the market this year and contains a new technology to make it easier to get standing. Instead of poles, it has an inflatable structure which you pump up. It makes the whole process considerably less fiddly. I was impressed although it comes with a price tag that puts it out of many people’s reach. And when we left the tent up over the course of a weekend, it needed topping up with air to prevent droop.
My favourite was the Doubledreamer as it combined space with affordability. And if you are planning on holidaying in the Great British countryside this year, happy camping!
May 27th
How do you double the value of a Skoda? Fill it with petrol. Why does a Skoda have a heated rear window? To keep your hands warm when you’re pushing it.
I had reason to dust off those old jokes when reporting about the What Car?/JD Power driver satisfaction survey, released this morning. Because in reality Skodas these days are no joke at all. They came third in a the manufacturers’ league, tied with Jaguar.
Lexus, which was the favourite manufacturer ahead of Honda, are known for loading their cars with gadgets, and recently I test drove a car with technology that seemed pretty futuristic but is actually available now. The Ford Focus prevents you from driving into the car in front, can park automatically, and if you drift out of your lane on the motorway, or it thinks you’re falling asleep, it lets you know and even suggests taking a coffee break. They’re also trialling a car seat which monitors your heart rate and lets you know if you’re about to have a heart attack and can call the emergency services.
I love a bit of technology and I loved driving the car with all those gadgets, but they are optional extras that you have to pay for. And I was concerned that adding all that technology takes responsibility away from the driver. The Ford boffins assured me that the statistics will prove they have a positive effect in reducing accidents. I suppose the seat belt (invented by Volvo in 1958) might have been seen by some as an encouragement to drive more recklessly but the lives it has saved over the decades can barely be imagined.
May 24th
As we came off air this morning, more than 250 flights had been cancelled thanks to the Grimsvötn volcano eruption, the biggest in Iceland for 100 years. Most of them were flights to and from Scotland. As the morning wore on, Nats, the air traffic control people, warned of disruption for flights to Northern Ireland and northern England.
What it’s left everyone wondering is whether we’ll face kind of the disruption we saw last year when Eyjafjallajökull blew its top – me included, as I’m hoping to catch a budget flight to Greece with my family on Saturday...
Lucy tells me the wind is now blowing in an easterly direction, sending the ash towards Scandinavia which should mean less disruption to the UK’s airports but really we are at the mercy of the wind and the volcano. It’s a powerless situation.
All we can do is review our rights as travellers in this situation. Richard Lloyd, Executive Director of Which? says: “Travellers should still be prepared for delays and cancellations, but airlines and the CAA do not expect the volcanic ash to cause as much disruption as last year.
“If you do have a flight booked over the next few days, contact your airline before you go to the airport, and make sure they have your up to date contact details.
“If your flight is cancelled or delayed for over five hours, you should be offered a choice of a full refund or transfer to an alternative flight. However, the airlines don’t have to compensate passengers for loss of any additional elements to holidays, such as accommodation and car hire. It may be possible to claim for these losses on travel insurance, but passengers will need to check their individual policies, many of which may now have specific exclusions built in.”
May 17th
Mary Portas, the so-called Queen of Shops, has taken on perhaps her biggest challenge yet – to save the UK’s High Streets. But as I found out when I visited Margate, she’s got her work cut out. It’s a town where one in three shops stand empty, leaving locals with little option but to travel to the out of town shopping centres. And it’s a similar story up and down the country. Shop vacancy rates have trebled in the last five years.
But what can be done to prevent the death of our High Streets? I met some members of the British Independent Retailers Association to find out, and they’re not short of suggestions, including: free parking in town centres; tax breaks for small shops; business rates go to local authorities, not the treasury so that councils support their high streets. The parking issue kept coming up. Supermarkets offer free parking, town centres don’t. Councils only get about 5% of the money from business rates, so make money by charging for parking instead. But in doing so they are driving shoppers away.
Interestingly smaller retailers don’t always view the big supermarkets as the problem. In fact, I met shop keepers in Margate desperate to see a Tesco or Sainsbury’s move into what used to be Woolworths in order to attract people back.
What’s in no doubt is the high street is rapidly losing its place at the heart of the community as we jump in our cars and drive out of town. The government wants to see that reversed.
This morning on Daybreak Mary Portas promised that her name would not just be another name on another report. It’s too important for that, she said. But she admitted she doesn’t have the answers yet. In the meantime, local independent shops will continue to battle against the odds.
May 11th
First it was energy bills, then food, then petrol... And now it’s energy bills again. Hard though it may be our believe, our gas and electricity bills are set to rise again soon. The Bank of England this morning predicted a 10% hike for electricity bills and a 15% jump for gas, at the same time as lowering its prediction for growth. That would mean the average household energy bill hitting an all-time high of £1,279, which is £148 higher than current, already eye-watering prices.
And it’s not just the Bank of England's governor Mervyn King who thinks energy bills will rise. Industry insiders have told me that our bills are only going in one direction – in both the short and the long term - and that is upwards.
And all the while the only thing not going up is wages. This may be hard to swallow, but we’re told it's a blessing. At the moment, inflation in the UK is over 4%, and it’s predicted to hit 5% before long. But Mervyn King keeps telling us it’s temporary. The problem with wide-spread increases in pay is that the inflation would become permanent, a never-ending cycle. Small comfort for the millions who’ve had wages frozen.
A moneysupermarket.com survey recently found that already one in five households aren’t able to make ends meet, and that another 30% say they’ve got £100 or less spare each month. And with Deloitte predicting household disposable incomes will fall by almost £800 this year it’s clear that we’re far from out of the woods yet.
The only two ways to protect yourself are to cut down the amount of energy you use and cut down the amount you pay by switching tariffs or supplier.
April 14th
The statistics connected with the eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcanic glacier in Iceland exactly one year ago are stunning.
Ten million people were affected, and a –hundred-thousand flights were grounded. This morning there's another statistic: the thousands of people caught up in the disruption who are still out of pocket.
Click on my 'Ash cloud compensation' article to the right for more on this story
April 1st
This morning on Daybreak I highlighted a problem with using smartphones (like the iPhone or a BlackBerry) to go online while you're on the move.
Clicking on 'Free Wifi' when you see it sounds attractive, but it could be a rogue hotspot setup relatively easily by a fraudster, who can then use software to capture the username and password of your email accounts, social networking or online banking. The scope for committing fraud is huge.
Click on my 'Smartphone security' article to the right for advice on how to avoid being caught up in this new form of identity theft.
March 30th
Shopping online is all about finding a good deal. Retailers know that so they try to tempt customers by offering amazingly cheap headline prices. But they still have to make money, and often they try to do it by including hidden extra charges at the last minute when they hope we won't notice.
The worst offenders are budget airlines who sneak in heavy card surcharges, often after you think you've seen the final figure you'll pay.
Ryanair were found by Which? researchers to charge a family of four £40 to pay for tickets by credit or debit card. And that's despite a source of mine at a major bank telling me that the cost of processing a debit card transaction can be as little as 4 or 5 pence.
As a result, Which? are today submitting a 'supercomplaint' to the Office of Fair Trading, asking them to investigate card surcharges. The OFT has 90 days to respond, but in the meantime what can you do to avoid them?
The answer is very little. With Ryanair, you can use a prepaid MasterCard (something very few people have). Some cinemas and theatres won't charge you if you turn up and book tickets at the counter instead of online, although that's not particularly convenient for most of us.
The best advice is to be sceptical and above all read the small print, otherwise that great online deal might not be so great after all.
March 29th
This morning I'm on the show talking about the dangers involved in buying medicine online. But there are repuatable internet pharmacies out there if you know what to look out for.
Click on the 'Online medicine advice' article link to the right for more information.
March 25th
This morning on Daybreak I had the opportunity to talk about my experiences as a gay adopter. It’s something that has changed my life so I was glad to have to the chance to discuss it on the show.
Same-sex adoption remains controversial for some, but the truth is the law changed to allow gay couples to adopt six years ago, and more are doing it all the time. For anyone interested in finding out more, I wanted to recommend the following links.
New Family Social – a great group for gay adopters, both prospective and those with kids already http://www.newfamilysocial.co.uk/
Two articles I wrote for The Times about my adoption journey http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6790504.ece http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5125999.ece
The British Association for Adoption and Fostering http://www.baaf.org.uk/
Adoption UK http://www.adoptionuk.org/
March 17th
As we watch ever-more tv online and interact with ever-more complicated websites, super-fast broadband is becoming ever-more important. And Internet services providers are not shy of boasting about the speeds they can supply.
But the truth is, although they may advertise a connection speed of, say, "up to" 20 Megabits per second, we almost never actually get to download data at anywhere near that rate.
A recent Ofcom report suggested on average consumers get about half that rate and an investigation by Daybreak found wildly differing download speeds amongst close neighbours on the same street in Garforth near Leeds.
Here is a very simple way of figuring whether you're getting what you pay for. First of all, take a simple speed test by clicking here:
http://top10.com/broadband/speedtest/
Then, using top10.com's unique Street Stats survey, compare your result with the speeds your neighbours are getting. If you're getting less than your neighbours who have the same service provider, phone the provider up and ask why. If others are getting better speeds with a different provider, consider changing to them as soon as you're out of contact. You may often find you can benefit from a cheaper deal at the same time as there's a lot of competition out there at the moment. Here's the link for Street Stats:
http://top10.com/broadband/speedtest/streetstats/
Our investigation found considerable variation between close neighbours so the government, which has said it wants the UK to have the fastest broadband in Europe by 2015, will have its work cut out. In the meantime, by using the simple procedure above, you can make sure you're not throwing money down the drain.
March 2nd 2011
With the average price of a litre of unleaded now at a record £1.30, it’s no wonder people – manufacturers and customers alike – are taking electric cars more seriously. There’s a long list of all-electric vehicles coming to the market over the next 12 months – chiefly the Peugeot iOn, the Nissan Leaf, the Vauxhall Ampera, the Mitsubishi i-Miev and the Citroen C-Zero – but in one sense they’re all rather frustrating. It’s comparable to the first mobile phones. They were so expensive only the richest could afford one, and the battery life was a fraction of the capacity that exists today.
We gave Peugeot’s offering to Howard and Clare Wild from Leeds to test drive for a week. They loved it so much that they didn’t want to give it back. And yet they were worried about the range, particularly when they were on the motorway, turned the heating up and watched the remaining battery charge plummet. And when I mentioned that it would cost more than £30,000 to buy this mini hatchback, they said it would have to have a price tag of half that amount before they could realistically consider buying one.
But that comparison with the mobile phones is also why there is hope. Look at your smartphone – it’s amazing, but it’s also affordable. The thing is, the major car manufacturers are all getting in on the game. That means product development is finally going to happen. And with the upheaval in the Middle East reminding us how reliant we are on expensive fossil fuels, the demand can only increase.
As with mobile phones, prices will come down and battery life will improve. I was surprised that Quentin Willson, who was on the sofa with me, and who you might take to be a massive petrol-head, loved the Mitsubishi i-Miev that he test drove for a year, and was sad that he had to hand it back. He thinks they’re the future. And they are. Just not yet.
February 22nd 2011
Want an iPhone? Well, first let me warn you that those messages on social networking sites promising a free one are scams.
But interesting research released today proves that what we really want is an HTC Desire. Apple’s iPhone has long been much-desired but it’s dropped down to sixth place in a uSwitch.com survey of the most popular smartphone brands.
The main reason is that iPhones cost so much and other smartphones are available for free with a contract. In fact, manufacturer HTC dominates the top three places in the chart. You have to pay big bucks for the Desire but the Wildfire is available to “budget-conscious” customers.
The results will please the Apple-bashers who often say that other phones (like HTCs) are actually superior to the iPhone, but people don’t go for them because they’re not “cool” enough. Since the advent of apps, I’ve felt it was more to do with the much wider range of apps that work on an iPhone.
Now however many more apps are available for different phones and Google’s Android operating system seems to gaining critical mass. It runs on half the phones in the uSwitch Mobile Tracker Top 10. The chart ranks the nation’s favourite mobile handsets based on live searches and sales.
This is how the chart looks:
- HTC Desire
- HTC Desire HD
- HTC Wildfire
- Blackberry Curve 8520
- Samsung Galaxy S
- Apple iPhone 4 (16Gb)
- Motorola DEFY
- Sony Ericsson S500i
- Samsung G800
- Samsung i600
There is another factor in all this. In the fast moving world of smartphones, the iPhone 4, released all the way back in June 2010, is getting decidedly long in the tooth. Apple are expected to reveal details of their latest offering in a couple of months, and when that’s released you can expect to find them back on top.
February 21st 2011
Motorists suffering with the high cost of petrol and diesel won’t be surprised to read a piece of research published by Which this morning which reveals the true cost of parking. Predictably, London is easily the most expensive place to leave your car, with street parking costing £4.40 an hour in the West End and an eye-watering £18 for four hours in a Soho car park. Elsewhere it’s a postcode lottery, with Cardiff costing twice as much as Bradford to park on a street.
Manchester car parks are second most-expensive (£13.20 for 4 hours) possibly, say Which, because they are run by a joint venture between the city council and parking giant NCP. It’s usually cheaper to parking in a council car park rather than a private one. NCP charges £8.90 for four hours in Birmingham city centre, compared with the highest charge of £4.30 in the council’s Snow Hill and Town Hall multistoreys.
The only good news in all this is the slight ray of hope that such high costs could be abandoned. Guidelines that instructed councils to set high parking charges in order to encourage the use of public transport have recently been abandoned by the government. Councils will now be free to set charges as they see fit, in line with the government’s pledge to end the ‘war on motorists’. It’s a nice thought, but in this time of cuts is it likely that any council will suddenly slash the vast income generated by parking charges? I doubt it, and the Department for Communities and Local Government is not aware of any councils that have yet done so.
February 15th 2011
This morning's inflation figure surprised no one, coming in at 4%, exactly as experts had predicted, and worryingly way above the government's target for CPI of 2%. And those prediction experts are at it again, opining that figures out tomorrow will show that wages are up by an average 2%.
You don't need to be a genius to figure out this means prices are rising faster than pay. When salaries don't keep up with inflation it means misery for consumers as everyday household items become more and more expensive. For families already struggling, it means they could end up even more skint.
Unfortunately, this often means consumers fall into a black hole of debt. As Ann Robinson, Director of Consumer Policy at uswitch.com, says: "For some, building up debt is the only way to bridge the gap between rising costs and lagging salaries. However, what may start as a short-term solution can end with consumers being caught in a downward spiral of debt."
Ann's opinion is that the only way out is to take some tough decisions on household finances. Instead of plugging the gap by borrowing, we should look at saving money wherever possible. That means stripping down living costs and household bills to the bare minimum. Bye-bye super-fast broadband and your premium movie channels? Doesn't sound like much fun but sometimes that's the only way to stay afloat.
February 10th 2011
With the average family fuel bill fast approaching £3,000, it’s essential to cut driving costs, and on the show this morning I challenged former rally champion Penny Mallory to show me how. Here’s a reminder of her tips, along with some extra ones from me.
Drive with the windows up, the air con off, roof racks removed and the boot empty of clutter.
Keep your tyres properly inflated – not doing this decreases fuel economy by 3 to 5%.
Shop around for the cheapest fuel – often it’s supermarkets but websites will tell you the cheapest garages in your area. Check out petrolprices.com and whatgas.com.
Drive like a granny, not a rally driver, anticipating when cars ahead will break so you’re not speeding up to slow down. Don’t go over 3,000RPM. These days they say don’t use engine breaking to slow down, coast instead.
If you’re on a long trip, avoid using motorway service stations – a What Car? report out today proved what a rip-off they are, for food and fuel.
Fill up before you go and bring provisions with you. If you need more fuel along the way, check out 5minutesaway.co.uk and Offmotorway.com for places near your route that sell both things for a lot less – it could well be worth a short detour.
February 1st 2011
Would you hand your money over to a complete stranger? Of course not. And yet a worrying number of us do exactly that, leaving us out of pocket to the tune of £4 billion a year.
That’s why the Office of Fair Trading has designated February “Scams Awareness Month”. And one of the big lessons is that the scams that catch people out are pretty convincing.
I met Sam Jones, who spent £800 online for summer festival tickets on a website that was so convincing she thought it was the festival’s official page. And Michael Burnham gave away more than £6,000 to fraudsters who supplied him with names, addresses, phone numbers, websites, everything needed to convince him. And yet they were fakes.
According to OFT research, more than 2 million of us fall victim to scams every year, so here’s some tips on avoiding them.
- First of all, stop, think and be sceptical. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- Do not be rushed into sending off money to someone you do not know, however plausible they might sound and even where an approach is personalised.
- If you’re told you’ve been chosen specially for an offer, ask yourself how likely that is. Thousands of other people will probably have received the same offer.
- Think about how much money you could lose from replying to a potential scam. It probably isn’t a gamble worth taking.
- If you are unsure of an offer, speak to family or friends and seek advice before sending and money or giving out any banking or credit card details. A good port of call is the OFT’s consumer advice service Consumer Direct: www.consumerdirect.gov.uk.
If you’ve been the victim of a scam, I’d like to know. Email me at phil@itv.com or call me on 020 7827 7101 (normal UK call charges apply).
How to report a scam
If you have been a victim of a scam, or you suspect a scam, you can:
Contact Consumer Direct for scams in general,
Contact Financial Services Authority for investment scams.
January 28th 2011
Picture the situation: after working all your life you think you deserve a quiet retirement. So you sell your home, the home for which you’ve spent all that time working to pay off the mortgage, and move to Spain. Like any sensible person, you hire a local lawyer to check the property you buy there is OK. Then a few years later, you find your home is no longer considered legal.
That’s the situation facing as many as 25,000 British expats (and hundreds of thousands more Spanish and other Europeans) living in southern Spain. People I talked to have received demolition orders, been sentenced to prison, and even, like Helen and Len Prior, had their homes demolished and are now living in what was their garage, because they have nowhere else to go.
What makes it worse is the innocent pensioners are caught up in a political catfight that has little to do with them. The left-wing regional government, called the Junta, is at odds with the mayors of southern Spain’s town halls, who are often right wing. The town halls granted the licences for planning permission, but the Junta has reviewed legislation and decided the licences were issued illegally.
The courts inevitably got involved and there has been much legal to-ing and fro-ing. Until the politicians can settle their disagreements, this intolerable situation will continue. No wonder some expats are planning to run for office in the regional elections in May. And this in a region which relies on tourists and foreigners who settle there to fund a large part of their economy. In the meantime, the Priors continue to live in their garage and for many more, their futures – and their life’s savings – remain under threat.
January 11th 2011
Have you filled your car up with petrol this year? If you have, it may have left you wondering whether it's possible to return to some sort of horse and cart-based society. Since Jan 1st, an increase in fuel duty and the rise in VAT means prices have soared to ridiculous levels.
This morning I was reporting from a petrol station in Kent on the eye-watering cost of filling our tanks. Two years ago it cost around £50 to fill the average family car. This morning it was more that £75! And with the another rise in duty planned for April (the fourth tax hike in 12 months), things are set to get worse for already hard-hit drivers. But it’s not only drivers who will end up paying. The haulage companies are feeling the pinch too and many will be passing the extra costs onto the shops they deliver to, who in turn will likely raise their prices.
Many are calling on the Government to bring in a fuel price stabiliser, which would mean they reduce the amount of tax they take when the price of oil goes up. Currently the Treasury pockets 81p for every litre on unleaded petrol sold, leaving 43p for the cost of the oil, refining and transport, and just 4p for the forecourt. But industry experts have told me that the stabiliser wouldn’t work. They are calling on the Government instead to scrap the planned increase in April which they claim could add as much as 5p to every litre.
And there was bad news for people who get their gas or electricity from E-On this morning. Bills will be going up next month (3% for gas and 9% for electricity).
Anyone got any upbeat stories? On the consumer brief, there hasn't been much to cheer us up so far in 2011.
January 7th 2011
In an exclusive poll for Daybreak this morning, we revealed that 45% of us spent less money on Christmas than we did in 2009.
The survey, by YouGov in conjunction with The Sun newspaper, also highlighted that we're spending less in the January sales.
These are significant findings because the pre- and post-Christmas period is vital for retailers. Our survey is the first indication that sales have taken a battering, and it does not bode well for the rest of the year.
After Tuesday's VAT increase, three quarters of us said we'd struggle to make ends meet or have to cut spending.
And nearly half of us (45%) are more worried about money now than we were at this time last year, even though 12 months ago the economy was emerging from recession.
It's a gloomy way to start the year, and the next 12 months will be tough. But on Daybreak we will bring you the news and advice to help guide you through these austere times.
December 23rd 2010
Avid readers will know that I was advised by Amazon that the presents that I had been waiting for all month had “gone missing”, so I went to the shops to replace what I hadn’t received. I managed to find every single one after several circuits of London’s West End – the one thing I was hoping to avoid this Christmas...
That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, the presents turned up. And so today, Thursday, I have had to spend time sending the presents back to Amazon and obtaining a refund. Now, Amazon makes this fairly easy. You can print out an address label, arrange for a courier to pick the items up online, and of course you don’t have to pay for postage.
But they do, and I know that I am far from the only person in this situation. Amazon’s sales this Christmas will take a hit because of the weather disruption. But it may not be as bad for them as the hit to consumer confidence. Will people put all their eggs in the online basket next Christmas? Some will certainly think long and hard before they do.
December 21st 2010
We put out a call for your stories of delayed deliveries on Daybreak this morning and I got a real sense of the panic out there. My email inbox was deluged with complaints from people who are still waiting for their presents to arrive. Some of them even placed their orders back in November, thinking they were being well-organised. Not organised enough it seems.
Kayleigh from South Wales told me she has been waiting for her dad’s present for five weeks. Colin from Liverpool ordered his wife’s present on the 3rd of December and it still hasn’t arrived. She may have to put up with a tangerine, he says. At least it’s healthy.
Interestingly, we also heard from couriers and posties, and they all report there is a massive backlog of presents. It’s not their fault of course. It’s partly because of the weather, and also because of our enthusiasm for ordering online and hoping to avoid Christmas shopping madness. So I was glad that people also emailed and called with stories of support for their local postman or woman, who have often gone way beyond the call of duty in difficult conditions to make sure the Christmas post gets through.
None of this helps those of us who were relying on online retailers to provide our presents. I’m one of them. As of now, I’ve officially given up hope. I’ve spoken to Amazon customer service, who were very nice and very apologetic but couldn’t offer me any guarantee of getting the presents in time. So I’ve cancelled them, and now I’m off to the shops to buy them myself. If what I want is still in stock...
Wish me luck.
December 13th 2010
This morning I was at the Royal Mail delivery office in Twickenham, one of 1,500 around the UK who are today experiencing their busiest day on record. They'll sort 130 million items between them, an all-time high caused by the fact that so many of us order Christmas presents online these days.
It's worth recording here a guarantee I got from Tom Willis, the Royal Mail's Regional Operations Director: he pledged that every parcel would arrive in time for Christmas. I think that's quite a promise, particularly as the Post Office is still struggling to recover from two weeks disruption caused by the snow, and there's more bad weather forecast towards the end of the week.
Here's a tip in the meantime: at this time of year, second class post is much more reliable than first class. In 90 percent of cases a 32p second class stamp will arrive within three days, whereas around half of all mail with a 41p first class stamp will not arrive the next day.
The group Consumer Focus calculated if we all sent our Christmas cards second class it would save us £67 million.
Last recommended posting day for second class mail is this Saturday 18th December so there's plenty of time to get those cards written! (Last recommended day for first class is Tuesday 21st.)
November 30th 2010
The Food Standards Agency launches a new food hygiene scheme today that’s supposed to make it easier for consumers to judge whether a restaurant or take-away is safe to eat in. A ratings system gives them marks out of five. Now food hygiene is probably the last thing on your mind when you stumble into a kebab shop at 2 in the morning, but celebrity chef Aldo Zilli told me even the poshest joints can have nasty kitchens.
You can see what I found on my tour of the takeaways in Norwich later on the Daybreak website, but I have misgivings about the scheme.
For a start, it’s one of many: there’s a different scheme in Scotland, one in London, a commercial scheme called scoresonthedoors.co.uk and the FSA scheme currently only has 29 local authorities involved out of a possible total of 524 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as today’s Independent points out. That will rise to 167 next year, but it will still only represent a quarter of eligible councils. And the scheme took £2.5 million and three years to set up.
Food poisoning kills 500 people a year in the UK, so it’s something that needs to be tackled, even if those cases aren’t all as a result of food eaten in takeaways. But next time you’re rounding off a night on the tiles with some street meat, the probablility is you’ll still take your chances.
November 19th 2010
This morning I reported on the incredible story of Steve Bewers, who thought he was doing a good turn by picking up two TVs that had been fly-tipped on the side of the street and taking them to the local rubbish dump. Instead he was turned away by workers there who told him they weren’t household waste so he wasn’t allowed.
We asked for your stories of similar council craziness and the calls and emails flooded in.
One man told how he tried to get rid of some rubbish he found in the house he moved into. He went to the tip in his car and was turned away because it was for commercial waste only. He went back home, put the same waste in the trailer of his other car, a Land Rover, went back to the same tip and it was accepted.
A woman from the northwest told me how she went to a funeral at her local cemetery yesterday and found yellow warning travels scattered around the place warning people about the gravestones! Health and safety taken care of, but what about the serenity of the place.
Linda from Scotland said her local council waters the hanging baskets in her high street, even when it’s raining heavily, because it’s council policy.
And Neil from the south coast said he was warned by nurses not to carry his new-born baby son (congratulations, by the way) because he might drop him.
There was a great response and I was glad to be able to speak to viewers and mention so many of them on air, but please do keep your stories coming. Any consumer stories you think we might be interested in are welcome. You can email me at phil@itv.com and you can call me on my direct line: 020 7827 7100. I look forward to hearing from you.
November 15th 2010
Let's start with some good news: web users are more security-conscious and fraud-aware than they were six years ago. But as the sixth annual Get Safe Online week gets underway, there is also bad news.
Their experts have identiified a new form of rogue anti-virus operation that targets exactly those security-conscious internet users.
Essentially, these scams are seeing security-conscious internet users being exploited into downloading and paying for anti-virus protection – actually malicious software (‘malware’) in disguise or anti-virus software that can be downloaded for free elsewhere - from individuals purporting to be from reputable IT providers.
People are duped in a number of ways. One man I spoke to was cold-called by a bogus "IT Helpdesk" which claims to have identified their computer as at risk from viruses. They can also make contact via pop-up ads and unsolicited emails.
Many of these scams operate on a ‘commercial’ scale, and they have attracted the attention of SOCA, the Serious Organised Crime Agency, whose experts have seen cases where gangs employ 300-400 people (many of whom work in a call centre type set up) to run their operation. Criminals are also making significant investments (e.g. they may be paying webmasters $150k a month for clicks on pop ups), indicating that the returns are much heftier than this.
Research has also found that in fact 1 in 4 (24%) UK adult web users have been approached by someone claiming to be from an IT helpdesk offering to check their PC for any viruses (note that most software providers will not contact customers directly via telephone unless help has been specifically requested).
They ask for your credit card details to pay for the anti-virus software, and then they sell that information on to other crooks.
The advice is simple: keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, and mistrust any pop-up ads or cold calls.
November 12th 2010
Winter’s barely started but already it’s looking bleak for millions of people already struggling with rising fuel bills. This morning British Gas announced a 7% hike in prices from December, increasing the bills of 8 million customers. This comes hot on the heels of Scottish and Southern Energy’s announcement of a 10% rise.
They say they have been forced to increase prices because of the rise in the wholesale price over the last few months. But it seems they are always much quicker to keep up with rising prices than they are when prices drop.
Average bills for both gas and electricity have more than doubled in the past few years, from £580 in 2004 to over £1,200 today - and new figures from moneysupermarket.com claim that we give the energy companies a staggering £4bn more than we need to, all because we don’t switch suppliers.
British Gas have stressed that their poorest 300,000 customers won’t be hit by this rise, and rivals EDF announced a price freeze until March 2011, but with the biggest two providers already hitting consumers with bigger bills, and industry insiders predicting more will follow, things could look very bleak by mid-winter.
November 10th 2010
Here’s an observation for you: in my role as consumer editor, I get to visit the offices of the people I interview. The offices of energy companies are without fail the glossiest, most expensively furnished there are.
Yesterday I popped in to EDF Energy, who were announcing a price freeze until March 2011. Their offices positively gleamed. Their sofas were many and varied. The laptops and lampshades were all high-end. The building overlooked the Queen’s garden at Buckingham Palace. It’s just an observation, but it’s an observation that most energy customers don’t get to see, so I feel it’s worth passing it on.
Particularly as a few minutes ago, Scottish and Southern Energy announced their half-year profits before tax. They’re 6 percent lower than last year, but I’m sure your heart doesn’t exactly bleed for them: they’ve still made £385 million. And this from a firm that the other day announced they will be putting their bills up by 10 percent for all their customers on 1st December, blaming the rising cost of wholesale prices.
However, when the wholesale prices they pay dropped 40 percent, starting in late 2008, Scottish and Southern only reduced their bills to customers by 2 percent.
November 8th 2010
Marks and Spencer is one of those shops that we all have an opinion on. After all, it's on every High Street. And finally we are about to hear the company's new chief executive speak for the first time.
After six months in the job, Dutchman Marc Bolland is to announce the findings of his strategic assessment, along with M&S's six-month results.
What he needs to prove is that he has a plan to deal with his ageing customer base. That should include a better online offering, innovation in food-selling (after all, it was M&S that invented salad in a bag and ready-meals), overseas expansion and a simplification of their brands - Per Una, Autograph, Collezione, Blue Harbour... What do they all mean?
But his job is a tough one because when I say we all have an opinion on Marks and Sparks, it's often a complaint, even if it's only a niggling one. But I am interviewing him tomorrow so I'd like to hear your complaints, niggling or otherwise, which I can put to the chief executive on your behalf. Contact me in the usual way through the Daybreak website!
October 18th 2010
My investigations into online ID fraud have certainly made one thing clear: there are many ways for the fraudsters to get you. But there are steps you can take to protect yourself. So here are my ten top tips.
1. Use a credit card instead of a debit card online. Because of the 1974 Consumer Credit Act, you are more protected if you use a credit card. Just remember to pay off your bill at the end of the month!
2. Don't use public computers to order online. Just as you wouldn't give out your credit card details over the phone in a crowded train carriage, be wary of who may be watching you enter your details on a computer, or be using the computer after you.
3. Check your bank statements for unauthorised purchases. It's a fact that conmen prefer to target people who might be too busy to keep tabs on their outgoings, in the hope that the fraud will go unnoticed.
4. Make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus software and a firewall enabled on your computer. At the moment, this usually involves paying out money, but it's worth it.
5. When using social networking sites like Facebook, be sure not to make personal information freely available. Your date of birth, home town, address, and phone number are all useful information for fraudsters.
6. Choose strong passwords online, that use a mix of several letters and numbers. Not a family members name, or anything that a fraudster could discover; for example, the football team you support.
7. Check to see if the website you are buying from has a presence in the real world. Can you see their address and phone number?
8. Look out for "https" at the beginning of the web address and the padlock sign in your browser which tells you your credit card details will be sent encrypted.
9. Don't reveal any personal information or your password in reply to any email apparently sent by your bank. It could be a "phishing" attack. The emails can look quite convincing.
10. Don't click on any link contained in an email or a message sent to you on a social network, even if it sent by a friend, unless you know what the link is leading you to. That's how can take control of your computer.
For more information, check out getsafeonline.org and keep your wits about you online!
September 30th 2010
On the show today I reported that an astonishing £5 billion of benefits to pensioners is left unclaimed, despite more than a million older people living in poverty. Those are two sobering facts, although perhaps not surprising when you consider how complicated it is to claim pension credit, disability living allowance, carers allowance and so on. There’s a lot of form-filling but it’s very worthwhile because it can improve a pensioner's circumstances to the tune of hundreds of pounds a month.
Not a single pensioner I spoke to was able to get through the form-filling without help, so here's how to get it. Anyone who thinks they may possibly be entitled to some extra help should contact their local Age UK or Age Concern branch for a free benefits check. Their contact details are in the phone book. Alternatively they can visit www.ageuk.org.uk for further information and advice about claiming benefits. There is have absolutely nothing to lose by putting in a claim.
September 28th 2010
The Independent Banking Commission has said it will consider splitting up banks that have, in the past, been considered "too big to fail". It's currently spending a year looking into how to prevent a meltdown of the financial sector as seen in the Credit Crunch of 2008.
One option is to amputate the investment banking arm of so-called "casino banks", leaving most High Street customers dealing with what Vince Cable calls "narrow" banks.
It seems to me when weighing up their options, the Commission must consider those customers. We currently have a situation where three of the biggest banking groups consist of two banks (Lloyds and RBS) which would have collapsed if they hadn't been propped up by the taxpayer and one (Santander) which consistently scores poorly in customer satisfaction surveys. There is a lack of competition that does not benefit consumers.
As Peter Vickary-Smith, chief executive of consumer group Which?, says: "When the Government sells off its stakes in the bailed-out banks, it must ensure that the public interest is served and competition is increased, instead of shifting retail branches from one big bank to another, as we saw with the sale of RBS branches to Santander."
September 28th 2010
As I reported on this morning’s show, more than 100 debt management firms face losing their licence after the Office of Fair Trading undercovered widespread problems in the industry. They’re the kind of people who offer to transform all your debt obligations into “one simple monthly payment”. But you can end up paying much more than you owe in management fees. We’ll have funnelled £250 million into the bank accounts of these firms by the end of the year.
I also mentioned that there are in fact charities that will do the same thing for free. I promised details of them would appear on my blog so, as if by magic, here they are.
Remember, if debts are causing you problems, seek help. These people are a good place to start, and the numbers are free to call.
National Debt Helpline 0808 808 4000
Consumer Credit Counselling Service 0800 138 111
You can also contact your local Citizens Advice Bureau
A full list is on the Directgov website here: http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/ManagingDebt/PlanYourWayOutOfDebt/DG_187500
And beware of some of the cowboys who use names that sound like charities to fool you. They aren’t!
September 8th 2010
Half way through launch week and I'm getting used to the different and wonderful things about working on Daybreak.
First lesson, learnt on launch day in fact, is the value of the power nap. I was called late on Sunday evening about a story for the first ever programme which involved reporting live from Reading. It meant getting up at 3am. But a short snooze in the middle of the day kept me going.
Second, you never know who you're going to meet in the green room. As I was waiting to go on the sofa this morning to talk about interest rates with Adrian and Christine, I bumped into Audley Harrison and David Haye. As well as being professional boxers, they're known for their fighting talk, but fortunately there was no need for Brenda, queen of the green room, to interrupt any verbal or physical sparring.
Third, when it comes to my brief, Adrian Chiles knows his stuff. Often doing stories involving money you get the sense some presenters don't have much of a clue. But Adrian spent a long time presenting Working Lunch, the BBC2 show that dealt with business and personal finance. It's refreshing to be asked perceptive questions, and it means I have to keep on my toes.
Contact me with your consumer stories through my twitter user name @philreaysmith
September 2nd 2010
One of the things I’m looking forward to about my job on the new programme is the dialogue with the viewers. I want to get to know the people who are watching the show and hear their stories and concerns.
Remember the story about pushchairs that sliced off children’s fingers when they folded up? If something similar is happening out there, I want to hear about it first. That way I can bring it to a wider audience, and take manufacturers to task.
How to get in touch? You call always contact me through the Daybreak website. For those of you who are into the social media, you can follow me on twitter courtesy of my username, @philreaysmith. Looking forward to hearing from you...
September 1st 2010
I’ve been reading about the arrival of Daybreak in the papers since long before I was personally involved in the project. I’ve known I was going to be part of the launch team for the past month or so. And finally we will get to put the show on the road next week. Early impressions are great. The new studio is amazing, the people both behind the scenes and on air are talented, and I’m working on a few stories for launch week that should demonstrate what we’re about. As Consumer Editor, I’ll be fighting for the viewers and their families, using whatever influence we can muster to right wrongs in the retail world.
It’s exciting to be involved in a relaunch and in breakfast television. I’ve been a fan since TV-AM launched in the 80s. I used to love the Big Breakfast on Channel 4 and Daybreak’s deputy editor Paul Connolly used to work on that show. Our new show will be built on the foundations of all of those great shows. I think it’s going to be great. My only worry is when I will get to sleep. I have a feeling the first few weeks will be pretty busy.
We all just want to get on with it but before that we have a weekend of rehearsals and fine tuning. I have to pop off now to film an interview for one of my first reports, due to be broadcast in the first week of Daybreak. I can’t tell you what it’s about – it’s exclusive!
You contact Phil by calling 020 7827 7101 or emaling him on Phil@itv.com