Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 30th August)

Pension companies finally pledge to come clean on hidden feesThe industry admits that it has not given “straight answers” to saversMillions of savers are being misled by pension fund managers about hidden fees that can almost halve the value of their pensions. The DG of the Association of British Insurers said "The industry has taken too long to recognise the fact that people expect transparency now. They expect to ask a question and get a straight answer. We haven’t been very good at giving that straight answer." TELEGRAPH("That straight...

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Runaway Premier League football wages are damaging the national game

Our guest post from the High Pay Centre summarises their full report "Football Mad: are we paying more for less?", which is well worth a read too. You can see data that shows how money is being sucked away from grassroots football and into the pockets of players in the top clubs. No wonder our national team hardly ever gets beyond a quarter final, if that!It's also an example of how one business sector can end up dominated by a small handful  (think Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Chelsea) so powerful that all the others are crowded out. Other...

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Runaway Premier League football wages are damaging the national game

Our guest post from the High Pay Centre summarises their full report "Football Mad: are we paying more for less?", which is well worth a read too. You can see data that shows how money is being sucked away from grassroots football and into the pockets of players in the top clubs. No wonder our national team hardly ever gets beyond a quarter final, if that!It's also an example of how one business sector can end up dominated by a small handful  (think Man U, Man C, Arsenal, Chelsea) so powerful that all the others are crowded out. Other...

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Distribution of household financial assets - half of us have zero

The Treasury Select Committee, seemingly one of the less ineffectual organs of our Parliament (though we wait to see whether their bite lives up to their bark), asked the Bank of England to explain the costs and benefits of its programme of Quantitative Easing (printing £375 billion of new money to rescue the economy from the banking crisis).The Bank of England's report states"the total increase in household wealth stemming from the Bank’s £325 billion of asset purchases up to May 2012 of just over £600 billion... In practice,...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 23rd August)

Woman forced to pay £200 to print out Ryanair ticketsA holidaymaker says she was forced by Ryanair to pay more than £200 for a "piece of paper" after she arrived at an airport without printing her boarding passes in advance. TELEGRAPH(A Ryanair spokesperson said "We overdid it. So we've given her £200 worth of coupons to spend on all the things we currently charge for: using our loo, standing up, sitting down, and crying with joy when the whole Ryanair ordeal ends.")Top bosses' pay rockets whilst everyone else's dropsFor the first time, the total...

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Liebrary - Banking is free? OFT report shows even excluding penalty charges banks take £billions for holding our money

Which?, the consumer campaigner, has claimed free "free banking" is a myth. The British Bankers Association (BBA) has called Which? disingenuous, claiming that "Charges can be avoided completely simply by not going overdrawn". Let’s put to one side for the moment the massive fees and sky high interest that borrowers are charged. The point the BBA hopes to blind us to is that they also take money from savers. Banks lend out money deposited by savers. Banks pay interest to the saver that is a tiny fraction of the interest they take by lending...

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Liebrary - Banking is free? OFT report shows even excluding penalty charges banks take £billions for holding our money

Which?, the consumer campaigner, has claimed free "free banking" is a myth. The British Bankers Association (BBA) has called Which? disingenuous, claiming that "Charges can be avoided completely simply by not going overdrawn". Let’s put to one side for the moment the massive fees and sky high interest that borrowers are charged. The point the BBA hopes to blind us to is that they also take money from savers. Banks lend out money deposited by savers. Banks pay interest to the saver that is a tiny fraction of the interest they take by lending...

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Liebrary - Train fare price increases capped? Oh no they're not...

If you thought the inflation linked RPI + 3% is the worst fare increase you face in January, you’d be wrong (in a bad way). The media has already pointed out that this formula only provides the average increase. The real upper limit is an additional 5% - i.e. RPI + 3% + 5% = RPI + 8%.But even that is only the half of it. Other ways rail companies can increase their income include:a)      The fares cap only applies to ‘regulated fares’. Unregulated fares, which can go up by any amount, include– all first class fares;...

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Phone shop staff misleading customers over ‘fixed’ mobile phone contracts

Guest post by Which? the consumer rights campaigner. Consumer mystery shopping carried out by Which? shows sales staff giving inaccurate information about the possibility of price increases.  Do you think fixed mobile contracts should be at a fixed price? Pledge your support at www.which.co.uk/fixedNew undercover research carried out by Which? revealed that the vast majority (82 %) of staff in mobile phone shops we visited gave incorrect information about potential price rises on ‘fixed’ phone contracts at the point of sale. Astonishingly, 82% of shop assistants maintained that the price was fixed even when asked if it would stay...

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Rip-off News round-up. Our pick of the last week's media (Thu 16th August)

Thousands of rail passengers to be hit by 10 PER CENT increase on season tickets The government's rules allow train companies to raise prices 3% above the Retail Price Index (RPI) for July, estimated to be 2.7%, giving average fare increases of 5.7%. But the increase does not have to be "per ticket": glaring loopholes in the rules allow higher increases on some (i.e. popular) routes so long as smaller increases are made on other (i.e. not busy) routes. DAILY MAILThe Bank of England governor urges bankers to learn from the selfless...

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Build more affordable homes, reverse the property bubble, and we'll save billions

Today's guest post is by Toby Lloyd, Head of Policy at the housing and homelessness charity Shelter. It explains how we can cut the £22bn spent on housing benefit. The main reason why it's that high is because of the high cost of rent caused by this country's housing bubble. If we build more homes we'll bring down the overall cost of housing, and therefore bring down the housing benefit spend. We already know we can afford to build more houses: that £22bn housing benefit spend is around twenty times more than we currently spend on...

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