The Financial Blog

Ofcom is looking into unfair and unclear charges made by telecom and internet companies in a attempt to get them stopped.

This has come about due to complaints from consumers about additional charges for services because customers have paid by cash or cheque or becasue they’ve ended a contract early or paid a bill late. Ofcom say that any additional charges should be fair and clear to the customer.

If these charges are unclear Ofcom say that the companies should only be able to to charge for the cost of providing the service and not essentially  ‘bolt-on’ these additional charges.

This can only be a good thing for UK consumers and it won’t come a minute too soon in my opinion! Companies should be open and honest when it comes to the fees and charges they make to their customers, after all with no customers there wouldn’t be a business for these companies in the first place. The industries Ofcom is looking at are home and mobile phone companies, broadband and pay TV.

Behind the banking scenes there has been a massive overhaul taking place to make our cash transfers quicker according to the banking industry body APACs. From 27th May 2008 cash transfers over the phone or internet should take just 1 day compared to the 3 days it takes now.

APACs say the work will also reduce the standing order payments to the same timescales.

This will make it a fantastic 24 hours a day, seven days a week, instant transfer service.

I posted about this earlier in the week; Egg asked to apologise to credit card customers  However, Egg have made no apology and refuse to change their stance on the cancellation of 161,000 credit card customers accounts.

The Labour MP Nigel Griffiths had his meeting and Egg bank say that even the customers who pay their balance off in full every month might become a high risk in the future.

A spokesman for Egg said; “The review was based upon a large number of variables and studied the level of risk inherent in groups of customers, rather then every individual,”

“So while some customers in that group may be up to date with their payments and have a good record with credit reference agencies and so on, the probability of them becoming a higher-risk customer in the future is higher than we wish to accept.”

Egg went on to explain that they looked for different spending patterns and recent additional credit card applications amongst other things to help them decide that these customers might end up more of a risk to them in the future.

The meeting between Mr Griffiths and Egg Cheif Executive Ian Kerr was discribed as constructive and Mr Griffiths commented; “I expressed my strong concerns about the letters sent to customers, particularly since I felt that more information could have been provided,”

“I have received an assurance that Egg will ensure that the credit record of these card-holders will not be affected, as long as they keep up their agreed repayments.”

To apply online for the Egg credit card visit http://www.egg.com

>>Click here to compare the Egg credit card with other best selling credit cards you can apply for now>>

As oil prices have hit the roof in the last 4 months and so have the taxes we pay; to the tune of £1 billion in just the last 4 months! In fact Gordon Brown is set to tax us to the tune of £4.5 billion because of the rising oil costs. This will only put families under increasing financial pressure as they struggle to keep up with rising, fuel, utility bills and food prices.

We pay approximately £0.70 tax in every £1 spent at the pumps and this is a staggering £0.23 more than any other country in europe. Fuel prices have risen by 20 per cent in the last 12 months alone; the fastest increases seen for 10 years. However this isn’t enough for the government to manage to actually help us out by suspending the planned additional £0.02 per litre fuel levy and £0.35 VAT for April 1st - It must be an April fools joke, surely!?

With anger mounting over our inflated fuel prices haulage companies and farmers are threatening to create road blocks at oil refinerines across the country. I’m not sure if that is the best way forward, I remember last time it just created panic at the pumps with people queing for long periods.

I think research from the AA sums it up; from October 1st 2007 to April 1st 2008 drivers will have paid out an extra £282 million in duty and VAT on petrol alone.

There are literally 2 credit cards still offering fee free balance transfers. I thought the credit card industry had completely eliminated the free balance transfer offers but Norwich & Peterborough Building Society http://www.npbs.co.uk/credit-card and Capital One http://www.capitalone.co.uk/creditcards/capital-one-balance-transfer-card.jsf still offer a fee free balance transfer deal with their cards. You must have an exceptional credit rating to be considered for these credit cards.

The Capital One Balance Transfer Card is 0 per cent on balance transfers until 1st August 2008, so there’s still a good 5 months of 0 per cent to take advantage of. >>Click Here to apply online now>>

Norwich and Peterborough is 0 per cent for 6 months. >> Click here to apply>>

If you have more than the average £2,500 balance to transfer then you might want to consider paying the 1.7 per cent to 3 per cent balance transfer fee that most other credit card companies charge.

There are some fantastic long term deals to be had but always calculate the fee to make sure you can afford it. Paying a fee upfront to transfer your balance should be worth it in the long run as long as you don’t continue to spend on the credit card!!

The HSBC Mastercard has 0 per cent on balance transfers for the first 24 months with a 2.5 per cent balance transfer fee.

Alternatively there is the http://uk.virginmoney.com Mastercard with a 0 per cent balance transfer offer for 15 months with a 2.98 per cent fee.

If you’ve already had a credit card with any of the companies above then you could look at a life of balance credit card, where it costs you nothing to transfer an existing balance and the interest rate stays the same until your balance is cleared.

The Barclaycard Life of Balance http://www.barclaycard.co.uk credit card offers 6.3 per cent for the life of your balance and with personal loan interest rates on the rise this is a much cheaper option.

Just remember; never spend on a credit card you’ve transferred a balance to, this is where the companies charge higher rates of interest, on the new purchases you make - so don’t!

From 3rd March 2008 Barclays http://www.barclays.co.uk/savings will be offering a new market leading cash ISA The Tax Haven ISA, at 6.50% AER.

Barclays Head of Savings, Lee Chiswell, said: “We believe this is the best rate available for any cash ISA on the market at the moment, paying a massive 1.25 per cent above the Bank of England base rate. Customers only need £1 to open this best buy ISA and do not need to take out any other products to take advantage of the fantastic rate.”

“Demand for our market leading cash ISA was phenomenal last year, so to ensure we process ISA applications as efficiently as possible this year we have increased the capacity at our processing centre and streamlined the application process.”

“We would encourage customers who have not already subscribed to an ISA in the current tax year to get their application in as soon as possible so they do not miss out on their annual ISA allowance ”

The ISA allowance is a minimum £1 and maximum of £3,000 for the tax year 2007 – 2008. This is rising to £3,600 for the tax year 2008 – 2009.

You can open an account in a branch, over the phone or online, unfortunately you cannot transfer funds from an existing ISA.

Visit http://www.barclays.co.uk/savings from 03rd March, for full information on this product.

From today Coventry Building Society http://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/savings are re-launching the very popular 50 Plus Esave account.

• 6.4 per cent, Gross AER – fixed for 1 year
• Exclusively available to the over 50’s
• Save from £1 to £250,000
• Interest earned from the first day of your deposit
• Instant and unlimited access with no penalties
• Annual and monthly interest options to choose from
• Your savings account must be opened and managed online with a minimum deposit of £1.

Head of Marketing at the Coventry, Rachel Haworth, said: “We are pleased to re-launch our fixed rate eSave account, particularly at a time when interest rates are falling.  The account allows customers to access their money whenever they want and, when many commentators expect interest rates to fall further, they will also benefit from a guaranteed high fixed rate.”

 “The account has become a natural extension to our well established and popular Sixty-Plus range and further demonstrates our commitment to this group of customers.  As a major UK building society we offer savers the peace of mind that their savings will be safe and I encourage them to take up this opportunity without delay.”

>> For further information and to apply online now, go to http://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/savings

Nigel Griffiths, Labour MP and a former consumer affairs minister is meeting with Egg Chief Executive Mr Ian Kerr to discuss the recent Egg credit card  http://www.egg.com cancellations saga.

Mr Griffiths is going to suggest that Egg should apologise to it’s customers for the outrage caused when they wrote to 161,000 credit card customers telling them they were a credit risk and that their credit card accounts would be closed in 31 days.

Mr Griffiths said “Egg has got a lot of explaining to do, if you want to get rid of customers who are not bad credit risks but who you just don’t make money out of, then you should make a charge for your credit card.”

“One letter of complaint I received was from someone in the City who said last year he made £1m, he has £100,000 worth of shares in Citibank group that owns Egg, and he’s absolutely outraged that he should be told he is any sort of credit risk.”

In spite of all this ‘bad’ publicity Egg still refuse to admit that they’ve acted unfairly or have deliberately tried to get rid of customers they do not profit from.

Shame it seems blatantly obvious to the rest of us! The problem is this has been so well publicised in the press and on TV it may be the beginning of the end for the Egg credit card not matter how great their offers are…

If you still want to apply for the Egg credit card visit http://www.egg.com today

New Tesco car insurance customers http://www.tescofinance.com who get a quote and then purchase a policy before the 2nd April 2008 will get a £50 voucher, redeemable in Tesco stores or Tesco petrol stations.

This isn’t a bad offer and Tescos are generally competitively priced when it comes to car insurance. They were my car insurance company before I switched to my current insurer.

You need to apply online or over the phone and quote ‘Shop50’ – you need to have a Tesco Clubcard number ready to qualify.

For more information and to apply log on to http://www.tescofinance.com or call 0845 301 0753. Also don’t forget you can compare car insurance at http://www.tescocompare.com

Sainsbury’s Bank http://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk has recently increased the balance transfer period available on their credit card from 10 months to 12 months, making it amongst the most competitive available today.

The new research from Sainsbury’s reveals the popularity of the credit card balance transfer merry-go-round. We all play it, every 8 to 12 months as our current balance transfer deal comes to the end we start comparing credit cards for the latest balance transfer deal. Looking at Sainsbury’s figures it seems we’re not being put off by the balance transfer fees more recently put in place by the credit card companies.

Sainsbury’s say that 4.30m people intend to make balance transfers, totaling £6.68 billion, when making their credit card switches before July this year. This equates to £257.15 million per week or £36.74 million a day.  The research also highlights the fact that 35% of credit card holders currently pay interest on their credit card balances.

Key points;

• The average amount people plan to switch is £1,555;
• 181,000 people intend to transfer over £5,000, with 95,000 people planning to switch over £10,000;
• The gender breakdown of those planning to transfer balances is 45.7% women and 54.3% men;
• On an age basis,  35.5% of those planning to transfer balances are aged under 34 (1.528 million people),  21.7% are 35 – 44  (933,000 people)  and 26.7% are aged 45 – 64 (1.15 million people) and 16% are aged 65 and over (691,000 people).

To apply online for the Sainsbury’s credit card visit http://www.sainsburysbank.co.uk today!

Other popular 0% credit cards;

To apply for the MBNA Platinum Plus credit card visit http://www.mbna.co.uk/creditcards/

• 0% on balance transfers until your statement date in February 2009. 3% handling fee applies
• 0% on purchases until your statement date in May 2008
• 0% on transferring cash into your current account until your statement date in February 2009
• 15.9% Typical APR, variable
• Online banking available, allowing you to transfer cash and balances.
• >>Visit http://www.mbna.co.uk/creditcards to apply online now>>

MBNA will use your payments to reduce balances at lower rates of interest before balances at higher rates of interest. Where you have two promotional rates which are the same, MBNA will use your payments to reduce the balance with the longer promotional period first.

For the Halifax One Online Special go to http://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards

• 0% on purchases for 12 months
• 0% on balance transfers for 12 months (3% handling fee applies)
• Typcial APR 15.9% variable
• >>Click Here to visit http://www.halifax.co.uk and apply online>>

Halifax will charge you interest on purchases and cash advances from the date of the transaction and for cheques, balance transfers and all other amounts from the date they first charge the amount to your account. If you do not pay the total balance shown on your statement each month, Halifax will add the interest charged to your next statement balance.
The Barclaycard Flexi-Rate http://www.barclaycard.co.uk credit card

• 0% on balance transfers for 12 months (2.5% handling fee applies)
• 0% on purchases for 3 months
• Typical APR 14.9% variable
• The introductory rate of 0% p.a. for 12 months is for balances of up to £5,000 transferred within 60 days of your account opening. If Barclaycard honor balance transfer amounts that exceed your balance transfer limit these will be charged at 6.9% APR Per Annum, until paid in full.
• >>Click Here to Apply Online Now at http://www.barclaycard.co.uk >>

Virgin credit card Special available at  http://www.virginmoney.com

• 0% on balance transfers for 15 months from the date of account opening, 2.98% handling fee applies.
• Too many additional features to list! >>Click here to see the summary box>>
• >>Click here http://uk.virginmoney.com to apply online>>