This email was sent to Money Box subscribers on 9 June 2006

Hi

The banks are fighting back against a growing number of customers who are going to court to recover penalty charges for missed payments and unauthorised overdrafts. There is a widespread belief, supported by the Office of Fair Trading, that some of these charges are illegal. The banks of course insist that they are not. But when customers ask for them back, the banks normally pay up if court action is threatened. Now some banks are closing the accounts of customers who take them to court claiming trust has broken down. The banks and the customers talk to Money Box.

More bad news for the Government’s tax credit system. Although it gets £18 billion a year to six million families the Government admitted a couple of weeks ago that for the second year running overpayments amounted to £2 billion – and that has to be clawed back, from families that find it hard to afford. And this week a committee of MPs called for radical change in the system. Chris Pond, who used to be a Government minister but now runs the charity One Parent Families, talks to us live about what changes he says are needed for parents on low incomes.

High pressure sales calls – made from abroad – are conning some people out of thousands of pounds. Crooks are inviting investors to buy shares which they say are about to do very well. The companies are usually real – but the investors’ money disappears. One man tells us how he was conned out of £4000. And the Financial Services Authority warns anyone tempted by these calls to just ‘hang up.’

Lawyers and accountants claim it is a U-turn. The Treasury says it is merely a clarification. But whatever it is, a Government announcement this week about the way money in trusts will be taxed seems very different from the changes that were proposed in the Budget. We get the top legal expert on trusts and tax to tell us if the latest changes are good, disappointing, unclear – or all three.

And with four big items that may be all we have time for. But we are investigating the true value of the World Cup and will report our findings live at the end of the programme.

Enjoy!




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