Dear Listener

Sound of trumpets, own, presenters for the use of. After a long hot day it was still warm on 25 July 2006 as we ate dinner in the medieval hall of St John’s College, Cambridge. Sitting next to Margaret Cole Director of Enforcement at the City watchdog the Financial Services Authority I asked why, a year after her appointment, no-one was afraid when the FSA came calling? Isn’t that, I asked, what we needed to end the cycle of financial mis-selling scandals? The view of her colleagues – from which she didn’t demur – was that she was indeed a scary lady, things would change and financial companies should be afraid, very afraid.

Nearly three years later, 12 March 2009, my words were echoed by FSA Chief Executive Hector Sants “There is a view that people are not frightened of the FSA. I can assure you that this is a view I am determined to correct. People should be very frightened of the FSA.” I cheered. And record fines and even prison sentences have followed.

Five months after my St John’s speech I ploughed through the wind and rain of London Docklands heading to the hotel where I was to address the Financial Services Consumer Panel. It would be the first, but by no means the last, time I called on the FSA to end financial mis-selling by identifying and banning products rather than supervising the process by which they are sold.

Three years on and tonight Hector Sants will confirm that the FSA will in future step in and ban products when they are first sold rather than waiting until mis-selling has turned into a scandal and billions of pounds of compensation have to be paid...

IN THIS WEEK’S ELEVEN-DAYS-TO-THE-BUDGET MONEY BOX

…and talking of which, I will be talking to the FSA about its latest mis-selling revelation. Up to £4.2 billion could have been wrongly taken from hundreds of thousands of people who were mis-sold insurance policies with their loans. I won’t bore you again by mentioning when I first laid in to this nascent mis-selling scandal (OK it was 20 September 2005). So who can claim their money back and how much?

When you go online and buy stuff could your details be passed on to another company? And could that include your credit card or bank details? And could it even include money being taken out of your account? Yes, yes, and yes according to some of our listeners. The Information Commissioner responds.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has closed down Consumer Credit Litigation Solicitors which handled tens of thousands of cases on behalf of the claims management company Cartel Client Review. The SRA cited ‘suspected dishonesty’ as one of its reasons for acting against the solicitor. What does this mean for the tens of thousands of customers with pending cases?

A major bank decides to stop showing the interest rate it pays on an online savings account. It’s all part of enhancing its service to ‘improve the customer experience’.  Mmmm.

And we will interview a man who has stopped over between Canada and Strasbourg for the decision by the European Court of Human Rights on frozen pensions. A dozen pensioners who live abroad are complaining that the UK state pension is not uprated with inflation when it is paid to people who live in most (but not all) non-European countries of the world. He will tell us why he expects - and certainly hopes - to win.

Find out why by listening just after noon on Saturday, or nine pm on Sunday, or on the website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox at any time. There you can also watch videos, follow up items, read web pieces, download transcripts, follow links, and send us stories or ideas you want us to look into. And of course Have Your Say on – one of the items.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme preview on Breakfast BBC 1 soon after 0845 on Saturday.

e-mail Paul Lewis