Dear Listener

Some you have noticed over the last few weeks that your newsletter has had strange symbols in it. Where they should have been apostrophes or quote marks or pound signs came out as a weird collection of symbols like tildes, accented letters, trademark symbols and euro signs.

We are now told this has been caused by an "upgrade". Which of course means making things better. At the moment no-one can work out how to stop it. But there is what is politely called a "work-around". So I hope those apostrophes will not be a group of odd characters but will be the real thing. If not we have failed.

The Department for Work and Pensions has just published the take-up figures for means-tested benefits. It did so quietly (by which I mean without a press release) and several months after they are normally issued. They show that there are still millions of people who fail to claim billions of pounds in benefits they could get but for whatever reason don't.

Altogether there is between £7.4 billion and £12.4 billion of benefits which could be claimed but are not. The wide margin of error shows how hard the job of estimating it is. Almost half the total is due to people over pension age not claming help with council tax and rent as well as unclaimed pension credit. Among younger people the total is made up of Jobseeker's allowance where between 33% and 40% of the people who could claim fail to do so costing them an average of £59 a week each.

As for why, the research looks into this but comes to very few conclusions. Some people might believe they were not eligible, others think that the amounts they might get are not worth the effort of claiming. And, although the report does not say this, many certainly are simply unaware that the help is there and available to them or if they know about it they do not know how to go about claiming.

One thing is certain. If all those who are entitled to means tested benefits claimed all they can, the Government's deficit would be a lot larger than it is.

You can read the original document Income Related Benefits: Estimate of take-up 2009/10 here http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/income_analysis/index.php?page=publications

***IN MONEY BOX THIS WEEK***

Shares in CPP were suspended this week. Money Box investigated this firm as long ago as November 2010. It operates by selling insurance to bank customers when they call to "activate" their credit or debit card. The Financial Services Authority is investigating the firm and the shares were suspended after the FSA expressed "serious concerns" about its sales techniques. We interview CPP's new boss.

If you are under 55 you cannot normally get hold of your pension fund. But there were warnings this week from regulators and HMRC about firms which claim to allow you to do just that. Doing so may be illegal and may create a hefty tax charge of up to 55% of the fund's value. And some are putting the balance into odd investments which may fall in value despite hefty charges.

We investigate a payday loan company which was intimidating borrowers who could not repay their loans by threatening to inform their employer of their debts. And that in the week the Office of Fair Trading announced a review into the sales practices of pay day loan companies.

And tax codes - how to understand your Tax Coding Notice if one has dropped through your letterbox recently. We promised you this story last week but hope to include it this. Give me a "P" Bob!

Find out if we do squeeze all that in by listening on Saturday at midday, or Sunday at 9pm, or anytime online at www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox. Remember you can put in a regular order for our podcast. It's free.

There is more information on our website www.bbc.co.uk/moneybox where you can also download transcripts of past programmes and send us ideas or problems you want us to look into.

This newsletter is available at bbc.co.uk/moneybox/newsletter around the time it hits your inbox (tell your friends who don't subscribe). And you could join more than 26,900 people who now follow me on Twitter to enjoy (or rant about) my random but timely thoughts on money and a few other things whenever I'm awake at twitter.com/paullewismoney. And there's a blog as well www.paullewismoney.blogspot.com.

Holiday finance is the topic on Money Box Live with Vincent Duggleby on Wednesday at 3pm. Call with your question after 1pm on Wednesday 29th February on 03700 100 444 or email through the website when the programme page is up later today. Or of course just listen.

Best wishes,

Paul

PS. I will be on Breakfast on BBC One around 0845 on Saturday with a programme trail and back on Breakfast later in the week, probably on Thursday and usually around 0640 and 0820 talking about a money story and answering emails and tweets. But the time, and occasionally the day, can vary.

e-mail Paul Lewis