e-mail Paul LewisDear Listener
After
our week off for Bloomsday we returned on Thursday for a bit of an experiment.
Could we do a meaningful programme about personal finance for a global audience?
BBC World Service was keen for us to do an hour long interactive programme about
how the crisis in the Eurozone affected the personal finances of people around
the world.
I
teamed up with co-presenter Lesley Curwen from the BBC business unit – you will
have heard her on the Today programme doing business this morning and she does a
regular stint on World Service Business Daily. The Money Box team went into
overdrive booking guests and finding people to talk to around the world. We also
had live input from World Have Your Say with Ben James telling us what people
around the world were concerned about.
The
ramifications of
You can
hear the whole programme on the podcast
www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/bizdaily Do have a listen. It is really
interesting.
***IN
MONEY BOX THIS WEEK***
If you
are one of the 17 million customers of NatWest, RBS or Ulster Bank you may well
find money is not moving into or out of your account. Or at least, the bank says
it is being moved, but it is not being recorded on individual accounts. So if
you are paid this week or need to pay someone else your access to your own money
is practically zero, though cash machines seem to be working. The problems began
on Wednesday (some are telling me Tuesday) and are still not fully resolved as I
write on Friday afternoon.
If you
call the PayPal helpline will you in fact speak to the PayPal helpline? Probably
not if you get the number for it via an internet search engine. The charge of
£1.53 a minute “plus network extras” might be a clue.
When
does tax avoidance – which at its most benign is putting money into an ISA or
pension – become ‘morally wrong’ to politicians from the Prime Minister down?
Chancellor George Osborne promised in his Budget to crack down on what he called
‘aggressive’ tax avoidance and he is consulting on a new law to stamp out what
the consultation paper calls ‘abusive and artificial tax avoidance’. But where
is the line drawn? So will the new law – due to start in April 2013 – stop the
wealthy paying far less tax than the current 50% tax rate implies they should?
Or will it fail like many before it have failed?
If you
have a currency card – a prepaid plastic card that you use to pay for things –
beware if you stick it in a drawer and don’t use it. Some of them have a charge
if you don’t use them – a ‘dormancy fee’ which could eat up the balance you left
on it. So you pay NOT to use your card.
And as
promised in previous newsletters we may run the story about the three digit CVV
number on the back of your credit card and when you should and shouldn’t be
asked for it. And the risks if you are.
We hope
to squeeze those five in to our 24 minutes. But one of them may have to go. Find
out by listening live at midday on Saturday, tune in to the repeat on Sunday
9pm, or catch up anytime online at
www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox. Remember you can put in a regular
order for our podcast. More than 200,000 listen that way each week. It is 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 do not subscribe. And you could join the more than 33,900 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 am awake at
twitter.com/paullewismoney.
Money
Box Live is on Wednesday at 3pm when Vincent Duggleby will take your questions
on holiday finance.
Best
wishes,
Paul
PS I am
on Breakfast on BBC One on Saturday probably around 0845 trailing one of the
items from Money Box. And on Breakfast again on Thursday morning usually at 0640
and 0820 but times and even the day can and do change.
e-mail Paul Lewis