Warning on Travel Permit Overcharging

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK The ultimate cookout starts with the ultimate ingredients. At Whole Foods Market, no antibiotics ever burgers and kebabs are prepped and ready to throw on the grill. Fire up a juicy ribbeye. Grab creamy potato salad and savory flatbreads from the prepared foods department, and round it all out with three hundred sixty five brand condiments, chips and dips at everyday low prices Whole Foods Market, makeake your summer sizzle. Caesar Sports Book is the only sportsBook app with Caesar rewards. Bet the Tournament action and more. Download the app using promo code radio DYW. and place your first bet of a dollar or more for a chance to double your winnings on your next ten bets. Open to new users in New Jersey who are twenty one or older. Max bet of twenty five dollars for boosted winnings, Max additional wnings two thousand five hundred dollars hundred per bet. Profit boost tokens expire fourteen days after receipt. See Caesars dot com slash promos for full terms. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler I would even more strongly push you towards putting in a complaint. Well, done podcast producer, Simon, what a hero, You sorted it all out. Thank you very much. You can ask your card company to go to the vendor's card company and either get out of it for free if it misled you or get out of it for a reasonable fee if it didn't. Hello, I'm Martin Lewis and this is the cunningly named the Martin Lewis podcast I wonder what that's going be about. And this is our big topic episode where each week we lead on one main subject to help you save. Now usually most of it comes from my BBC radio five live show with Adrian Chiles But not today, because there is a big change to the promise programming that was a surprise to everyone as you will hear in a couple of minutes. Luckily though, when a hero is needed And whileile that'sough to find, we at least managed to get podcast producer Simon to step into the breach anyway. In today's episode, the big topic Car finance missselling, I have an update for you. Up to eleven million people areeed a collective nine billion pounds. But why is it so delayed? What should you be doing and now a new development The regulator is urging people to complain not just about car finance, but also about the claims management firm's millions of view to complain about car finance. So complain about your car finance complaint or will be explained. Next, Adrian got charged twenty quid on his credit card for a payment he didn't make, so what's the easiest way to get that money back? Not just for him, but for you as well, information worth knowing And beware British Airways' questionable behaviour as it pushes people to pay far more for travel permits than they need to Play the theme tune I every b is Martin, may I begin by raising a matter of some importance? Was that a formal request? Yes. You may. Okay. Thank you very much. I just think this must apply to a few people. I was in Croatia last week. It's got kind of two halves. Firstly, I just wonder what you do when this is to do with a parking app. Right Many times you'll go away and it might be parking, there'll be other stuff as well where you kind of just have to download an app ro put your credit card details in there somewhere. Yeah. You know, sometimes youve got no choice, I think it was s how safe How safe is it? Well, plastic is always the safest way to pay. Always becausecause you have far more protections than if you pay in cash or bank transfer or check So if you want talking about safety abroad, the wr right plastic using the specialist overseas card, Lloyd's ultra top pick at the moment, a credit card pared off in full each month and doing it via an app is using the plastic Yeah, yes, as long as long as when it asks, how do you pay, you're paying on the credit card, yes. Okay. C mean this there can be some causal breaks but I'm right. I mean, this is where I think something's up. So it was a parking app in Croatia, right? And the and somethingomet you can kind of I don't think you can sort of park anywhere where I end up going without this app any works fine. Listeners will be disappointed to know I do not know the specifics of Croatian parking up. I'm sorry to let them all down They And then when I got back, this wasn't this time when I went. this was a few months ago. A charge popped up on my credit card for parking in Dubrovnik actually. when I didn't even have a car while I was in Dubrovnik. I just hadn't used it. Okay. So I called, you know, I've got my Martin Louis' head on. I called my credit card company here and And they thinkking, well, seection seventy five, it's their issue. but they said, well, they just said, no, no, nothing, you do got to contact the firm And look, you'll be stunned to hear then. I contact this parking app By every means I could and just heard absolutely nothing back. So al right, it was fifteen quid Which I'll never get back, I'll live with it. but it's just well it still seems wrong to me. What did I do wrong? If you forgive me Arian, you didn't have your Martin Mis head on, you had your ad Arien, Chles Masind head on. Okay there lies the problem. But look, I' it's really important to be claiming here. It's not my fault. I'm not And the bank should have told you what I'm about told you. And in fact, we had an issue on the questQuestion time podcast Let me explain and I'll tell you their issue which mirrors this from the opposite direction. The most important thing to understand that very powerful credit card protection called seection seventy five, which means if you buy something and pay for any of it on the card, card companies is jointly liable with the retailer only applies for items that cost between one hundred pounds and thirty thousand pounds. Right. Your payment was below the seection seventy five threshold. Well, that's not what he told me. You but anyway. No. I agree. Now the case we had on question timeim was someone who it was a thirty six thousand pound payment. Okay. And seection seventy five only applies for items between one hundred pounds and thirty thousand pounds So I told him go back and do a chargeback. Now the difference between chargeback and section seventy five If seection seventy five applies if the item costs or the thing you're buying costs between one hundred pounds and thirty thousand pounds, even if you only pay penny on the credit card, the card company's liable for the entire amount With chargeback, you're only liable for what you put on the cart If you see so in his case hed put six grand on the card or something. So he was only but he still got the six grand back, notot what he had wanted back, but a lot better than what'd been given But in his case, he asked for seection seventy five, they didn't mention chargeback. and they actually then gave him compensation later because they hadn't mentioned chargeback until I told him to go back. Charge back is not a law Chargeback is an internal process at Visa, Mastercard and Amx that basically says if you've paid for something and haven't got what you paid for, you can ask your card company to go to the vendor's card company, ask it to be frozen and ask you to get the money because you've been charged for something you didn't get. That seems to be the perfect circumstance for what happened to you So but often unless you specifically say, I want you to do a chargeback on their company It won't happen. Okay, interesteresting. Again, hold that thought sorry Golf I've got to go to Mat Chaley, who's got some breaking news for us, Matt Yeah, hi, Adrien. John Healley, the defense secretary has resigned Well Things have all just changed of a sudden because at that moment Adrianne interrupted me to say that the Secretary of State for Defense John Heeeley had just resigned making the extraordinary statement in a letter to the Prime Minister of Since then, you have been unable and the Treasury has been unwilling to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats. So quite understandably, five live have moved to rolling coverage of that story and we have swiftly moved to going into a pod only. And I've got podcast producer Simon with me, PPS. A you there? Hey, I am here. I've not resigned yet now. No That's good. So Here's what we're going to do J just to finish what I was talking to Adrian about on chargeback. So yeah, the key is if you want to do a chargeback, if you've not got something and it's especially important for any credit or debit card transactions under a hundred pounds and any debit card transactions over one hundred pounds because debit card doesn't have section seventy five, you need to specifically ask them to do A chargeback That's the point I was making And this is just a little note from a more relaxed Martin who's finished recording the podcast. interterrupting the Martin who suddenly had to change the whole programe because we were no longer on airon five Live, and we were suddenly doing it podcast only And the note is to say Well done podcast producer Simon, what a hero, you sorted it all out. Thank you very much. Now let's get back on with the actual content. Now I've got a big update for you on car finance missselling. You will remember, millions of people have misssold and are due hundreds of pounds back, although when is a big question. And this is all because in March, the financial regulator, the FCA, announced finally a nine billion pound mass redress scheme for the twelve million misssold motor vehicle finance agreements But this in a way isn't about that, although many of you have questions on that, and we're going to come to those in a moment. This is about the fact that the regulator is now saying Many people who used claims management companies or CMCs Firms of solicitors, which also count as CMCs in this case do their claims for motor finance misselling been misled. and should complain about the CMC So it's like a double whammy. Not only are people complaining about misssold car finance agreements in the first place, but now it has launched a template letter for people to complain about being misled. C by car finance claims management companies. I mean, it's almost tough to get my words around because it's so complicated. I mean, this almost feels like a joke, doesn't it? You've got, have you been misssold Claims management company over your missld car finance agreement? Well, you may have been misssold and you should put a complaint in. It's like a meta case of misselling. So we need to separate it out and understand what's going on So what I want to do first, I'm going to talk about the latest news, which is for those people who are unhappy with their claims firm or those who think it treated you unfairly We'll come on to how you reclaim car finance misselling and whether that's you in a moment because we've been swamped with people's questions on that. Before I go into the details on the claims management firm, Simon, I think we've had a couple of people get in touch over this, haven't we? Yeah, so one of them like Nikki for example, I tried to claim by myself using the form to be told a company had already done it on my behalf I've not instructed anyone to do this on my behalf. I got in touch with the company and they wanted to charge me to close their case when I'd never asked them to Anyone else had this? Yeah, well, very many other people have had that happen to them. That's one of the core things you can complain about under the regulators's template letter. So anybody who has not properly signed up with a claims management firm and found theyre putting a case for them, you can do this. And I will tell you where I think that happens. So you may have seen this on social media G onto social media and they will say, put your details in our checker to find out if you were misssold car finance. H you seen any of that? Yeah, I haveve actually Now, what I suspect you don't realize is if you use their checker In the small print at the bottom is you've just signed up to their claims management firm and to pay them thirty percent for doing it That's one of the big reasons lots of people are unaware they've got a claims management company doing this for them. Now I'm not saying all claims management firms work in that way, but certainly I've been warning about this for a while. So my guess is that's what's happened to Nickki there Is she might have filled out one of those forms just speculatively, you know, you're out scrolling down on your infinite scroll on your Instagram or your Facebook or whatever it is. Oh I'll have a quick check of that. Oh o I' forgot one and moved on And not realize she's just signed up to a claims management firm and to give away, you know thirty percent plus VAT likely of whatever she gets in compensation on the back of this. When she might have been thinking, oh, I'll do that and then I'll go and DIY it and do it myself on the free tools that are out there. Anymore? Yeah, so Lucas he had a gut feeling about this and pulled out of the CMC claim before signing on the dotted line day of the High Court ruling. So I think it's really plain before we get into this for people to understand. two possible routes for reclaiming car finance The easy route is the regulator's mass redress scheme. I mean it's called a mass redress scheme because the car finance firms themselves will have to seek out people who've been misssold even if they don't complain My big warning, you want to put a complaint in. it gets you there quicker and it means there can't be any, we haven't got your information issues. We'll talk more about that in a moment. And there are free tools online that you can complain. I've had four million people use mine. So I mean, they are certainly out there The other alternative, the militant alternative is to go to court. Now if you are going to court, that's where I am warmer to using a claims management company or a law firm to do it for you because you're going to court. Whether you'll actually get much more net is a more open question, because of course, if you do use a claims management firm, you're going to be giving away thirty percent of any winnings you get and the amount a court might award after thirty percent off is not that dissimilar to the type of amounts the regulator's talking about. I'd like the regulator to have been talking about a bit more and that way may well come out in the wash So if you're using this mass redress scheme, you don't need a claims management firm. That's really where this is coming from. So let's go through to what the regulator is saying The first thing it says is you need to work out if you have grounds to complain, which it says tends to boil down to You were signed up without agreeing to it or pressured into it, Well, that's Nicki's case all over, isn't it You were misled about the service, the costs or the chance of success via the claims management firm or you didn't receive information you should have been given, such as fee details or cancellation rights. Now that includes things like If you were already represented by another firm and this CMC didn't check, if it didn't give you a key information summary, it didn't give you a clear breakdown of fees, it didn't tell you about a fourteen day cooling off period, and it didn't tell you crucially about free alternatives or explain how to make a complaint In all of those cases could well have been misled If so, you can go onto the regulator's website, so go onto its front page, scroll down and you'll see it say Car finance compomplaints, Cick Car finance compomplaints, scroll down and somewhere down there it talks about using a CMC a claims management company. And within that bit, you've got this template letter. Now I need to be honest with you, they launched a template letter on Monday I saw it Pightly but nicely got in touch with the regulator and said that template letter doesn't work. Remember most people using this template letter are the type of people who don't want to do DIY claims. They went to a claims management company and it was a really blunt letter. So I've been doing template letters for nearly well not twenty years, eighteen years probably And so I gave some suggestions on how to restructure it and putting a front page on that explained what options people had. They were brilliant. They did that within twenty four hours and the letter now there is much improved, and I think people will find it useful. What they're saying is You can either say, I just want to get out of this free and anyone in that first category being signed up to without agreeing or being pressured into it, you should be able to cancel the contract and not pay for it. So Nikki, you should not be giving any money to that claims management firm and you should be using the regulator's template letter People who are unhappy for other reasons, well it's about reducing the amount of the fee that you're told because this wasn't done properly in the template letters in there The next thing I want to say is and I get questions on this all the time Lots of people say to me, I signed up with the CMC before this whole thing happened. I don't want to use them now. now I know it's so easy to DIY it. what do I do? Well, if you don't have grounds to complain But just feel you want to do it yourself now You do have a right to cancel your claims management company contract though it can charge you a reasonable fee that reflects the work carried out. Now that charge needs to match broadly the work that's been done so far. yet crucially Most car finance complaints are still on hold and at an early stage, so it shouldn't be much. So if you get in touch with them and you say, how much will it cost me to cancel That must be a reasonable fee. If it doesn't feel reasonable, then you can make a formal complaint and tell them, I don't think that's a reasonable fee. I want you to itemize it and I don't want to pay that much money. I just want to get out of this, pay a reasonable fee and go and do it myself. Now the most important point here both on the complaint if you've been misled, but equally if you want to get out of using a claims management company at this point is this. Firms will often reject complaints Thinking you will give up. That mean that's all regulated firms, not just claims management firms, I need to say. You do not have to accept that If you don't think it's resolved your complaint failing in eight weeks You can take the same complaint to the relevant ombudsman, to get it to adjudicate for free It should tell you, the firm should tell you in its paperwork, in its website, in its complaint process, which one of the two Ombudsman is right And the regulator is very, very strong on this You do not have to accept the claims management firm as the adjudicator of what the get out of it contract fee is You have a right to go to the Ombudsman. there are two ombudsmen Is it Ombudsan? Is is it ombudsmanans? I don't know. You've got the claims management Ombudsman, which is part of the financial ombudsman. So that's for firms that are regulated by the FCA Then you've got the legal ombudsman, which is for firms regulated by the solicitor's regulation authority. So you need to look of which is the regulating authority, it shouldn't be this complicated. Which is the regulating authority of your claims management firm and that's the one you're complaining to. The template letter will help. The firm should be telling you this if it rejects your complaint, which ombudsman to go to I mean, just as a side note, sorry frustratingly If you were passed from an FCA regulated claims firm to a solicitor, You may then need to complain separately to each firm and then go to both Ombudsmen. I know. either way. picture on this If your claims management firm You're not happy with it You can complain Either get out of it for free if it misled you or get out of it for a reasonable fee if it didn't. Do be aware though if you have to pay the fee, you'll have to pay the fee now and we're not talking about that compensation coming on car finance misselling till later My big question, Simon, did you get that G it, fully understood and I'm certain you've set a new world record for the most use of the word ombudsman in one answer. Yeah, exactly. I mean, look, I'm glad you got it. and I just say one of the advantages on the podcast, go back and listen to it again if you didn't. What I think we should do now, we've had loads of questions about actual car finance missselling as opposed to cllaims management company misleading over car finance management is selling And all this happened the day I was expecting to be doing it with Adrian and we've had to all reorganise and go quickly and just we're winging this pod only. So hopefully Simon, you've got some questions, I'm going to do some answers. Yes, well that is always the best way around to do it. We've definitely got quite a lot of questions that have come in. First question from Lauren I emailed last June and got a reply saying I did have a DCA discretionary commission arrangement to my agreement and said a pause had been applied to apply until the fourth of december twenty twenty five and then the eight week time frame will start I've not heard anything at all since. I have even emailed to Chase up in April this year with no response. This is from Audi so VWFS. Okay. So let's talk timelines When the regulator announced car finance missselling in March The proposed timeline is things would start in July and those people who had put a complaint in because it's much quicker if you put a complaint in than if the firm is coming to look for you. would start getting payouts by the end of this year What happened is Four companies are trying to do effectively a judicial review over the regulator's decision to do a mass repayment scheme. You have Volkswagen Financial Services, Mercedes Benz Fancial Services, and Credit Agricol Auto Finance Now you can understand they're all car finance firms, they're putting in over the level and the way that the compensation system is working The other company is Consumer Voice which is a limited company which acts as an introducer to group legal claims by solicitors and claims management firms It's being represented by Corax Legal Limited It was the first one to put in that it was going to be doing a complaint about the SEA and it's trying to push that consumers get more compensation So it's pushing for more. The finance firms are clearly, I'm sure pushing for less What we don't know and I have heard mutterings, But I genuinely don't know Consumer voice came first is whether the three financial services firms only put complaints in because Consumer Voice had put a complaint in and they wanted to push it the other way. Whether if Consumer Voice hadn't done that, we might now have the whole scheme running smoothly. Some people have muttered and moted that to me. I have no basis on that either way round Now what the FCA says hoping it' will only be delayed till October which means the payouts for those who complain will be happening sometime in twenty twenty seven and for those who haven't complained, probably in twenty twenty eight. It also says though, most lenders are still committed to implementing the scheme But challenges means timings are uncertain But firms should be responding to any complaints that come in. What they won't be doing though is making a decision on the back of it. So look This is very frustrating, I know for many people because it's been delayed and delayed and delayed. The regulator we thought had got it out, we thought it was all going to happen, and then these complaints came in and everything's just being on hold another five or six months. So that's that. Jay Maverick, would there be any further interest from how long the process is taking Lewis, he refers to you as Well, Maverick, I feel like I'm top gun S meet Tom Cruise? was that? No, Deinitely I you many things Son, but Tom Cruise is not one of them Yeah, well there will be, there will be further interest, the delay. I mean, in the Again, assuming everything continues as it was already planned to. one of the things being challenged is the level of interest. I challenged that too. and they did change that after the consultation period. I was one of the people who put in a consultation saying the interest was too low The interested you will get will be set at the Bank of England base rate plus one percent for all the years that you had the car finance So if it is delayed by a year, I mean, what is banking inc the base rate at the moment? So youre going to be getting a little short of five percent when you add that one percent on top of. for the delay this year. So Maverick, I can say yes you will be getting further interest due to the delay. John Davis says they shouldn't be allowed to delay because a few greedy people think they are owed more appalling I mean, that's certainly one viewpoint that I've heard a lot and when that initial consumer voices challenge came in I did a poll on whether people would prefer you know, for a push to get more payment and they get a bigger payout or they prefer everything to be quicker And from memory, the result was most people just wanted it to be quicker and were disappointed at the delay that was coming in So that consumer voice, which as I say, acts as an introducer to group legal claims firms, it did do that and that was its decision, and you're entitled to your opinion on it Joel Yeah, I mean, Kerry agrees with him. She says, I'd have prefer the option to have a payout or await further court proceedings. seems to be going on forever. I've heard that view a lot. James's asking, is it still too late to claim and where do I find your template? It is absolutely not too late to claim Now assuming everything continues the way it's going The most important thing you need to do is get a complaint in. twow reasons for that. One because the if you get a complaint in rather than waiting for them to come and find you Assuming that you were misssold, you will be paid out sooner. I mean there's lots of delays, but you'll still be ahead in the queue. But the most important reason I would say is One of the issues we have with these claims is while firms have to try and track down people who are missold, it goes all the way back to two thousand seven Because of that, clearly are documents that are missing, you may have moved house, they may not be able to contact you. There are loads of problems when they're going to come to finding people. They have to make best efforts, but that doesn't mean they're going to find everyone. So I would far prefer people putting a complaint with their details with as much information as they have and that will make it easier for firms to track you down. Let's just do who's eligible bit here. So first of all It has to be motor vehicle finance, which is car van, motorbike and camper vans, not caravans because they don't have a motor It has to be a financial agreement from the sixth of april two thousand seven to the first of november twenty twenty four. Those are the eligible dates and it's the date you got the finance. People always ask me, what about the first of april two thousand seven? No, this is a strict date. It's about regulation and when that regulation started. Although one of the challenges that's happening in court is when it should start. So that date could change depending on what happens in the court finance types Personal contract purchases or PCPs as like more commonly known, and higher purchase, not least cars Leasing doesn't count. The vehicle must primarily be for personal use in most cases, although sole traders and small partnerships for work If the finances under twenty five thousand pounds can count. If you have multiple car finance deals or motor finance deals, which is common, you will be due multiple payouts. Each one is a separate thing. The fact you've had more than one does not discount it If you paid the vehicle off, if you no longer own it This is about the finance. So the fact you don't have the vehicle, the fact you paid it off doesn't matter. It's about Were you effectively misssold and charged too much interest because of the commission And thats those are the prime things. I'll go through in a little bit what the three different ways that you were miss sold. Now. You ask me about complaining, is it too late to complain? This is the big bit you got to get in your head At the moment There is no way for any individual to know they were missold without complaining because part of the complaints process is to ask and the free template letters that are out there, this is what they do. They ask the key questions to find out the information if you were misssold. And the reason that there's no way for you to know is the whole point of the missselling is that they did not disclose to you the activities that they were doing that have seen to be misssold. So you cannot know because if you did know, you wouldn't have been misssold. So the only way to know if you're misssold is to ask. Did you do this? Because I don't know, ' you didn't tell me, because that's the whole way that it worked. So that's why you have to be considering putting a complaint in. As for where to put the complaint in, I don't know if I'm allowed to say am I Simon Is there a website has a very popular and charismatic podcast host that has I believe there is a website that has a very popular and charismatic podcast to host, but also there's a money website that I'm involved in Oh Look, I mean, I can't give the website name out. Hopefully, you work out for yourself. There are other places I've got templates too. My tool has had four million people use it, so you can probably find it for yourself or you can may be able to find another template out there that will work for you too. So But there's certainly a lot of DIY resources out there that can help What's the next question? Now, so Jackie, she asked a question that came up quite a few times on the very long list that I get down to a long list that you then get down to a short list that gets us into this position of asking the questions And she wants to know, can I claim on behalf of my husband who died last year Yes, you can, you can claim, depending on the circumstances, it's either the primary beneficiary who can complain or the executor of the will, who can put in a complaint on behalf of someone who's deceased. The fact someone who has passed away does not stop you complaining. However I've already talked about my concern about car finance firms, even though they are mandated to try and find people who've been missold finding people because of documentation issues Clearly that gets even more difficult if we're talking, they have to find out Wh is the appropriate person for them to be paying miss selling compensation to for somebody who's passed away? So in this case, I would even more strongly push you towards putting in a complaint You can use the same free template letters to put in a complaint going through the SCA's mas redress scheme that I've just talked about. what I would do if you're doing that you'll need to adapt the letter so that the complaint information is about the deceased person, but you're also noting within the letter that you're acting either as a primary beneficiary or the executor and your name, your relationship to that person, and your contact details too. Not a very difficult amendment. know The obvious administrative stuff that they would need to know that you're doing the complaint because this person passed away. When that happens, they will want proof of the death certificate and other things. But just get the complaint in with that basics in the letter. Now the other thing that people find difficult Because I talk about as well as the free complaint tools, there is another tool out there, which is Equifax has a car finance complaint tool via its app. whichich if you go into it, can try and find you all the car finance agreements that you've had since two thousand seven And I've had great feedback from it. I need to say it isn't universal. Not every single car finance agreement is in there. But many people who've lost their car finance details have told me they found it really helpful. and it produces the details that you can then put into one of those free tools or template letters out there If somebody has passed away You can't use it to find the information of someone who's passed away But if you get in touch about Equifax's help system So you need to go online and you can call it or you can use its web chat or you can write to it via email on its help system Tell them that you're doing a car finance complaint on behalf of someone who's passed away can then provide you with the information, but again, for obvious and understandable reasons, it's going to need proof that you're the legitimate person to give that information to, you know proving debath certificate and primary beneficiary. Now I need to be honest, I've been talking about that now for a couple of months I've not yet had feedback from anyone who's been through that process of using Equifax to track information for the primary beneficiary. So hopefully it's working, but I don't have the feedback on it So I think that answers the question there. Joanne wants to know, I used your template for making a claim on one car, but have now remembered another car I had on finance Will I have to claim that separately, please or will all claims in my name be under one? Well, the most important thing you haven't told me, Joanne, is whether the claim is with the same car finance firm If it's with the same car finance firm, it is possible they will look at both claims in one But I would still get in touch with them and ask to update what you sent them originally with the details of the second car finance agreement If it is with a separate firm, you need to put in a totally separate complaint. I think what sort of getting the indication and I don't know because I've only got the words that you wrote. that you sort of feel like there's a big mask scheme out there where it's all going into this regulator's pot. It's not The regulator is mandating each motor finance firm to handle the complaints that come into it. So each motor finance firm is handling this separately. So certainly if you've got two motor finance firms, they are entirely separate and you have to treat them as completely separate cases. Sara wants to know, will they still find you if you don't fill out a claim form They will still look for you if you don't fill out a claim form provided they have the details of your car finance agreement But you've already heard me quite strongly push you to put in a complaint. Let's just explore that a little bit more Companies wantce your Business is over with them. Under data protection rules, often talk about an obligation to destroy your information after about six years so that not holding on information too long. Now this can be interpreted in many ways But effectively, if you had a car finance agreement for let's say, three or four years and then it ended over six years ago, they might not have your information, but Equifax might have your information and you might have your information. So you ask me, will I still find you If you fill in a claims form Well, they will still be obliged to look for you, but they may not find you because they don't have details of your car finance or motor finance agreement. They might not have details of your current address or how to contact you. So all of that means you would be better putting in a complaint to tell it, this is my car finance details if you can find them, or even if you can't just to say I had car finance with you It was from this period. whatever you can give them, the more you can give them, the better and to make sure they've got your updated contact details. Alex When it was announced a few years ago, I used your template to contact Black Horse Now I just get an email from them every few months saying they will contact me in twenty eight days and repeat. Is there anything I can do to chase it up No, this is just a symptom of the hold and the legal delay. You know, it was alady to kick off and then this has to be put on halt. So I'm actually not going to blame Black Horse, which is part of Lloyd's. They are at least keeping you up to date with what's going on. and the honest truth is what's going on is we're all sitting on our hands waiting for the court to decide. So there is nothing to chase up. They are not going to do anything until later on this year when hopefully we have a court decision. Gavin, is there a risk that we may not get the payouts at all that we will have to go byia the courtroom and won't be automatic It's a very incisive question, Gavin. And yes is the answer I think And some of the conversations I've had with people in the background about this challenge is I mean there is always the existential threat that this challenge stops this mass redress scheme And I think even more so, there is a larger existential threat. that it stops all mass redress schemes in future whichich I personally would be very, very depressed if that happens You know, ultimately, for all the years and all the misselling campaigns I've over the years. weve got a billion pounds back for people on bank charges through my templates, we've got over ten billion pounds back for people on PPI. in all these cases where Companies were deliberately and systemically trying to profit or mislead customers People have said to me Why do we have to complain? If they missold, Why don't they just give us our money back O under this mass redress scheme, that is what the regulator is creeping towards doing. People who haven't complained will have to be contacted and will have to be given money Now while I agree to an extent that the actual payout levels the regulator is giving have been watered down and are less than you going to call. Because there are so many people who've been misssold and just don't know how to do it, who are information disenfranchised, who are vulnerable, who don't have the time, who've gone the wrong route and in some cases who haven't heard about this or think it's all a scam because of the way that some claims management firms have gone about advertising it will miss out and I think that's wrong and I'm a supporter of the master redress scheme But it is under threat So there's a number of outcomes here. The first outcome is all the court cases lose and we just get on with it in exactly the same system The second is that there is a tweak either up or down to the eligibility and payment criteria in what the FCA has said about its mass redress scheme, but things carry on The third is the FCA decides that because of a court ruling It cannot continue with the mas redress scheme, in which case people will need to make individual complaints and would still be able to go to the financial Ombudsman But the basis, it's going to be much more all over the place or people could of course go to court. and then at the extreme case, of course there could be a ruling that none of this is relevant anyway and you're not entitled to money. But then I still think people would still be able to go to court. And that would, of course, which is rather interesting where the complaints come from, if everyone had to go to court, that would put a lot more customers in the hands of claims management companies So Gaviniel, is there a risk? Yes And finally, Louise wants to know, has anyone who applied for the payout even had an acknowledgement of all their requests Yeah, I mean, you should definitely have had an acknowledgement and millions of people have had acknowledgement. Some companies are really pants at this you may at this point, they should absolutely be acknowledging you and if you put your complaint in and you haven't heard, I would absolutely be getting back in touch with them at this point to say what's happening Anmore That s. think I'm just thinking anything I haven't told you. I think I should probably explain the three different types of misselling which is the one thing that I haven't done. I'm not going to do this in over detail. But just to give you a picture First is discretionary commission arrangements and that's the big one This is where the interest that you paid was increased pay the dealer or broker extra commission without you being told that that was happening. So effectively, there was a premium added to the interest rate in order to pay more commission Now that's a DCA and that's where it all started and my original template letters only covered that They were banned on the twenty eighth of january twenty twenty one So even though you can complain to a later date, you're only complaining about DCAs till that date. Now many people, the original template letters and even the current ones, one of the questions they ask is, did you have a discretionary commission arrangement If you have had a response to that saying, yes, you did have a discretionary commission arrangement then You are very likely if the FCA scheme goes ahead to be entitled to money back. You know, it should be in the high hundreds of pounds, But exactly how much you get depends on when you had the discretionary commission arrangement, what the level of commission was, what the size of your agreement was If you were told you didn't have a discretionary commission arrangement, you may still have been misssold. Now if you only put in a complaint about discretionary commission arrangements Firm will have to look at the other cases, but you won't be in that comp I've complained group who are at the head of the distribution table who will get their money first. If you put in one of the early template letters on discretionary commommission arrangements and were told you didn't have one, I'd be putting in another complaint now over the other two types of misselling. which are contractual ties That's where a broker didn't tell you it worked primarily with one lender There is an exemption here that now that if it was obvious capture, so a Volkswagen dealer with Volkswagen finance doesn't count within this But effectively, if they didn't tell you it was working with one lender, so you thought you were going to a competitive panel of car fin financiers It's not an easy word off car financiers They then effectively save one company first dibbs, it got you and they didn't put it to a panel, againg, you could have been misssold and there's millions of agreements who have potentially misssold there final category unfairly high commission. This is where commission paid to brokers or dealers was thirty nine percent or more of the total cost of credit and ten percent or more of the total size of the loan The regulator sees that as excessive In all these cases, just to remind you It's only misselling if you weren't told and didn't have it overtly declared to you. really see that as a get out Hopefully That has given you all the information that you need Okay, one final story I just want to do in this podcast. I need to say, if you saw me online, you might have seen we were going to be talking about haggling and different ways to haggle and secrets of the call center in our tellers. I'm going to hold that because I think that works better when I do it with Adrian and we'll do it in the five live podcast next week. I will of course be doing a mastermind there. I have one all written and ready to go.'s good one too. I'm slightly disappointed. I haven't done it. Hopefully you're not too disappointed and that you've got some decent info out of this podcast. Now The fininal point is I want to warn you to beware British airways questestionable behaviour as it pushes people to overpay for ESTAs and other travel permits This all came from a tweet I got. Can you still call it a tweet? You can't call it an ex. What would you call it? Is it an ex post? I'm going to call it a tweet. It all came from a tweet I got r Andy RFC Chairman on obviously it was on X because it's a twe He said, very disappointing to see that British airways are now directing their customers who require an ESTA to a third party site, SirPa who charge for their service, rather than going through a direct link to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection site So my brilliant team did more work into it and absolutely right British Airways is directing customers to a travel permit tool on its website powered by a firm called SirPa. And if you then go through that and it sort of says, we'll help you work out what visas you want. So it's a visa tool But within it it talks about travel permits. If you then go through it and you apply You will pay more than you would going to the official websites. So for example, when we checked, Sherpa charged fifty one pounds for a US ESTA, Esther that costs about thirty id when bought directly from the US government while an Australian EVisa which is totally free If you go direct, costs seventeen pounds if you go via SirPa. The same is true too, that you're going to pay more for a Canadian ETA and a New Zealand ETA and I suspect once the European system sets up later on this year, they will be doing the same there. So my warning to you careful going through these third party sites you need to be aware that you'll be paying more. Now Sherper told us that its service fee is shared between Sirpa and its airline partners Which, if so, means British airways will be making money from this tool on the access. Though neither Sherpen nor BA would tell us how the fee is split. So my overall summary here Is I doubt most people would really pay seventeen pounds for an Australian E visa document If they knew they could easily click to get it for free from the official route So I suspect a material number of people Do pay don't know, they don't need to And that means that our national flag carrier British Airways For me feels a little bit less like it's acting like a flagship and a little bit more like it's acting like a pirate ship It's not the only one though We've seen Sirpers tool on Thomas Cook and Virgin Atlantic We've seen tour operator Saga operating v a different system, which is even more expensive than SirPa when you go through it. So let me be really play If you want an Australian E visa, go to the Australian Government's Home Affairs website where it's free. If you want a Canadian ETA, Go to the Canadian Government's ETA website where you'll be led through the process answering just a few simple questions If you want the European Travel Information and authorization systemystem, the ETIAS It hasn't started yet. So anyone who's promising to get you one They're wrong and they're a shyter. so don't touch them New Zealand ETA, New Zealand immmigration website, U ESTA, go to the EstA website All other visas and travel permits, the rule of thumb go through the UK Government's foreign Commonwealth and Development Office site, the SEO site, and it'll link you to the right site for your information Do not pay more than you need I don't think it's that good that now airlines are just trying to grab an extra digital snack on your cash when it's unnecessary for getting you travel permits and visas too. Do let me know if you've seen them and if you paid and you didn't realize, Get in touch at Martin Lewis podcast at bbc. co. uk. And I think that probably is the place to end S Perfect Hi producer Simon here British Airways and Sherpper have both got in touch with their response to what Martin has said British Airways says we serve customers traveling to hundreds of different destinations where entry requirements vary by nationality and route taken with some requirements changing at short notice We offer an optional third party service to assist with this and check requirements all in one place and for some destinations an optional service to help with applications We make it clear that customers must check the full entry requirements with the relevant government directly It's also clear that SirPa is a third party provider may charge additional fees. Customers can apply directly via official government channels Al also linked on the same page which are clearly displayed And Sherpt CEO Max Tremaine got in touch saying We are transparent about the difference between the government fee and the Sherd service fee and depending on the integration We often give the option to go directly to the government system. Before payment should provide an itemized cost breakdown including the government fee and our fee Travelers up to use Sira because our product make the application process quicker, easier to complete, and we provide application support. unlike many government sites and minimizing the likelihood of repeating applications N to the pod A different podcast this week. It is a different podcast. It wasn't what we were planning to do. I hope people have found it useful and interesting too. And thank you very much for stepping into the breach Simon to ask me the questions as we go through. Well I'm just grateful you didn't make me do myajoring in Charles. But Lanceley was here, would have been able to just do it seemamless. I would quite like to hear your agan Charles's impression. Do you have one Be I have more. I do it when I do the podcast. What sh we do next Okay, let' shall we do it together? Same words. One, two, three. Martin, What do we do next You you tell this to me, Mart Bye And that is it for this week. We tend to put out a new episode every Thursday and Monday. Monday is our Qestion time podcast where you can ask me absolutely anything and everything open brackets within reason, closed brackets