Challenging Illegal Retailer Returns Policies

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Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts My podcast is intimate. We all know each other in this podcast. It is quite complicated and it can be a bit convoluted. You do not get punished for poor signal. you will still definitely get your badg. You've asked at a very fortuitous time. Thank you so much for calling. I'll regard. Thank you for having me. If no one else is doing it, the question time crew work. Hello and welcome to the cingly named the Martin Lewis podcast I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time Edition, where you get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything open brackets within Bes and closed brackets This week you ask me, canan I ditch my new fix to move to a new provider if I'm still within the fourteen day cooling off period? Where do I put a big lump sum after a house sale? I had a financial light bulb moment, but my partner isn't seeing it. What do I do? And finally, we write, A consumer writes wrong. Play the theme tune Hello and welcome to the Question Time Edition of our podcast. It's lovely to have you on board. This is the bit where you can ask me anything and everything you like, open brackets within Reason glosed brackets And as regular listeners will know, I do not do this by myself. Oh no, heaven forbid, Tish Tosh. I am joined by the curator of questQuestions himself Our venerable producer Professor. Sir. Matthew Burnham Esquire Hello I don't know why that was funny. It was your hello. Hello.ll Hello, Matt. And as I always do need to say, all of those titles are absolutely official within the canon of the podcast, but completely made up outside the canon of our podcast. Now I wanted to tell you something that will excite you, Matt. Okay I like this a lot. So My wonderful thirteen year old daughter, Sappha has started listening to the uestion Time podcast because she I' played her some bits from it and she liked it and she now listens off her own back. Oh really? She does. And on Friday I think I can tell people we record question time on a Thursday. We do. Matt Aictics on a Friday morning sends me a copy to listen just in case there's anything in it that I just want to go, o I might have suddenly realized I said that wrong or something like that And then I give them a little couple of notes and then it's done and we put it up on the Monday, which you will all know because you listen to. On the Friday I had listened to the podcast and I called Matt to do a bit of feedback than I had you on speaker. I was sitting in the kitchen and Safar had walked in And we had a little tat and I put it down and she looked up and went, What's that mat? Oh. Was that Matt? She was quite excited that that was Matt from the podcast who was on the phone So within I think Matt withithin the canon of the podcast Maybe I should start calling you The one and only celebrity prorofessorir Dr. Matthty Burnham Esquire. I'll take anything to be fair. You can give me any titles and I'll gladly have That's so sweet. Yeah. Is isn't it nice? Yeah I hope you don't mind me saying that, darling, because you're probably listening now. Anyway, let's get on with the to my daughter, obviously not to you Mat. Yes. Should we do a question? Yeah we'll start with one from Ross. He's emailed it in to Martin Lewis podcast at bbc. co. uk. He starts Dia, Martin and Matt great Fine it you see? No, it's good. No,'s good. Thats format now. could have been. I won' btle it's Martin the. Okay, Matt Martin I've won it. It's over, it's. And I think that's the right footmap He says I have a question about switching energy during the cooling off period of a previous energy switch We have an electric only and have been with home Eergy because even though it's a variable tariff price under the price cap So it's always been cheaper than the cheapest fix when I've checked on a comparison site Quick interruption from me. Absolutely right. Now we always talk about getting off the price cap. A price cap tariff is any standard variable tariff, the bog standard default tariff that an energy provider has But home energy is a different player Because what it does is it standard variable tariff is actually much cheaper than the price cap. So it's variable, the price can move, but it has tended so far to be a lot cheaper than the price cap. So it's sort of the one anomaly under the price cap, but you have to accept that it is variable. Now I have to say, there are quite a number of times when there have been cheaper fixed tariffs than home energy available. Obviously not the time that Ross has been checking. But yeah, quite right. Normally I talk about the price cap being a pants cap, the home energy price cap currently and they could change it, currently is not a pants cap because it's basically just a cheap variable tariff. Do carry on with the question, sorry for interrupting. That's okay. He goes on say, however, following the predicted big rise to the price gap in July and that some firmsrently thirteen percent predicted. Okay I'm interrupting. you're not. I. It's not normal stuff, but I'm going to do it just for this. keepeep going. And that some firms have recently released some cheaper fixes. I checked again and found that Eon had a thirteen month fix that was slightly cheaper than what we're currently paying. So I went with this My question is, if an even cheaper fix came out while I'm still within the fourteen day cooling off period, could I switch again directly with EN without having to pay an early exit fee or would I have to cancel with Ion, go back to home energy then start a new switch from Home Energy to avoid paying the early exit fee with Eon And if I can switch directly from Eon would the new switch just have to be started within the fourteen day cooling off period to avoid the early exit fee, or would it have to complete within the cooling off period? No, the first thing is you can cancel within a cooling off period. So if you're within the cooling off period, it's the point of cancellation that matters, not the point of switch that matters. So once they've told them that you're canceling, that's how it works It is quite complicated and it can be a bit convoluted. But the basic answer First of all, if you're in your cooling off period The big thing that counts is have they actually switched you or not yet If they haven't switched you yet you can choose to either Switch it or move the cancelling period or just cancel it and you'll stay where you are. You haven't switched. you're basically, you're within the cooling off period, you're just canceling the switch to where you were and then so in your case you'd move from home energy to the new one If you have switched and you're still in your cooling off period, you tell your new supplier that you want to cancel and they should give you your options And you'll have fifteen working days from that point when they explain your options to either agree a new contract with your new supplier, agree a new contract with your old supplier, or agree a new contract with a different supplier Basically You say If you have switched, you say actually, I don't want to be with you. I want to cancel switch. I'm going to move elsewhere And then you've got fifteen days to sort that out, fifteen working days to sort that out is the honest answer Now, just a bigger picture on that question And I'm going to be honest here, Matt, this has been one of my biggest panics over the last few weeks. Why So We went for quite a long period after the start of the Middle East conflict where there were no fixes cheaper than the current Price c And the price cap, which sixty percent of the nation are on and basically unless you're on a special tariff, unless you're on a fix, unless you've chosen to be on the tariff, you're on the price cap if you're in England, Scotland and Wales. is likely to go up. It's currently predicted to go up thirteen percent ish in July It might be eleven percent, it might be fifteen percent, but it's going to be somewhere around that order. And then much more crystal ballgazing, once you get to the next price cap move in October, it's predicted to stay about the same as the July price cap and predicted to go up again in January. But those could change quite radically because the world was so volatile at the moment But it currently looks like the price g' going to get more expensive So then we have this period where once the ceasefire was announced, because world wholesale rates dropped on the hopes that the straits of Hormuz would open up you were then able to get fixes below the energy price capap. So I came out and said, look, And I was very careful with my language actually. I came out and said, lookook, if you're risk averse, if you don't want your prices to rise, you can currently fix. It's only one percent two percent cheaper than the current price cap. But that price cap is certainly going up in July and may stay high the rest of the year. So this is a way of guaranteeing you won't have any price hcks I did even say And because I'm careful, I said But I can't promise with hindsight it will be the cheapest because of course prices could get cheaper And then it did get about a percent or two cheaper. And I was because I racked myself with guilt, going, oh no, I could have waited a week and people would have saved an extra one percent. Of course, I didn't know that because it was bas sort based on what Donald Trump does, and nobody knows the mind of Donald Trump. so might argue not even Donald Trump himself, but I would never say such a thing. And so because of all that I'm sitting there going, didid I call too early? didid I call too early? And then of course, of course, the ceasefire fell down somewhat. It's still there to an extent, but the negotiations haven't happened. wholesale rates have gone back up and fixes have got more expensive again. So I was calling it a window of opportunity and it was a window of opportunity Even though I'd done all the caveats and even though Id talked about it in Risk ofverse you know, and saying, o if you're risk averse, this is better than the price cut because it stays I know And well, let's just be blunt because this is, you know,Qion T podcast is intimate. We all know each other in this podcast. We do. you know, And the listeners as well, they get this as a sort of safe space to talk I know that lots of people listen to me and do stuff because I tell them to even if they don't necessarily understand it. It always petrifies me when someone says, I don't understand what you talk about, but I do everything you say. I mean, that's the worst thing because my whole point is you have to understand it. And I thought maybe they haven't read the caveats that this is, if you're risk averse and I'm not saying because you know, then I'm not saying this is definitely the best thing to do and now it's got one percent cheaper. So I had a couple of days of going I hope I've done the right thing, I hope've done the right. There's a lot of pressure when you know because a lot of people acted on the back of that call out. Anyway, that's just a little side message. But as it happened, becausecause unfortunately, sadly, what's gone in the Middle East as much better as we thought it was going to Then wholesale rates have gone up back up a little bit again and some of those fixtes have got more expensive again. so it was a window of opportunity, but you just don't know that. It's quite tough to make the call So Everybody we're about to move to the second question. Normally I predict what it's going to be. reggular listeners, say to yourself what's it going to be now I can hear you all saying, It's a caller, Martin. It's got to be a caller. Matt always puts a caller second in the podcast. Matt, is it a caller? Do what I might do? I might just one week switch the order up completely, throw you off. No it's not me throwing off. it's all the listeners, Matt I'. I I won't's caller,att It's a caller. It's a caller. David in Berkshire, Hi, David Hello howarding? Hello David. Wlcome to the podcast I feel very privileged. So my wife and I are just about to complete on the sale of a flat in London and we'll have about a four hundred thousand pound lump sum. It's our only property and we've been renting out for the last thirteen years.ue to Crently living in free job related accommodation. My wife and I are not in a rush to buy and it may take a year or more to find the right property for us As this money will be needed for that future purchase, I'm not looking to invest it or lock it in. and we'll just throw that one away. If you're keeping it for the long term, obviously investment can outperform savings for long term money you don't need, But that's gone here. We don't have investment in The cupboard has had investment removed from it. Carry on Yes So we want to be able to move on the property if we find that one. So my wife and I have already Oh no. Oh no You' in the middle of your question now and your line drop said so we've never moved onto a phone. and because we've gone for old school technology, do carry on where you were So I was saying I'm a high rate taxpayer and my wife is near the top of the basic rate tax bracket My current plan is to use fifty thousand each in premium bonds alongside high interest accounts and perhaps regular savor accounts to maximise the interest. Have you used your r? yes Yes. so I've both of us have used our Ier this year already. I have a couple of specific questions. Am I right in thinking we should put some money in my wife's name to gain interest but not tip her into the higher rate as she would lose five hundred pounds of the interest allowance And am I missing any sensible options for short term stroke, no no risk investment savings. Okay, so David, you've asked at a very fortuitous time and I will come on to why in a moment. We'll go through the standard practice though First thing, let's talk about savings safety protection. Do you know how your money is protected in savings at the moment limit. U and under the lifetimevent clause six months is that what you're asking? I was. I wanted to see if you knew about that. It does come under the lifetime event for six months. You're protected up to one point four million pounds per person per financial institution. Because you've sold your house and inheritance would do the same thing, you get much bigger protection for the short term in the unlikely event that the Bankle builduilding society you put your money in went bust You've been protected up to one point four million pounds The rule after that is the standard one hundred twenty thousand pounds per person per financial institution. but right now you'd have one point four million pounds. Having said that, you're looking to keep money for the longer term, so there's a question The obvious things first is that you're going to be paying tax on the interest because You know, you're a high rate taxpayer, you've used up your personal savings allowance and all the other allowances. You've done your IS, you've got money in premium bonds Generally, I poo poo premium bonds because the rate isn't that high and for most people, unless you're maxing it out and you pay tax on your savings With typical luck, you would beat it in normal savings, but you are maxing it out and you do pay tax on your savings. So therefore it becomes quite a good deal for you So the next question that we would normally look at is we would normally look at What different routes are there for maximizing your money in the short term and spreading the money into different accounts Well Matt, add a record screech here becausecause just launched in the last week are new fixed rate savings from NSNI. NSNI is the state owned financial institution Now the important thing about NSNI is normally when we talk about the financial serervices compomensation scheme protection up to one hundred twenty thousand pounds per person per financial institution, ultimately that is backed up by the government But with NSNI, all of it is backed up by the government So effectively, all the money you put in there is government backed because it's state owned And normally the rates aren't that great, but just now it's launched these fixed rate savings accounts. They're just fixed rate savings. It calls them bonds. They're still taxable just like any other fixed rate savings But the rates, normally the rates in NS andI fixed rate savings are way below the best buys. The rates of these are only about zero point two percent below the best buys You've got a one year fix at four point five percent or two year fix at four point four or eight percent or three, you fix at four point four five percent, a five year fix at four point four percent. And with all of them, you can put up to a million pounds in there. So you could put four hundred thousand pounds in there and it's absolutely backed by the government So one option you have is you could take your four hundred thousand and you could put it in a one year fix because I think you're sort of indicating you won't be buying within the next year, David Well, no, that's the point I do want to have that option. o move on a profitably find the one and converncing is what five. Oh, I got all excited. Matt, can you No, we'll still keep the record screreeched because it's important information for other people. You I mean? What do you have here You could e count extra rates with notice accounts where you have to give notice to buy, but the highest at the moment aren't really beating easy access. You could be looking at six month fixes. Again, the highest at the moment aren't beating the chase account. Do you have a chase account This one I looked out when I went on to to a website er very good. So yeah, I mean, you and your wife could separately have money in chase up to one hundred twenty thousand each and get that protection. Obviously for the first six months, you get the full protection. That's paying you four point five percent. After that, you're starting to drop down the rec. There isn't really anything clever if you want access to it occasionally we get fixed rate savings And you've used your ISA so you can't use the fixed cash ISA that would give you access. Occasionally there' a fix rate savings account that give you access within the term if you close the account down for a small interest penalty. There aren't any of those available at the moment So it is it's just easy access. If you're not if you don't want to use the NSNI one, it's just easy access So what you're saying is put all the money into chase initially and then after six months, then I can move that over to then spread the protection into the different accounts. Absolutely. you might have a better idea of whether you could then lock money away in that time. And put you could put it in yours and your wife's name. You asked about the tax. Absolutely right. spouses can move money between you So anyone who is who's married or in a civil partnership can move money between them without any tax implications. So putting money in your wife's name m be joint money anyway is sensible I'm so sorry I couldn't come up with anything extra clever And I do think for everybody else listening, those NSNI accounts, if you've got a large lump sum you're sitting on that you're going to need access to, so you're not going to invest it or put it elsewhere. Those are really useful because of the million pounds is effectively protected Uutter only just below life events al hopefully well, I was scared I wasn't going to get my badg. you're getting your badge. You're getting you do not get punished for poor signal. You will still definitely get your badge. You will be the third recipient of badges once they are made. And thank you for your call C it out. Cars We've got Marcello in Bournemouth. Hi Marcello Hello Hi Marcello. Welcome. What can we do for you? H me. So just for a little bit of context. so I'm forty one and I recently had a financial wakeup. kind of call it A light bulb moment Yeah And my wife kind of shut down when I tried to get her on board. I ion would be how do I approach her? without ha m theyaking't feel criticized. And what should they prioritize for So I need sort of an idea of bigger picture. Is this you suddenly realize that your finances weren't organized and you didn't have the right products and you weren't budgeting? Is it that type of light bulb moment you're talking about Well, she always kept things very simple. were very effective. but we always only had one account for everything and I now come to realize that you know the money maybe to cashize, you know, that money can give us a bit extra money. Y Budgeting, you know or investing a little bit. So I went full long and maybe I came on a little bit too strong Yeah and I was trying to hce my ideas to her And she kind of was criticizing her for what she's been doing, which it was not my intention at all So can I ask you between uss Masona Does your wife know you're coming on the podcast? She does now martine because she saw the email Okay What I would say because if your wife is going to listen, I may as well, what's your wife's name? Katherine I've been doing this a long time. What happened to Marcelo is actually quite a common thing. That's why I use the phrase light bulb moment People have an epiphany and they suddenly realize there's so much more that you can do with money And like any convert to anything They get quite excited at the moment that that happens And so Marcello's excitement in talking to you is really common I am constantly learning more stuff about money as I go through my life, and I think that we all are And it sounds to me like you have been very organized in what you do with the finances But there are two skills to financial management. and it's interesting because some people have one, some people have the other, but actually both is the best way to go. And for me, I hope there's an opportunity here for the two of you to work well together It sounds like Katherine has the budgeting skill, which is absolutely core, keeping your money together, making sure you're not overspending, making sure that everything is in hand And that's absolutely crucial The second skill is the product skill which is saying, have we got the best deals on anything and everything for someone who's never worked through all the different bills. and never gone to find out having all the money in the right place. The savings are potentially fifteencent to twenty percent available So you know, if you're talking, that can easily be for doing it right fifteen hundred two thousand pounds a year. that you can have more in your pocket than otherwise And I would hope Maybe if I that's not for me to safve for Marcel, but if Marcel came on a bit strong with it, I actually hope that this is a journey you could have together. I would love both of you come on board and start listening to the podcast regularly we can all do it together You know, and that's not you know, the three of us doing it together is probably a phrase you shouldn't use in this type of environment, butope I hope you get what I'm saying in a positive way So ultimately I mean, I'm presuming this is because you had the epiphany that it came down and it's about the product. And you're right absolutely right, but there are some people out there who are great with financial products and who are terrible at budgeting and their finances still don't work. And there are some people who are great at budgeting and bad with financial and not even bad with financial products, don't focus on the financial products and they're not maximizing what they have. And I would love it for you two to have both So maybe Marcelo, it's actually a discussion not about what you do, but the first discussion is Who's going to do what? how are we going to operate this? Let's give it a try. You know see it as an experiment I think would be the best way to go forward And as for what you do first, you don't have any debts, do you No, we don't have any debts and We do have a safe amount that we always thought, you know He do as long as we don't go below that. okay. There are easy little things you can do to start that will just make you feel good. So say get yourself a Lloyd's ultra credit card, makeake sure you pay it off in full every month so there's no interest. Do that for all your normal spending, have a direct debit set up to pay it off in full because that pays you one percent cashback on all your spending. And also if you go abroad it gives do you tend to travel a lot When we can ye. Well I'm from Brazil, so every couple of years we have. So when you go and you pay from your UK account in Brazil, you use the Lloyds card that it gives you near perfect exchange rate and for the first year it gives you one percent cash back too It's often when you want to start it, it's the little obvious non contentious things to start to builder, we could do this on more And in fact, if you listen back to, I think it was Matt was it a week or two ago when we had the couple who who did so well, two weeks ago, I think. So if you listen back to the podcast two weeks ago, the Question Time podcast, we had a couple there who were working together and they were thousands of pounds better off. So all of this is about how much effort you want to put in, but it can actually be quite fun working through the finances together. And hopefully Catherine, we haven't upset you and you're fine with us talking about like this Maybe the two of you could come on the pod in the future. That may be the way to do this Come on together I wish you the best, Marcello. Thank you so much for calling Thank you very. I can only remember hello in Brazilian. It's oi. I can't remember Babae. What's Babae in Portuguese. Cho should beow. Obrigado Obrigado. Thanks thank you.. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah we go. There's a pige in Portuguese. Thank you so much for calling. Obrigado. Thank you for having me We're short of studio time for recording today, so there's no funny Matt. A But all of our S squires, thank you very much for getting in touch if you're an Ssquire. If you've got more questions, it's Martin Lewis podcast at bBc d. co. Uk and just addressed it to Dar Martin, Dar Mat. Dar Martin, Dar Matt, You see we got one of those in. We don't have time for a funny, we've got time for a bicker Now Matt I'm going to stop you for a second because I have an update that you don't have in your schedule You may remember we had a caller a few weeks ago about a website called You knownow Who And what he asked was, I've tried contacting them, telling them that their consumer rights are wrong. But I don't know what to do because they're not changing them Through the magic of podcasting, now I've warned you about this, you're now gonna add that clip, aren't you, Mat Yeah. Here we go. I have a question from Paul. he has emailed in. He says, Hi, Martin and Matt. I have a question about stubborn retailers who ignore UK consumer law. I've been looking at the returns policy for an online store. Their policy explicitly states that sale items are non returnable and that delivery charges are nonrefundable. As a loyal listener, I know this is a direct breach of the Consumer Contracts Regulations twenty thirteen which gives online shoppers a fourteen day callooling off period and the right to a refund on standard delivery. Correct. contacted the company twice to point this out, but have been met with total silence. I even reported them to trading standards via citizens' advice, but weeks later, the misleading information is still live on their site, potentially tricking thousands of shoppers out of their refund My question is when the official channels like trrading Stards feel like a slow moving black hole And the company ignores you, what's the best way to actually force a retailer to update their terms? Is there a nuclear option for consumers to protect others from being misled by illegal T's and C's? Love the show, Paul Oh, thank you Paul and well done for trying to protect other people as well. That's exactly the spirit of what we want to do So you are absolutely right. If you buy something online unless it's personalized or perishable, then you have a fourteen day no fault right to notify them that you're returning it and then another fourteen days after you've notified them in which to send it back and you should get the basic delivery charge back. So if you've paid extra for fast delivery, you don't get that back, but if you haven't, you get that basic whatever If it was free, it was free, but if you paid a pound, you get the pound back. So you're exactly right Now this is something I've been campaigning on because we did a review of four hundred different brands, found thirty of them had incorrect returns information on their website where they were giving you worse rights than were available that you have under your law under the statute. and statute overrides any terms and conditions that a shop has. Of those thirty, we got twenty eight corrected because I went very public on it And two of them by the time got they got round again, I'm afraid had cased trading, which I think is endemic of Pro some of the problems of having the business that they could't have the compliance and lawyers in place to get it right So Look, just a slight note about trading standards. I'm a big fan of trading standards, but we massively under resource trading standards there is not enough money given to them. They do struggle to deal with things. I think that's a real problem because you're right that those people who are policing fair rights for consumers need the resource to do it So if they have been slow, I'm not going to berate them for it because I know that I just think it's a massively underfunded organisation and that's a real problem rather than the brilliant officers who work in trading standards trying to do a good job Is there a nuclear option? Well, without self aggrandizing, I think you're probably doing it. It's probably me to be honest, if trading standards aren't going to work. So get in touch, Paul, if you can send us the details, I will have a look at it and maybe we'll see if we can get that. company together with your great research and my I have a large reach, see if we can embarrass them into getting it right for consumers. I think that's the best answer I can give you So I have a lovely update. My team got in touch with you know Wh. So beforehand, the website said, you can return your items within fourteen days of purchase, but it then said sales items are not returnable, which is incorrect Under the rules, sales items are returnable within fourteen days of purchase as long as you notify them in forty days of purchase Now that's gone The website's been fixed, the information is correct. We got it right. Calling up this podcast did mean that we got action. If no one else is doing it, the question time crew were I hope you're happy with that Paul if you're listening. Thanks so much. hey.