Top ten holiday money tips

As the holiday season starts to kick in, although you wouldn’t know it if you were caught in thunder and lightning storms all over the UK at the weekend, here are our top ten tips to make sure you don’t suffer any unexpected financial storms while you’re away!


 Don’t wait until the last minute to change money – airport travel shops don’t always offer competitive rates.

 Buy your travel insurance as soon as you arrange your holiday, and read the terms and conditions and exclusions and limits of the policy you are buying.

 Check the cost of using your mobile while you are abroad. Buy a local sim card if you are going to be making local calls while you are away.

 Don’t get fooled into thinking that the headline price is what you will pay for your flight. You’ll have to add on bags, taxes, priority boarding and credit card fees.

 Remember that you have different levels of protection depending on whether you arrange all of your holiday components yourself or do it all as a package with a travel agent.

 Using a credit card for holidays costing between £100 and £30,000 means that you have added protection if the holiday company or airline goes bust.

 Buy goods in the local currency in shops.

 Make sure your Bank knows you are away and likely to use cards abroad.

 Check the cost of using your credit card abroad.

 Pay extra to cover the excess if you are hiring a car.

Have a great holiday!

Keep that receipt safe

As the summer sales are really all up and running now here’s a timely reminder to keep hold of your receipt if you buy something that you may later want to exchange.

I have said here often that you don’t need a receipt if you are returning faulty goods so why should it be any different if you are returning Sale items?

It’s because the right to return goods just because you have changed your mind don’t form part of the protection you have under the Sale of Goods Act. A shop can set its own rules when it decides what you can return and when, and these rules usually tighten up around sale times.


And of course this actually adds in a bit of protection for you because if you bought something just before the sale started and it was reduced in the sale you may only get back the lower price if you can’t prove what you paid for it in the first place!

So keep that receipt safe!

I’m really not interested thanks

I had a fascinating conversation with a Moneysucks? reader yesterday.

He called his bank to authorise some transactions and the conversation went something like (I say ‘something like’ because he didn’t record it and so it’s not verbatim just in case anyone at the Bank wants to sue!)

“You’ve got an awful lot of money in that current account getting no interest. Would you like me to move it to one of our savings accounts?”

“No thanks, I’ve an awful lot of bills to pay over the next few months and that’s why there is so much there at the moment.”

“Okay, but you’ve got an awful lot of money in the account. I could just move it to one of our accounts paying more interest.”

“No thanks, I need it over the next six months to pay some bills.”

“Yeah, but there’s too much in this account. What would you do if something happens to it? Would you not be safer moving it to another account?”

“What do you mean if something happens to it? I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“Well you might get your card stolen, or your identity stolen and someone might take the money out of your account. You’d really be better moving it to a savings account.”

“Look, I’ve already told you……….

We don’t need to say any more do we?

Do you have a similar story of pushy sales tactics or incorrect advice from banks, or retailers for that matter, trying to sell you stuff?

If so drop us a line here

or leave a comment below.

All I want is a replacement for my broken phone! Is that too much to ask?

A simple visit to o2 last week turned into a nightmare that I never want to repeat.

I took my new phone, well 3 weeks old, out of my pocket to make a call to discover the screen was all white, with a bit of black across the top. A quick visit to one of Glasgow’s o2 shops confirmed that it was beyond repair. I was asked if I wanted it to be sent away to try to salvage the contacts but I explained that I was going away the next day and needed a properly working phone and so would prefer a replacement.

They didn’t have anything that suited in stock and having identified a model that was in stock in another o2 outlet I headed there to pick it up.

It was waiting for me and I put it in my bag and went to leave the shop. And that’s when the fun began. I was asked if I wasn’t paying for it.

“Of course I’m not paying for it. It’s a replacement for a faulty phone. It is slightly more expensive so if you really want to make an issue I’ll pay the difference, but that’s all,” was my response.

“When did you buy the phone, and where?” I was asked.

“Here, about three weeks ago” was my answer.

“We can’t exchange it then, it’s more than 14 days old.”

“And anyway have you got your receipt?”

“And do you have the original packaging?”

“And we don’t have any of that model in stock anyway!”

How many ways can they say no, I wondered?

I explained that any policy that o2 had that meant that they wouldn’t take goods back that were more than 14 days old was an internal policy and didn’t affect my rights under the Sale of Goods Act. I further explained that if goods are faulty I was entitled to a replacement whether I had a receipt or not, and that original packaging most certainly wasn’t a necessary pre-condition to a refund or exchange for faulty goods. Lastly I was happy to exchange for another model and if it was more expensive I would pay the difference – at least in the short term!

I further explained that I wasn’t leaving the shop without a new phone!

A few phone calls were made to ‘team leaders’ and ‘area managers’ before a decision was made, grudgingly I have to say, that I could indeed have a replacement.

I paid the £40 extra but made it clear that I would be writing to o2 to suggest that they should, as a gesture of goodwill or whatever they wanted to call it, give me my money back.

So what messages can we take from this sorry tale?

Firstly a retailer can insist on original packaging and a receipt if you return perfect goods that you simply don’t want any more, since this policy is in addition to any rights you have under Sale of Goods legislation and doesn’t form part of your statutory rights.

Nowhere in Sale of Goods legislation does the timescale 14 days appear.

If you return faulty goods it is not necessary to have a receipt (although you may be asked for proof of purchase and the fact that the manager in the second shop remembers selling me the phone should have been sufficient!)

If there are no suitable replacements then you are entitled to your money back. No quibble, no argument!

And you are also quite entitled to stay put until everything that you are entitled to has been arranged for you.

Don’t count your pennies too soon!

Great news that Monarch Airlines has decided to scrap its 3.5% fee that it charged customers to use their debit cards when booking flights. The first of many such moves I hear you whisper, maybe some of the budget airlines might even start to act as if they give a toss about their customers! Certainly the consumer group Which? hopes that will be the case following an official complaint to the Office of Fair Trading about these surcharges.

And it’s not just airlines that frustrate us with their extra charges for paying by card. Tickets for concerts often end up costing us more than they should with the addition of over the top card charges so it’s right that Which? should be concerned, and that the OFT should take their concerns seriously.

But before we all go and spend the money we’re going to save booking our holidays and live entertainment stop for a minute and think about the amount of money these companies will be losing if they scrap these charges, and the fact that the income is pure profit! It’s doesn’t cost £10 to process a credit card transaction, the argument goes, so why should the airlines be allowed to charge £10. Well they shouldn’t but they are, and they are also by now used to the millions of pounds of unadulterated profit that it brings them.

And so they won’t take defeat lying down!

Now I’m not for a minute suggesting that I support these charges, because I don’t, or that they shouldn’t be scrapped, because they should!

But just be aware that once these charges disappear they will be replaced with some other unfair charge to maintain an income stream. It will no doubt start life in the small print somewhere so keep a look out!

When is a bargain not a bargain?

‘You can’t get a refund on Sale Goods.’

How often have you heard these words when you try to take back something you bought in a sale, but maybe didn’t have time to try it on in the shop?

If you buy goods in a sale and they are faulty or damaged or don’t work the way they should work then your rights are not affected and you are absolutely entitled to a refund or replacement. To quote the disclaimer often seen at the till “This does not affect your statutory rights.”

The only time this may change, and it doesn’t just apply to sale goods, is when you were told about a fault in goods at the time of purchase and they were reduced because of that fault. You can’t come back and demand a refund in this circumstance when you were aware of the fault at the point of sale.

If you buy something in a sale then just change your mind about it or them, then it is a different story. If the shop has a policy of allowing refunds on goods where there is nothing wrong with them, within a certain time period (usually 28 days), and you have just changed your mind, the shop is within the law to refuse to refund, because there is no legal obligation to offer a refund on non-sale goods, so why would there be an obligation on sale stock? Any retailer that allows you to return non-faulty items within a certain time period is doing so at its discretion and it is allowed to review and remove that discretion on sale goods

So be careful when buying in a sale or you might end up with a cheap, but useless, bargain!

How does the ash cloud affect your rights?

It’s almost a year since the last cloud of volcanic ash caused chaos to flights all round trhe world and as the same thing happens again this week we look at what right you have as a consumer if your flights are cancelled. If we haven’t answered your specific question here then please drop us a line and we’ll do what we can to help.

Let’s start with the basics. What rights do travellers have if their flights have been cancelled, or if they think they are going to be cancelled?Well the first thing to say is that you do have a contract with the airline that you have booked tickets with and so they have a responsibility to get you from A to B if you’re still at home or from B to A if you’re on the way home! So in the first instance, if you have still to travel, you need to contact your airline and see if your flight is going to go or not. If it’s not then you should be able to choose between a refund and anther flight.

What happens if you have already travelled and you are trying to get back home?

The airline is obliged to provide you with meals and accommodation for flights that are delayed for more than 5 hours, according to European legislation. I’ve been asked a lot about ‘compensation’. It’s a word that is often bandied about these days – everyone is looking for some sort of recompense if something goes wrong but in this case they are not going to get very far since the airline will argue that the flights were cancelled for reasons that were beyond their control and that their responsibility should stop at their legal requirements to refund or provide an alternative flight.

And is there a difference between flights that you have booked yourself and those that are part of a package holiday?

There is. If you have booked a package holiday then the travel agent or Tour Company should be able to deal with a refund, or an alternative holiday. If you have booked flights and hotels separately then you may have a harder job getting all of your money back since the hotel could argue that it’s not their fault that you didn’t turn up and why should they lose out?

So if you can’t get money back from the airline will you be able to get it back from your insurance company?

It depends, is the unfortunately vague answer. We had this debate with insurers last year when there were flight problems. Some will pay and some won’t so you need to look at the wording on your policy. Remember also that you may have a claim against your credit card company if you paid more than £100 under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act.

And in general where should people go to get refunds in the first place?

Always start with the airline if it is flights or the travel agent or tour operator if it is a package holiday. If you’re getting nowhere with them then try ABTA or the credit card company as mentioned a minute ago.

Can Payment Protection really protect –

It looks as though the Banks have decided to throw in the towel on Payment Protection Insurance paving the way for multi-million pound claims against them, and in fact they have already set aside billions of pounds between them to cater for these claims.

There are a number of reasons why you might have a potential claim against the Bank that sold you one of these policies. It may be that you wouldn’t have been able to claim because you were unemployed or self employed and the policty conditions insisted that you had to be in full time permanent employment for a claim to be valid. It might be that you had a medical condition that would have made a claim invalid, or that you simply didn’t know you have bought a policy because no-one told you. Strange as that may sound it looks as though this did happen to thousands of unsuspecting consumers.

If you have one of these contracts and you think it may have been mis-sold then you should write in the first instance to the company that sold it to you. If you get no joy from them, or no response, then you should contact the Insurance Ombudsman.

Don’t be swayed into using one of the expensive Claims Management Companies that are cold calling and advertising all over the place at the moment. They may well want an up-front fee whether you are eligible for a refund or not. It’s not necessary and it’s expensive. You can handle any claims yourself by writing a letter and there’s no point throwing away some of your potential refund money paying for something that you can handle yourself.

If you are taking out a loan, or already have one and you have no cover, then you can still consider a PPI policy but you should remember that you don’t have to buy it from the company that is lending you the money. You should have a look around the market to see what is available. And remember that you need to look at the exclusions to make sure that you will be covered for the amount that you think you are insuring yourself for, and that there are no hidden exclusions or excesses.

There are a few alternatives to Payment Protection Insurance such and Income Protection and Critical Illness and we will be covering these options very soon.

Payment Protection Insurance – a last and helpful word

It looks as though the Banks have decided to throw in the towel on Payment Protection Insurance paving the way for multi-million pound claims against them, and in fact they have already set aside billions of pounds between them to cater for these claims.

There are a number of reasons why you might have a potential claim against the Bank that sold you one of these policies. It may be that you wouldn’t have been able to claim because you were unemployed or self employed and the policty conditions insisted that you had to be in full time permanent employment for a claim to be valid. It might be that you had a medical condition that would have made a claim invalid, or that you simply didn’t know you have bought a policy because no-one told you. Strange as that may sound it looks as though this did happen to thousands of unsuspecting consumers.

If you have one of these contracts and you think it may have been mis-sold then you should write in the first instance to the company that sold it to you. If you get no joy from them, or no response, then you should contact the Insurance Ombudsman.

Don’t be swayed into using one of the expensive Claims Management Companies that are cold calling and advertising all over the place at the moment. They may well want an up-front fee whether you are eligible for a refund or not. It’s not necessary and it’s expensive. You can handle any claims yourself by writing a letter and ther’s no point throwing away some of your potential refund money paying for something that you can handle yourself.

If you are taking out a loan, or already have one and you have no cover, then you can still consider a PPI policy but you should remember that you don’t have to buy it from the company that is lending you the money. You should have a look around the market to see what is available. And remember that you need to look at the exclusions to make sure that you will be covered for the amount that you think you are insuring yourself for, and that there are no hidden exclusions or excesses.

There are a few alternatives to Payment Protection Insurance such and Income Protection and Critical Illness and we will be covering these options very soon.

Rachel’s Money Questions Answered – In Style!

Well we promised you some answers to Rachel’s money chasing woes and we’ve certainly got lots of them here. Martin Stepek, Chief Executive of the Scottish Family Business Association, kicks off with some great down-to-earth advice for anyone in business – not just musicians.

And if you are still struggling after trying all of Martin’s varied and practical tips then Paula Skinner, Partner at Law Firm Harper MacLeod, explains how you can seek redress through the courts.

All in all some fantastic advice that should help anyone struggling to get paid – without upsetting those you are chasing for payment too much (well as long as you are successful using Martin’s ideas and don’t end up in Court!).

It’s a longer piece than we would normally have on the site but it’s really packed full of useful information so please take the time to read all the way through!

Enjoy, and let us know if this was useful for you.

Martin starts us off:

“Chasing unpaid invoices is one of life’s most annoying and unpleasant tasks for most of us. So my first piece of advice is learn not to get frustrated by it. As my mother once told me when I complained about the pouring rain when I was going out to play football, “If you live in Scotland you need to learn to love the rain.” Accept it as part of your life.

That leads to the next thing. If it is part of your life it deserves a place and a space. Good personal and time management are some of life’s hidden joys. They save you getting surprised or upset and it feels like they buy you time and energy. So diarise – as if it was a concert – the dates you will check on your invoices to see if they have been paid or not, and stick to it as if it was a real concert date. If money should have been in your bank account on Monday 15th then the date to query why it is not in your bank account is Tuesday 16th.

As one of the people who wrote comments on the Moneysucks? site suggested, if you can get someone else to do it for you that’s great. But make sure it’s someone who cares about you – or your money! – as much as you do, otherwise you will probably be more effective doing it yourself. I am a great believer in delegation but the key to delegation is to give the task to the right person in the first place! Often it is a lot easier for someone else to chase as they are not directly involved in the relationship between musician and venue / festival / agent.

If the problem largely occurs with agents, and the agent doesn’t change his or her ways, pass them by phone or email – or if necessary by letter. Explain the situation to the organisation itself – if you can’t find the name of the actual person write to or ask for the Head of Finance – and say that in your eyes as a performer the agent’s failure to pay on time reflects badly on the people who employ them; in other words that their reputation is being harmed by their agent. Writing a letter is a pain in the backside in these days of emails, texts and instant messaging, but they are all the more real and powerful because of this. And a letter of criticism is always dealt with whereas emails can be ignored. But a phone call is best of all if you can get through.

If they don’t get round to paying you on time, ask yourself how much this gig or venue or organisation matters in the big scheme of your life. If the answer is “not that much” write to them and tell them that you are no longer prepared to work with them because they are being dishonest in their dealings with artists. Consider adding that you will share your story with fellow artists on Facebook and other groups. Don’t say or write this is an angry or negative tone, just say it like it is, calmly and matter-of-fact. You might think though that this could end up being harmful to your future prospects so think carefully about it. I have another, less personal suggestion on this theme below.

For unpaid invoices on which you didn’t have your payment terms, phone or write to them explaining your omission, tell them what your terms actually are, and ask that they now pay by return the overdue amounts.

In reality there is no such thing as a standard period for payment. 30 days is common, so are 28, 21, 14 and 7 days. This is actually a matter of negotiation between two parties. If you have put 28 or 30 days as standard then the other party will just accept this if they are happy with it. If you say payment must be on the day of the concert you don’t know if they will accept that. Given that many people you do work for pay you on the day, try to make that your standard, and state that this is the norm for the work you do. Then deal with any response. I’d go to 7 calendar (not working) days as my first response if the organisation says that payment on the date of the concert is not acceptable to them. If they say that’s too short a time, try to stick with it, saying that you are a poor wee struggling artist and they are a major organisation, that you need the money in your bank more than they need it in yours. Keep the conversation light and humorous if you can. Remember that unless it is the Carnegie Hall in New York or the Maracana Stadium in Brazil you can always say “these are my terms and if you don’t like it you don’t have to have me appear.” You have to be the judge of what is acceptable; just remember, the more they push you the more they will continue to push you. The more you stand your ground and push them the more likely you’ll get what you want next time. By the way my father once negotiated with Phillips the Dutch electronics company to buy £1million worth of televisions from them in 1970 when colour tv was just becoming affordable, and he asked for and got three years to pay! Remember this when you are famous and planning a world tour of football stadiums – ask for 50% up front a year in advance!

But be generous-minded if the people who owe you are struggling. Even massive companies fail for want of cash so don’t base payment or failure to pay on the size or reputation of the organisation. If someone hasn’t paid you promptly, you are entitled to ask them if they have a cash issue that is causing them a problem. In 99% of cases they won’t have a problem, and might be embarrassed enough by your question to cough up quickly! But they just might have an issue so do ask.

At my family business Stepek, when the miners’ strike started in 1984, our directors met to discuss the ramification for those on strike, hundreds if not thousands of whom were very long-standing customers of our business. They bought televisions or washing machines etc from us, paying week by week on credit, or else rented their tv from us. If we received a letter or phone call explaining that the customer or their spouse was on strike and money was tight, we had a policy of simply saying “pay us what you can, don’t worry about it, we won’t take any action against you, and we’ll sort it out together in the long run.” The strike lasted a lot longer that any of us could imagine but we could withstand not having the money coming in more than the miners’ families; and they almost all paid everything eventually. We charged no extra interest. So be decent to people if they are decent to you.

That said, you must deal with deliberate withholding of your money effectively. We used to have three letters, sent a week apart. Imaginatively we called these A, B, and C, letters. The first simply stated that an amount was now overdue; to ignore the letter if payment had been made in the interim period, otherwise we would be pleased if the customer would pay within the next few days. The second letter reminded the customer that they were overdue on their payment, that continued non-payment wasn’t good for either of us, and that we needed to see payment made promptly. The third letter said the amount was still unpaid and that the next letter would come from a lawyer and court proceedings would be started if payment wasn’t made on receipt of the letter.

You could do worse than draft an email or phone call script based on these steps, maybe substituting the legal threat with a publicity threat. (Frankly if people don’t pay you, do you want to work for them again?) Perhaps the musicians’ union would set up a part of their website, detailing who doesn’t pay and who consistently pays late; a threat to add more details to that kind of list would soon make most organisations pay. Of course you’d have to show proof that this is the case but worth exploring.

Sometimes you won’t get paid. Life is like that. I’m still due quite an amount of money from a friend from university days. I lent him the money in 1979. Somehow I think I won’t get it now. Don’t dwell on these things. But do make sure other musicians know so they don’t have to be ripped off like you were.

Hope this helps a bit!”

If none of the above helps then time to speak to Paula:

“Before starting more formal debt recovery proceedings, it is worth assessing the situation and whether recovery is likely. For example where a customer is in financial difficulty, it may be advisable to simply write off the debt rather than incur costs of court action.

When services have been provided you should ensure customers are invoiced promptly. It is advisable to provide a clear period for payment of all invoices in your terms. You may also want to provide for interest on late payments. As there will be a contract between you and the customer, you can state any period for payment. You may word it as “Payment should be made within 28 days from the date of invoice”.

If there is no date for payment provided, you should allow the customer a reasonable period for payment – 28 days is fair in most circumstances. Once this period is up, you could try calling the customer to prompt payment.

If payment is still not forthcoming, you should send a letter advising the payment is overdue. This should offer the customer between 7 and 14 days to make payment, failing which legal proceedings may be commenced. It is worthwhile highlighting if legal proceedings are necessary, interest and expenses will be sought in addition to the outstanding sum.

If payment remains outstanding, you may then wish to commence legal proceedings. You are not required to and instead may wish try to reach a payment arrangement with the customer. If you decide to proceed, the amount of the outstanding sum will determine the type of court action. For sums below £5000 in England and £3000 in Scotland recovery can be done as a small claims action and you can deal with the proceedings yourself, to save costs. Small claims information can be found at http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/sheriff/small_claims/index.asp for Scottish claims and https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome for other parts of the UK.

Court action should be seen as a last resort as the costs involved in court action can be high and will vary depending on the type of action, the complexity of the case and whether the customer disputes the case. Before raising an action, you should also keep in mind that court proceedings can often take longer than expected to conclude.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding an outstanding sum you should speak to a solicitor for advice.”

« Previous Page — Next Page »