A tale of two people – or is it two companies?

RBS Fraud Prevention Department called me last week to check some recent transactions on my credit card. We went through the most recent purchases and I told them they had missed one out – for a hotel I had stayed in the previous night. “Oh, that one didn’t go through, it was referred.” I don’t think so, I replied, as far as I was aware it was all okay. No-one at reception told me any different, anyway what reason would there be for it being rejected? “Well we told the merchant five times to call us so that we could make sure it was you and they didn’t so I’m telling you it wasn’t authorised.”

The conversation went downhill from there and included phrases like “What do you want me to do,” “What do you expect me to do about it” and “No I can’t give you my surname”.
What. Even after I’ve told you my full name, account number, shoe size, mother’s maiden name and the name of every goldfish I have ever owned. What happens if there is more than one Mary in your global operation?

It finished with that well-worn phrase from me “Can I please speak to your manager?”

Compare that with my call last night to British Gas Homecare. I had a visit from an engineer yesterday to repair my tumbler dryer. It seemed to be working but now my washing machine wasn’t. He’s been a few times already, to assess the damage and to bring and fit a spare part. The girl I spoke to couldn’t have been more helpful. She upgraded the call to priority to expedite a new visit and then called the engineer who had visited to ask if he would call me to see if we could find an easy solution. He called – even although it was 9pm and agreed to visit first thing this morning before he started his work for the day.

Two companies, two very different conversations. From the beginning of the call from my Bank I felt as if I was fighting them – even although they were supposed to be helping me by preventing my card being used fraudulently.

British Gas, on the other hand, couldn’t have been more helpful. Their objective was to make sure my washing machine worked, and the girl I spoke to did everything she could, and more, to ensure that happens.

I know which conversation left me more satisfied.

But why the difference? Does British Gas only employ friendly helpful staff while my bank employs only surly unhelpful people? Does my bank need to look at its training programme in customer service? Does British Gas care more about what its customers think than RBS?

Or is it simply that I spoke to one person when she was having a good day and the other on a bad day?

And if that’s the case, should it be? What standards should I expect from companies that are providing me with a service?

Moneysucks Challenge – the first week

Zoe Nisbet and Mary-Louise Stone have both been keeping a note of their expenditure for the first week of their Moneysucks Challenge. Here’s the results so far, With Zoe going first:

Monday 20/02 Went out for dinner. Dinner itself was £5 and a shandy was £3.50 £8.50
Tuesday 21/02 Two slices of cake to take to my parents £2.50 each £5.00
Wednesday 22/02 Forgot my lunch today so bought water 0.75 and a salad £1.70 £2.45
Thursday 23/02 Loaf of bread £1 and train into town £1.50 £2.50
Friday 24/02 On Friday someone in our office bakes cake I put a donation of £1 in.

Finished work and went immediately to silverburn to try and find a dress for my birthday. I ended up buying a pair of jeans £17.49, then spent £12.35 in superdrug on shampoo and other hair products. Went to a charity shop and bought two cardigans totalling £4.75. I then went to get my fringe cut at the hairdressers for £4. While getting this done I got a £30 parking fee! I then went to the shops and bought some milk 0.79 £70.38
Saturday 25/02 Decided I needed to find a birthday dress, it is tradition to buy a new dress on my birthday. I spent a total of £40.97 in new look on the dress, tights and jewellery.
I then popped into a charity shop on the way home and found 3 dresses that were £2 each I couldn’t resist so that was another £6.
After my birthday dinner that my parents paid for as a gift. I bought some cranberry beer for £5 and then got two taxis to my friend’s house totally £6 £57.97
Sunday 26/02 Me and my parents visited the Polmadie car boot sale where I spent £6.50. I then went home and discovered I had nothing I wanted to eat in the house so I popped over to the shop near my house and bought crackers, flavoured water, butter, Philadelphia this little shopping totalled £7.50 £13.50
Monday 27/02 Filled up my car with £30 petrol and bought some chewing gum £0.57 £30.57

Total: £190.87

Now Mary-Louise:

Monday 20th February I bought my train ticket (£71.50) which lasts for a month and does save money, but is quite a big upfront cost.
Later in the day I went to a carvery for dinner (£8.50) £80.00

Tuesday 21st February I saw a good deal for a cut and colour on groupon so bought that (£25.00)
I’m running in a charity race in March (as a tiger…) so bought my costume too (7.98) £32.98

Friday 22nd February On Friday I bought a train ticket (£2.00), a bottle of mile (£1.30) and a chocolate bar (£0.69). What a mad Friday night that was… £3.99

Saturday 25th February My internet bill came in on Saturday (£10.30) and I then went into town to get some food shopping (£16.74), some cosmetics/toiletries (£12.00) and some rewriteable CDs (£9.99). In the evening I took a train to my friend’s flat (£1.30) and bought a bottle of wine on route (£4.99). £55.32

Sunday 26th February To save money (ha!) I bought a train ticket in advance for when I go to Dundee in a couple weeks time (£16.05). I also paid the entrance fee for the race I’m doing in March (£45) and lastly sponsored a friend who is raising money for Cancer Research (£30.) £91.05

Total: £263.34

Mary-Louise satys of her spending “It’s only one week into the money challenge and I was more than a little bit shocked when I added up how much I had already spent. In my defence, I had had some unavoidable costs such as bills… but I had also spent quite a lot of money on chocolate, make-up and socialising! My spending at the weekend was about double what it had been the entire week, I think mainly due to the fact that I had the time to go shopping, meet friends and eat large amounts of chocolate. I think that this first week did have quite a high number of ‘big’ costs (e.g. bills, food shops, travel tickets) and that hopefully, in weeks to come, my spending should even out. Otherwise I might be in trouble! Also, Zoe is beating me right now and that is very upsetting.

Zoe noticed a big difference between her spending during the week and that at the weekends, and is going to check her bank balance this week to see what other money is being spent for her. “I have been doing the money challenge for a week now. I have found there to be a big difference between my spending habits during the week compared to the weekend. During the week I don’t actually spend that much money my biggest expense will be filling up my car and doing a big food shop. I am in the habit of taking my lunch to work with me, so after the one off big expenses my day-to- day costs during the week are very small. Then the weekend hits. It was my birthday weekend so I ended up doing a lot of shopping. I needed a new dress for my birthday dinner and of course alongside the dress I needed jewellery! On Friday I am ashamed to say I got a parking ticket for £30. That was annoying expense that I didn’t expect. So all in all with shopping and parking tickets I managed to spend over the weekend £131.35 my total during the week came to £18.45. So week two begins my weekly expenditure will be more this week as I need to fill up my car and go do a food shopping. I have realised that to pop to the little shop just over the road from where I live and get groceries is a lot more expensive than going to a big supermarket and since I have a car now it is actually a lot easier to do a big food shopping and I believe this saves me money. Still haven’t checked my bank balance to see expenses that are coming out from my account. I will do that this week and account for these expenses. Week two begins my little notebook remains by my side so that I am able to account for everything I spend. An interesting challenge indeed.”

Moneysucks Monthly Challenge is underway

Zoe Nisbet starts her monthly challenge today. For a whole month she is going to keep a note of everything she spends, and at the end of the month we’ll have a chat about what lessons she has learned about the way she uses her money.

Zoe will be blogging regularly during the month to keep us updated on her progress.

Here is what she says so far:

“So the challenge begins today. I have my little notebook ready where I will record everything I spend. I am excited about this exercise as money is something I tend not to think about. I seldom check my bank balance during the month I guess because I am scared to do so. If I think I have spent a lot of money I will just be careful for the next few weeks until my pay has gone in. I am hoping this challenge will shed light on how much I actually spend during a month placing me in a position to make informed decisions in the future about my money.

A few of my friends have decided to do the challenge with me.

Mary-Louise (ML) who works next to me has decided to do this monthly challenge. She says “I have never really kept much of a tab on my spending. If you asked me how much I spend in a month I would really have no idea!! So I think it’ll be really interesting to find out how much I am spending and on what! At the moment, I’m trying to work my way out of a fairly substantial overdraft and so it would be great to get some tips on how I can be more careful with my spending. It’s the first morning and I’ve already spent £71.50 so I’m doing well!”

Let us know if you want to join in!

Moneysucks Monthly Challenge

Fergus Muirhead visited Pulse FM Radio station in East Renfrewshire to help the team from St Luke’s High School with their Money for Life challenge (read more about the challenge here and their Pounds, Pence and Common Sense campaign.

After the programme he got talking to Zoe Nisbet, who is running the project on behalf of East Renfrewshire Council.

Zoe agreed to take part in this month’s Money Challenge. She, and hopefully a few of her friends, are going to keep a note of everything they spend for a whole month, starting on Monday 20th February. You can read their updates here as they go along and Fergus will be back on Pulse FM after the month is over to find out what they have learned about their spending.

It promises to be a fascinating and fun way of helping to make sure that they are dealing sensibly with their money, but already they are worried about who is going to have to admit to the biggest ‘silly spend’ of the month. Watch this space for details!

Let us know if you want to take part in your own monthly money challenge by leaving a message at the bottom ot this page.

Money For Life Challenge

A team of eager pupils from St.Lukes High School in Barrhead have been successful in reaching the first stage of the ‘Money for Life Challenge UK’, impressing the judges with their fun and educational way to teach money management. The Money for Life Challenge is run by Scotland’s Colleges, it is a competition that helps you to run your own original money management projects, to help benefit the local community. To find out more visit http://www.moneyforlifechallenge.org.uk/

http://www.moneyforlifechallenge.org.uk/

The team from St Lukes naming their project ‘Pounds, Pence and Common Sense’ and are aiming to inform senior pupils about to make the transition onto university of how best to manage their money at this time. They will be doing this by producing four, one hour long radio shows on Pulse 98.4. To date three radio shows have been successfully broadcasted and through different guest speakers a range of topics have been covered. The shows have featured UWS financial advisor, young scot and Fergus Muirhead. The last show of the series on Thursday 23rd January will have students or recent graduates on sharing their money stories with the team.

Some of the team have agreed to take part in a challenge that Fergus Muirhead set us. We will be recording what we spend for one month. Weekly blogs will be appearing on his site and we will conduct another radio show when the challenge is over to hear all about it!

Pupils will be in with a chance of winning a place in the UK grand final, however the competition is very fierce so we need all the support we can get. We will keep you updated as you can vote for our project once we have completed our last radio show. In the meantime please like our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pounds-Pence-and-Common-Sense/238464162890688

Don’t let the taxman spoil your Christmas

If you’re a student and about to start work for the Christmas holidays – not that you won’t already have been working hard all year at whatever course you’re doing – then remember that if you organise yourself properly you may not have to pay tax on your valuable earnings over the festive period.

Each of us has a personal allowance of £7,475 this tax year (from April 6th 2011 to April 5th 2012) and this is the amount of money that we are able to earn before starting to pay tax. So if you are only working for a few weeks over the holidays then it may be possible to have your employer pay you without deducting any tax from your pay.

To enable your employer to pay you without deducting tax then you will need to complete HMRC Form P38(S). It can be found at www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/ps8s.pdf

If you’ve already started work and you have already had some tax deducted then you can still claim it back afterwards by completing a Form P50, and again you can download this form at www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/p50.pdf

If you worked over the summer and paid tax but earned less than £6475 then you can still use this form to reclaim the tax you have already paid, and perhaps use the money to help fund your Christmas spending!

A question of tax

Q. My daughter is 17 and is doing some part-time work for 20 hours a week. She is currently earning £4.92 per hour. Does she need to pay tax and what are the rules and her choices?
Peter Murphy.

A.Each of us has a personal allowance of £7,475 this tax year (from April 6th 2011 to April 5th 2012) and this is the amount of money that we are able to earn before starting to pay tax.

So if your daughter is only working for a few weeks over the holidays then it may be possible to have her employer pay her without deducting any tax from your pay.

To enable your daughter’s employer to pay her without deducting tax then she will need to complete HMRC Form P38(S). It can be found at www.hmrc.gov.uk/forms/ps8s.pdf
If your daughter has already started work and you have already had some tax deducted then she can still claim it back afterwards by completing a Form P50, and again it can be downloaded from www.hmrc.gov.uk/pdfs/p50.pdf

If your daughter worked over the summer and paid tax but earned less than £7475 then she can still use this form to reclaim the tax she has already paid.

I’m 18. Should I have a pension?

Q. I am currently an undergraduate student and 18 years old and have numerous savings. I currently have a part time job while studying at university. Although you may not be permitted to give advice on this sort of thing do you think it would be, in the current economic climate and uncertainty about the jobs market, be worthwhile opening up a pension now so that at least I have something started when I leave university? Something like a stakeholder pension only requires at least a £20 investment per month. Please give me your thoughts on this matter- its just we are all told to start early!

Jack Fraser

A. It’s a really good question Jack and I’ve just read an article in one of today’s papers telling me that more than 25% of people are going to retire with nothing but the State Pension to live on, so the fact that you are starting to think about making some sort of pension provision so young is great. As you rightly say you can start to invest into a Stakeholder Pension with as little as £20 per month and that will be increased when it is invested since your pension company will reclaim basic rate tax on each £20 you invest.

The benefit of starting to invest in a pension now is that you will be saving (at least under current legislation) until you are at least 55 which means that your money has at least 37 years to grow, and it will grow in a fund that is, at the moment at least, mostly tax free. So the pluses of investing in a pension at the moment are that you should benefit from long term growth (although the market is fairly fluid at the moment and you may see some short term losses if you invest in particularly adventurous funds) and that you will receive tax relief on any investments you are making.

The downside is that you will not be able to access your cash until you are at least 55 – or maybe older if legislation changes between now and then – and you will not be able to have all of your cash back as a lump sum. Currently you will be able to take up to 25% as a tax free cash sum with the balance being taken as income.

Of course when you start work you may find that your employer offers a pension scheme at which point you may want to move the Stakeholder Scheme you are thinking of setting up now into your employer’s Scheme partly to make it easier to administer going forward and partly because it might be easier to manage the investment strategy you adopt via one plan rather than two.

It is also the case that stakeholder pensions are flexible enough these days that you can change the level of investment that you make to cope with your own circumstances so that if you need to stop investing for a while because you are not working then you can take a break from your pension and pick it back up again when you start to work.

The amount of money you can invest is dependent on your income on a year by year basis so you will have the flexibility to increase or decrease as your income changes.

I haven’t talked about the way you invest your money once it is in the pension here so will come back and address this issue in a separate post.

What’s the right phone contract for me?

Mobile phone contracts are a huge cause of confusion and concern for many of us – and I say that as someone who has just picked up the tab for his son’s lack of understanding of the cost of sending text messages from Rome a few weeks ago. I don’t know why it was that his contradictory justifications of “It’s okay they’re all inclusive” or “It’s okay they’re only 10p each” set the alarm bells off but my concern was well placed when the bill arrived yesterday and made me think that a reminder on the pros and cons of mobile packages would be worth a minute of your time.

There are so many mobile options from so many different providers that this piece is not about telling you where to get the best deal. Instead it’s about helping you ask the right questions and read the right parts of the terms and conditions so that you know what you’re letting yourself in for when you look to organise a new mobile contract.

And I suppose the starting point is whether you want, or need, a contract at all. It may be better to look at some sort of pay as you go option, where you only pay for the calls and text messages that you make and send. This is a great way to control your costs since you can only use your phone when you have credit on it, but you may end up paying more for each call and text than if you had a contract. And you will almost certainly have to pay more for the handset that you use. Oh and if your credit runs out just as you are about to make that all important call to confirm a lucrative contract, or arrange a night out, then you might have a problem.

A pay as you go deal is likely to be more suited for a light user, or if you really need to control costs monthly. If a contract looks like a better option then you need to be aware of the length of the contract and what the penalty will be if you want to get out of it at some point. The shorter the contract term the better in terms of flexibility but you might find that you might need to trade flexibility for lower call costs, or more inclusive minutes and texts.

Whether you are looking at a pay as you go deal or a contract you will need to know how much you are going to have to pay for each minute that you use and for each text that you send.

Some deals will let you call certain numbers free, and the flip side of that as we hear with every telephone competition on television now is that some numbers can be really expensive to call , so be aware of what you’re paying for different numbers. And, really important here but check out how much it’s going to cost you to access emails and the internet. A lot of contracts will allow a certain amount of download within your contract but then charge, so ask your provider if they warn you when you’re getting close to your limit.

And lastly, to go back to the beginning, check carefully how much you’re charged to make and receive calls when abroad – yes you will be charged every time you answer your phone. You may even be charged if your message service answers for you! And switch off any roaming facility if you don’t need to use it. If you’re abroad and making calls to the country you are in then why not consider a local SIM card. They can be flexible and much cheaper than taking a UK phone abroad with you.

What’s on Moneysucks? for Students?

Here is an example of the ‘one minute videos’ we willl be posting on Moneysucks in the coming months, building up to a comprehensive library of help on all sorts of money and consumer issues for students. Budgeting and borrowing will obviously take up much of the space but we’ll also be looking at the best ways to put some money aside for the future as well as how to plan to buy your first house after you have started to work.

Students and bills from Money Sucks on Vimeo.

For starters tomorrow I’ll be answering a question from an 18-year-old student who wants to know if he is too young to start saving in a pension.

That and much more to come over the coming months at Moneysucks? If you have a question that you would like us ro answer here then please drop us a line.

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