Mid-week money sections all doom and gloom for badly treated customers

Be it unscrupulous landlords, demon debt-collectors or the much bashed banks, the mid-week money sections this week sang in unison about customers not getting a fair deal.

Clinton Manning of The Mirror delved into Shelter’s recent research which reveals there are millions of tenants living in despair due to rogue landlords failing to carry out basic property repairs. Graham Hiscott interviewed Mike O’Connor from Consumer Focus who is concerned about unjustified energy bill increases, and Esther Shaw warned that loan costs are set to soar following the new rules aimed at making the financial system more stable. The concern is that the regulations will force banks to lend less and inflict higher rates, fuelling the continuing resentment towards the high street banks.

In other news, the burning topic was the FOS report which reveals tens of thousands of customer complaints are being ignored by banks and getting referred to the Ombudsman. The Daily Mail’s James Salmon asked how it was possible for the banks to treat customers so badly, and offered ‘top 10’ banks who like to say no. With complaining the name of the game Salmon also investigated the treatment of those in the red by debt-collecting agencies, disclosing that the OFT was swamped with complaints from distressed victims last year.

The rest of the scores on the board this week were as follows:

Charity                  0%         

Credit Cards       20%       

Fraud/ scams     0%         

IFAs                       0%         

Insurance            10%       

Investment        10%       

Mortgages          20%       

Pensions              10%       

Regulation          0%         

Savings                 20%       

Tax                         10%       

Utilities                 0%