Category Archives: Consumer affairs

Holidays abroad: many Britons plan to press on despite government advice

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Tui says half of its passengers booked to visit Portugal in June are still planning to travel

As recriminations continue over the UK government’s decision to remove Portugal from the travel green list, many Britons have decided to press ahead with overseas holiday plans, even if that means going against official advice.

At 4.45pm on Sunday 6 June, Pont-Aven, one of Brittany Ferries’ flagship cruise liners, will leave Plymouth for Santander in Spain – the company’s first sailing on that route for eight months. The UK government says people should not travel to amber list locations such as Spain and advises against all but essential travel to the country – but that has not stopped the company, or the more than 800 people making the trip.

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Booking a holiday outside the UK? Here’s what you need to know

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British travellers face challenges this year not only from the Covid crisis, but also the effects of Brexit. Here’s the lowdown

Holidaymakers in England, Scotland and Wales have been given the green light for trips abroad. Travel is restricted to a small number of countries but the early signs are that they are proving popular with those desperate for a change of scene – this week Tui announced it would be putting on bigger planes to meet demand for trips to Portugal. Bookings for flights to the island of Madeira rose by 625% straight after the green list of countries was announced, according to the website Skyscanner, while demand for Gibraltar leapt by 335%.

For most people, this will be the first trip abroad since the UK’s post-Brexit transition period ended. Here’s our guide to booking a trip in the time of Covid and after the time of the EU.

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Repair or replace? An expert guide to fixing or ditching eight household items

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It’s good for the environment and your wallet – so it’s no surprise that repairing is all the rage. From vacuum cleaners to microwaves, here’s what to fix and what to forget

My kettle’s broken. It still boils water, but it doesn’t switch off – just boils on, converting the kitchen to a sauna, wastefully, expensively. Put another way, the Polly component still functions well, but Sukey’s lost it. Time to bin it, splash out on a new one. Or maybe not …

Could it be repaired? Could I repair it? “It depends on the kettle and how it was put together,” says Kyle Wiens, a co-founder of iFixit, which publishes free repair guides for consumer electronics and gadgets, as well as selling kits and parts. He’s speaking to me via Skype from San Luis Obispo, California, wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Never take broken for an answer” – and he thinks it sounds as if the switch is the problem.

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‘She wanted $4,000 or she’d post the video’: how to deal with dating scams

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Romance scams on social media and apps are on the rise – but there are steps you can take if you fall victim

The dating game is full of the unexpected: it can quickly become apparent that photographs might have been in rotation for a few years or that someone listing their height as 5ft 10in could only achieve that height on tiptoes. But while those deceits may be forgivable if you hit it off with your date, at the other end of the spectrum are far worse cons.

In 2020, with more of us stuck at home, often desperate for some company or conversation, the number of romance scams reported to the crime body Action Fraud rose by 15%. Over the past 18 months it has received reports of more than 7,000 cases, with losses totalling £69.7m – an average of almost £10,000 a victim.

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Phone wet and won’t turn on? Here’s what to do with water damage (hint: putting it in rice won’t work)

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While many smartphones are advertised as ‘water resistant’, this doesn’t mean they’re immune from water damage

If you’ve ever gotten your phone wet in the rain, dropped it in water or spilt liquid over it, you’re not alone. One study suggests 25% of smartphone users have damaged their smartphone with water or some other kind of liquid.

Liquid penetrating a smartphone can affect the device in several ways. It could lead to:

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‘I thought buying things would make me feel better. It didn’t’: The rise of emotional spending

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Many of us are living for the buzz of the doorbell – spending billions we can’t afford on stuff we don’t need. Here is how to recognise the problem and regain control

In the past fortnight, I have bought the following items online: a hideous cat tree that takes up most of my living room, a lavender pillow spray, two scarves, a pair of gloves, two candles, a sheet mask, a pair of fleece-lined jogging bottoms (so comfy!), a card-holder and an under-eye brightening cream. None of these purchases were essential. Many I haven’t even taken out of the packaging, leaving them in a pile by the front door.

Ten months into the pandemic, I know the rhythms of the courier networks better than I know my menstrual cycle. Royal Mail in the morning; DPD and Hermes in the afternoon. Amazon comes any time, including late at night. DPD couriers insist on taking a photo of you with the package, mortifyingly. I wonder where these photos go: me in a food-stained tracksuit, dirty-haired, holding an armful of packages I can’t remember ordering with an abashed smile. I pray they never see the light of day.

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Will Ikea’s recycling scheme really make it greener?

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The furniture chain is trying to tackle the throwaway culture problem, but it has drawn criticism

If spending more time at home has made you consider a furniture update, do not sling out that Billy bookcase just yet. Instead of taking it to the tip, you may be able to raise some cash through Ikea’s new buyback service. The scheme, which it announced last autumn, allows customers to take their furniture back to the store to be refunded and receive a voucher worth up to half of the item’s original value. It will then be resold to a new home, giving it “a second chance at life”.

The furniture retailer says the service will reduce waste and increase sustainability, and is part of its efforts to go greener. Last week it told the FT it was also looking at offering a wider range of spare parts to help people repair its products.

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Mastercard to raise fees by at least 400% for EU firms selling to UK customers

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Change from October could lead to higher prices for those paying with UK-issued cards

Mastercard is to increase the fees EU firms face to take payments from online shoppers from the UK by at least 400%, in a move that could mean higher prices for consumers.

When a credit or debit card is used, a percentage of the purchase price is paid by the retailer to the bank that issued it as an interchange fee, which is set by a payments firm.

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The tactics retailers use to make us spend more – and how they harm the vulnerable

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Online stores draw in shoppers but those with mental health issues are particularly susceptible

As a digital marketer, Emily Ware spends a lot of time online, yet this comes with a risk. Ware has borderline personality disorder, a mental health condition linked with impulsive behaviours. In her case, that’s spending money online.

“At the start of 2020 I was £4,250 in debt with nothing to show for it,” she says. “A good 95% of this was due to impulse spending, from clothes to pub trips to gig tickets. One of the worst was spending £300 on tickets to see Cher on a whim.”

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Jabra Elite 85t review: AirPods Pro-beating noise cancelling Bluetooth earbuds

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Winning combo of great sound, noise cancelling, dual connection, long battery, small case and fit

Jabra is back with its fourth-generation Bluetooth true wireless earbuds, the Elite 85t, with improved fit, better sound and active noise cancelling to rival Apple’s AirPods Pro.

The Elite 85t cost £219.99 and top the range that includes its predecessors the £170 Elite 75t and £140 Elite 65t.

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‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’

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A Kent couple love their new car – but their experience suggests there are problems with the charging network

A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.

Linda Barnes and her husband had to visit six charging stations as one after another they were either out of order, already had a queue or were the slow, older versions that would never be able to provide a fast enough charge in the time.

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From Click Frenzy to Cyber Monday: how online sales became an ‘unofficial sport’

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It isn’t your imagination – there really are more online sales now, and they’re changing Australia’s retail calendar

Five stores email you on the same day. There’s a big sale coming tomorrow. You make a note in your calendar, planning to get some Christmas shopping done. By the time you log off the next day, a little dazed, you have an extra set of bedsheets and a popcorn machine you had no intention of buying.

It was that pop-up offer that did you in – a little red ticker ran across the screen saying “Hurry! Only three items left!” It was probably driven by a machine-learning algorithm.

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What should I do if I have a holiday booked to France? Q&A

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As France is taken off the government’s travel corridor list and new quarantine rules come into play, should UK holidaymakers cancel trips?

The UK government has removed France from its list of travel corridors, leaving hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers scrambling to rearrange their travel plans. A 14-day quarantine on return to the UK from France will come into effect from 4am on Saturday (15 August), leaving a window of little more than 30 hours for travellers to get home if they want to escape the measures.

The UK criteria for removing a country from the list is based on per capita case numbers. If these go above 20 per 100,000, the UK government categorises that country as high-risk. This Wednesday France reached 30.4, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, with significant numbers in recent days: 2,524 new cases were reported on Wednesday, up from 1,397 on Tuesday, and over 2,000 a day last weekend.

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Hopes fade among Queensland property owners left in limbo by Mayfair 101

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Chris Lower and wife Margie, who has stage four cancer, have made plans that depend on their deal with the investment firm

Earlier this year, Margie and Chris Lower cleaned out their tiny corner of tropical paradise in Mission Beach, preparing to hand the keys of their fisherman’s shack to investment firm Mayfair 101.

Margie, who has stage four bowel cancer, had wanted to be closer to hospitals for medical treatment and family. She imminently needs about $60,000 from the sale of their home to pay for a course of immunotherapy.

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German court rules against Volkswagen in ‘dieselgate’ scandal

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Carmaker must pay compensation to motorist who bought minivan fitted with emissions-cheating software

Volkswagen has lost a landmark legal battle in Germany’s highest civil court over compensation for the buyer of a secondhand minivan fitted with emissions-cheating software.

The world’s largest carmaker must take back the plantiff’s manipulated car and pay him €28,257.74 (£25,325), in a case that will lead to the company paying compensation to 60,000 German VW owners.

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EasyJet reveals cyber-attack exposed 9m customers’ details

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Airline apologises after credit card details of about 2,200 passengers were stolen

EasyJet has revealed that the personal information of 9 million customers was accessed in a “highly sophisticated” cyber-attack on the airline.

The company said on Tuesday that email addresses and travel details were accessed and it would contact the customers affected.

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Silly Billy: what the Ikea bookcase tells us about the true cost of fast furniture

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A Billy bookcase is made every three seconds. But with a third of people admitting to throwing away furniture that they could have sold or donated, does the cheap furniture boom have a heavy environmental price?

Jo Jackson remembers the day when it was clear that nothing was going to be the same for a while. It was mid-March and Made.com, an online purveyor of millennial-friendly furniture, had big plans for growth in the year of its 10th anniversary.

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Alone and disconnected: the woman left unable to call her dying partner

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Problems with internet and phone service were once just an inconvenience. Now they can prove to be catastrophic

Cut off by telecoms company, pensioner missed call as partner died of Covid-19

Barbara Parry* arranged to switch her phone and broadband account from Sky to Now TV in March, a week before lockdown. Instead, she was left incommunicado as her line was cancelled and her phone number reallocated.

During the following four weeks, as she pleaded in vain to be reconnected, her partner contracted Covid-19. He died four days later in hospital. Due to the blunders by Now TV, he was unable to call Parry from his deathbed and she was unable to say goodbye. The news was broken by a relative as the hospital could not get through on her cancelled number.

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Union calls for cash payment ban on UK buses over coronavirus

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Move will reduce risk of infection for drivers during pandemic, says Unite

Cash payments on all UK buses should be abolished for the duration of the coronavirus crisis to reduce the risk of driver infection, the union representing bus workers has demanded.

Unite called on Wednesday for an end to cash payments on all the bus systems still operating across the UK to help drive down infection rates, particularly as the country enters the predicted peak period of the outbreak over Easter and beyond.

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Amazon to suspend non-essential shipments to UK and US warehouses

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The company is prioritising five categories of goods which it classifies as essential products

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    • Online retail giant Amazon is stopping sellers from sending non-essential items to its UK and US warehouses until 5 April, to make space for vital items needed by its customers during the coronavirus outbreak.

    Amazon wrote to its third-party sellers, some of whom use the company’s logistics to store and dispatch their products, to inform them that stocks of medical supplies and certain household items are running low due to increased demand from online shoppers.

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