An age-old unfairness
SO MANY banks, insurers and phone and energy giants don’t seem to understand that, try as they might, some elderly people just cannot get to grips with the internet or modern smartphones.
Fat- cat bosses at these firms appear equally unable to grasp that many pensioners, quite reasonably, don’t want to spend their retirement squinting at a tiny screen.
Either financial firms are blind to these realities, or the trend of hammering anyone who isn’t online is up there with the most abhorrent money-making ploys around.
Many victims have no idea they’re being exploited. If you don’t use the internet, you might not know British Gas offers periods of free electricity at weekends to online customers. And millions of over65s without access to comparison sites unwittingly pay hundreds too much for car and home cover.
Meanwhile, savers get far better rates online as banks rapidly close branches; people who pay bills by cheque are charged an extra £94 a year; and homeowners without computers are billed for broadband they can’t use, because TalkTalk and others no longer offer landline-only deals.
The upshot is that basic services are being stripped from the old to pay for phone apps and cheaper prices for the young. This slippery slope ends with elderly people feeling excluded from the Britain they spent their lives building.
Financial firms — and the watchdogs in charge of them — need to stop treating the elderly as a nuisance, and realise they have a duty to look after the men and women who fought and worked for the freedom and prosperity that allowed our top British firms to grow into the giants they are today. Just a few measures from the Financial Conduct Authority or Competition and Markets Authority could make a big difference.
For example, an industry-funded shopping- around service for insurance would save the elderly up to £800 million a year, calculations for Money Mail show. All that’s needed is a freephone number reserved for the over-70s, and staff to answer and find the best deals.
Another idea is banning firms from restricting their top deals to online customers. Yes, internetonly services are cheaper to run, but since when was that enough reason to justify blatant discrimination against the 3.8 million over-65s who are offline?
Please send me any suggestions to help the older generation get a fair deal and Money Mail will lobby the powers that be.
Sky-high service
TELL me if you’ve had enough, but I do think it’s important to keep circulating your tales of topnotch customer service. As well as highlighting trustworthy companies to other readers, it seems to me that dangling the carrot of good publicity in front of firms can only encourage the rip- off merchants to mend their ways.
The latest comes from Patricia, from Stoke-on-Trent, who writes: ‘I recently returned from Thailand, and on the final leg of the journey, to Manchester Airport, my suitcase was damaged.
‘I reported it to the airport and two days later, I received a new suitcase! The company concerned was K2 Global Limited (Maidenhead). Very impressed!’
Keep them coming.
Resist bank bait
AN EMAIL dropped into my inbox at the weekend titled: ‘Dan, what’s stopping you?’ Could it be from a holiday website that knows I’m hankering after some sun? Or perhaps a shopping website that’s seen me browsing for shelves?
No — it turns out it’s from a bank, First Direct, pushing its personal loan.
It’s hard to disagree that the deal is attractive at a rate of 3 pc on £15,050 to £30,000. But I’ve never expressed an interest in getting a personal loan — let alone told First Direct.
To send emails asking what’s ‘stopping’ me makes it seem like we need an excuse not to get into debt.
In reality, you should never borrow cash unless you have a rock-solid reason for needing it.
No wonder families in Britain, already £1.58 trillion in the red, keep piling on debt.
The banks know full well what they’re doing, and are raking in billions by treating the likes of you and me as mugs in their marketing letters and emails.
Don’t fall for it.