VICTORY How our campaigns changed Britain ... And saved you thousands

OUR campaigns have always been the back bone of Money Mail. Here VICTORIA BISCHOFF highlights some of our biggest successes: FIGHT AGAINST UNFAIR PENSIONS FOR WOMEN

UNTIL the late Nineties, women risked a poverty-stricken retirement if their marriage broke down.

Many wives sacrificed their careers to raise children, allowing their husbands to go out to work and build up a pension for both of them but to which they had no right to a share after a divorce.

We saw this as unfair and campaigned for a change in the rules. the government finally agreed and introduced new legislation into the Welfare reform and Pensions Act 1999, which became effective on December 1 2000.

Margaret Stone, who was Money Mail editor at the time, says: ‘We made our point succinctly and, thankfully, the government saw sense.’

today, spouses can apply to the court for a share of any company or personal pension.

typically, a lump sum will be paid into a separate pension for when they retire.

HOW WE BATTLED FOR LARGER ISA LIMITS

WHEN the Individual Savings Account was unveiled in 1997, Labour’s Paymaster General Geoffrey robinson initially proposed a £50,000 lifetime limit. the millionaire businessman claimed this was more than enough for any saver.

According to our advice columnist tony hazell, one day the then Money Mail editor Margaret Stone stormed into the paper’s Kensington office and declared that Mr robinson had to be stopped.

She says: ‘If the government had suggested a cap of £250,000 that might have been different — but £50,000 was well within people’s normal experience.’

In the 1998 Budget, the then chancellor Gordon Brown abandoned the cap.

Savers who took advantage of the full annual Isa limit since 1999 will now have £169,560. And that’s before you include interest or investment growth.

PROBE INTO PALTRY ENDOWMENTS

IN the eighties and Nineties, homeowners were sold interestonly mortgages with stock marketlinked savings plans that were supposed to pay off the debt at the end of the 25-year term. But insurance company salesmen exaggerated the potential returns and many customers found themselves facing a devastating shortfall.

the firms behind the deals then tried to hide the truth. We called on readers to send in their policy statements so that we could calculate what the payouts were — and you responded brilliantly.

tony hazell, by then editor of Money Mail, says: ‘Financial advisers would phone up and rant at me for daring to expose the truth about these products, which were paying them huge sums in commission.’

We published a template letter for making a complaint and it drew 2,000 requests in the first day alone.

More than half a million people went on to receive compensation totalling more than £2billion for the mis-selling.

the City watchdog told companies to write warning letters to policyholders and firms now publish income payouts online once a year. endowment mortgagess are no longer sold.

SCANDAL OF LOST COMPANY SAVINGS

IN the early 2000s, tens of thousands of workers lost their company pensions when final salary schemes went bust.

Some of these people had worked in back-breaking manual jobs all their lives and faced having to stack shelves in retirement just to keep their heads above water.

the debacle was caused by a failure of regulation and the government was directly responsible. Yet the treasury refused to make good the losses.

tony hazell says: ‘It was such a difficult time — hard-working people were calling us in tears, not knowing what to do.’

Without the Money Mail campaign, it is doubtful that we would have the Pension Protection Fund today. this vital protection means savers will not be left penniless if final-salary schemes go bust.

Set up in 2004 and funded by a £615 million levy on pension providers, it guarantees you will get at least 90 per cent of your pension if your scheme goes under. those who are already retired get 100pc guaranteed. It is currently paying out to 120,000 people.

WAR ON RIP-OFF BANK CHARGES

IN 2006, banks were making £3 billion a year from customers who slipped into the red.

tony hazell says: ‘the bank charges were out of control.

‘We uncovered cases of teenagers earning just a few hundred pounds a month who owed hundreds of pounds in fees.

‘they had no hope of repaying the money and the banks were making no attempt to help them manage it.’

We campaigned against excessive fees for going a day overdrawn, a lack of warning for customers and fees hidden in the small print.

the Office of Fair trading took the banks to the Supreme Court. Judges let the banks off on a technicality, but the exposure forced big lenders to make charges fairer. today, many banks cap fees at £5 a day.

GETTING SAVERS A BETTER DEAL

AFTER the financial crisis in 2008, the government, Bank of england, banks and pension firms stripped away the incentives to save.

Savings rates hit an all-time low, tax perks vanished and savers were baffled by some of the complex deals on offer.

James Coney, who was editor of Money Mail at the time, says: ‘there had been a total breakdown in trust between consumers and the financial firms. We made the market more transparent, with changes

such as clarity on savings rates.’ We also exposed how six million children with child trust funds were missing out on £34,000 extra because the government had refused to allow parents to move their nest eggs to Junior Isas.

The ban was lifted in December 2013.Another victory was the creation of a single Isa allowance in 2014. Now savers can money freely between cash and shares.

END TO THE GREAT ANNUITY CON

BETWEEN 2011 and 2015 we exposed how savers were getting a raw deal on annuities. Couples and pensioners with medical conditions were being locked into unfairly low payouts for life and losing thousands to high fees. In April 2015, the then Chancellor George Osborne finally gave in. The pension freedom reforms mean that no one has to buy an annuity any more.

Our investigation then found that firms were charging savers huge fees to cash in their pots.

We won a ban on firms forcing savers to take financial advice and a cap on penalties for early retirement at 1 pc of the pot.

Dan Hyde, who is the current editor of Money Mail, says: ‘Most victims had no clue that they were being ripped off and could not fight back if they did.’

CRUSADE TO HELP GRIEVING FAMILIES

IN sOMe utterly heart-rending letters, you told us how difficult it can be to wrap up a loved one’s finances after they had died. Bank staff were not trained to be sensitive with grieving families and many companies had routinely addressed letters to the person who had just died. We also found firms’ bereavement phone numbers were hard to find. In 2015, we called on all banks, building societies, insurers and utility firms to sharpen up their acts when it came to dealing with such cases. James Coney says: ‘When Money Mail’s Victoria Bischoff wrote about her experiences after her mother died that year, we received hundreds of messages from readers who had suffered in the same way. ‘I do not mind admitting that some reduced me to tears.’ The British Bankers’ Association consequently set up a taskforce of banking chiefs and launched a new code of conduct on how companies must treat customers reporting a death. And banks will next year test a service that will allow relatives to cancel loved ones’ accounts in a single step.