You wouldn’t believe the cheek of some of these bankers. Not happy with losing billions of pounds of our money they now want to charge us more for the privilege of looking after the small amount we have left! 

The banks have been introducing a whole new raft of current accounts over the last couple of weeks but you need to be extra careful before being tempted to sign up to  a new account that seems to be offering a lot of freebies - especially free money! It’s an old saying, but it’s worth repeating. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Follow that with another oldie but goldie to reinforce the point. If it looks too good to be true it probably is.

If the Bank looks like it is offering you free money it will no doubt have plans to get it back from you over the lifetime of your new account, either in charges for the way you run your account or by paying you a derisory rate of interest on money you leave in your account. It looks as though some of these new accounts are going to charge up to £5 per day for going overdrawn - even if it by prior agreement! Others will charge a flat monthly fee and lure customers with the offer of ‘free’ insurance, which is surely not free but instead is costing £15 per month!

All well and good if you actually need the insurance but in many cases it will be to provide cover that you may already have, and be paying for, elsewhere! So if you are tempted by one of these offers have a good look at the terms and conditions and make sure that you are not buying something that you already have, or worse still don’t really need.

If the Banks lose their case over charges with the OFT then we are likely to see more of these accounts with a flat monthly charge being introduced. What we are seeing just now is likely to be the thin edge of the wedge and the likelihood is that we will all be paying for our Banking services sooner rather than later. Falling interest rates are having an impact on bank profits and the first place they will turn in an attempt to recoup that money is its customers.

So take advantage of free accounts while you still can. Don’t pay needlessly for ’services’ that you don’t really want, and make sure that if you are going  to dip into the red you let your bank know beforehand to save paying the ridiculous fees that are imposed.

PS. We will come back to Warranties and 12-month guarantees next week.

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Here’s the first in a new series of blogs to help guide you through the jungle that is consumer law and to make sure that you don’t have to put up with shoddy goods, poor service and unhelpful companies. I’ll also be giving you money tips and showing you the best ways to borrow as well as how to get the best out of your savings

I’ll be looking at how you can take goods back without a receipt and how to formally ‘reject’ faulty goods, as well as the best way to complain and what to do if your complaints fall on deaf ears.

But to kick off let’s start with the old one about who you need to take faulty goods back to. How often have you gone back to a shop only to be told “Sorry, can’t help you. You need to take that back to the manufacturer. ”

Then when you do, you’re told. “Sorry, can’t help you, you need to take it back to wherever you bought it!”

For the record your contract is with the shop you bought the goods from in the first place and if they tell you any different you don’t have to put up with it. Tell them that under the Sale of Goods Act the goods you bought need to be ‘of satisfactory quality’ and ‘fit for purpose’. If they are not then you are entitled to a replacement or your money back. And you are entitled to expect the retailer to sort it out for you since they sold the goods to you in the first place. Be polite, be firm but stand your ground and tell them that they need to sort it for you.

We’ll look in more detail at some of these terms in a later blog but basically if you buy a watch you expect it to tell you the time, and if you are told that a shirt is ‘pure cotton’ you don’t expect to see a label on it that says ‘cotton and polyester mix’! 

And if you’re told that “we can’t help you because you bought the TV more than 12 months ago and so the warranty has expired and it’s not our responsibility any more,” then remember that that’s simply not true and we’ll look at that one in more detail next time

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