Question Time: Where do I put house sale money? Consumer rights wrong righted! How to talk to my partner about money?

In our Question Time podcast, Martin Lewis gives you answers on anything and everything, including: can I switch my energy fix to a new provider during the 14-day cooling off period? Where should I keep a big lump sum I’ve got from my house sale? I’ve had a financial lightbulb moment, but my partner can’t see it, how should I talk to them about it? Plus, after a question about a retailer that was displaying the wrong returns info online, we’ve turned a consumer rights wrong into a success! If you want to ask Martin a question, you now can! His Question Time podcast lets you ask Martin absolutely anything and everything (within reason!). So, if you’ve always wanted to know his signature dance move, which number he has his toaster set to, or have a very complicated question about your finances, email it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected].

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:47Speaker 00

  Question Time podcast is intimate. We all know each other in this podcast.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  It is quite complicated and it can be a bit convoluted.

• 1:53Martin Lewis?

  You do not get punished for poor signal. You will still definitely get your badge.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  You've asked at a very fortuitous time.

• 1:59Martin Lewis?

  Thank you so much for calling. Obrigado. Thank you for having me.

• 2:02Speaker 02

  If no one else is doing it, the Question Time crew were.

• 2:05Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time edition, where you get to ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. This week, you ask me, can I ditch my new fix to move to a new provider if I'm still within the 14-day cooling-off period? Where do I put a big lump sum after a house sale? I had a financial lightbulb moment, but my partner isn't seeing it. What do I do? And finally, we write, a consumer writes wrong. Play the theme tune.

• 2:52Martin Lewis?

  Hello and welcome to the Question Time edition of our podcast. It's lovely to have you on board. This is the bit where you can ask me anything and everything you like, open brackets, within reason, close brackets. And as regular listeners will know, I do not do this by myself. Oh, no, heaven forbid, tish tosh. I am joined by the curator of questions himself, our venerable producer, professor, sir, Dr Matthew Burnham Esquire. Hello. I don't know why that was funny. It was your hello. Hello. Hello, Matt. And as I always do need to say, all of those titles are absolutely official, within the

• 3:37Martin Lewis?

  canon of the podcast, but completely made up outside the canon of our podcast. Now, I wanted to tell you something that will excite you, Matt. Okay, go on. You will like this a lot. Ooh. So, my wonderful 13-year-old daughter, Safar, has started listening to the Question Time podcast, because I played her some bits from it and she liked it, and she now listens off her own bat. Oh, really? She does. And on Friday, I think I can tell people, we record Question Time on a Thursday. We do. Matt Addit's on a Friday morning, sends me a copy to listen, just in case there's anything in it, that I just want to go, ooh, ooh, I might have suddenly realised I said that wrong or something like that. And then I give him a little couple of notes, and then it's done, and we put it up on the Monday, which you will all know, because you listen to.

• 4:20Martin Lewis?

  Well, on the Friday, I had listened to the podcast, and I called Matt to do a bit of feedback, and I had you on speaker. I was sitting in the kitchen, and Safar had walked in, and we had a little chat, and I put it down, and she looked up at me and went, was that Matt? Was that Matt? She was quite excited that that was Matt from the podcast who was on the phone. So within, I think Matt, within the canon of the podcast, maybe I should start calling you the one and only celebrity professor, Dr Matthew Burnham Esquire.

• 4:54Speaker 02

  I'll take anything, to be fair. You can give me any titles and I'll gladly have them. That's so sweet.

• 4:59Martin Lewis?

  Yeah. Isn't it nice?

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:02Martin Lewis?

  And I hope you don't mind me saying that, darling, because you're probably listening now. Anyway, let's get on with the

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Thanks, Saffa.

• 5:07Martin Lewis?

  That was darling to my daughter, obviously not to you, Matt.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  Yes. Shall we do a question?

• 5:11Martin Lewis?

  Yeah, let's.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  We'll start with one from Ross. He's emailed it in to [email protected]. He starts, Dear Martin and Matt.

• 5:19Martin Lewis?

  Great. Love it. You see? No, it's good.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  No, no, it's good. Yeah.

• 5:22Martin Lewis?

  That's standard format now. I've won that battle. It's Martin and Matt, not Matt and Martin. I've won it. It's over. It's done. And I think that's the right format.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  He says, I have a question about switching energy during the cooling off period of a previous energy switch. We have an electric only and have been with home energy because even though it's a variable tariff, they price under the price cap. So it's always been cheaper than the cheapest fix when I've checked on a comparison site.

• 5:44Martin Lewis?

  Quick interruption from me. Absolutely right. Now, we always talk about getting off the price cap. A price cap tariff is any standard variable tariff, the bog standard default tariff that an energy provider has. But home energy is a different player because what it does is its standard variable tariff is actually much cheaper than the price cap. So it's variable, the price can move, but it has tended so far to be a lot cheaper than the price cap. So it's sort of the one anomaly under the price cap, but you have to accept that it is variable. Now, I have to say, there were quite a number of times when there have been cheaper fixed tariffs than home energy available. Obviously not the time that Ross has been checking. But yeah, quite right. Normally I talk about the price cap being

• 6:26Martin Lewis?

  a pants cap. The home energy price cap currently, and they could change it, currently is not a pants cap because it's basically just a cheap variable tariff. Do carry on with the question. Sorry for interrupting.

• 6:38Speaker 02

  That's okay. He goes and say, however, following the predicted big rise to the price cap in July and that some first-

• 6:44Martin Lewis?

  Currently 13% predicted.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 6:46Martin Lewis?

  I'm interrupting you a lot.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  You are, I know, yeah.

• 6:48Martin Lewis?

  It's not normal style, but I'm gonna do it just for this, keep going.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  And that some firms have recently released some cheaper fixes. I checked again and found that E.ON had a 13-month fix that was slightly cheaper than what we're currently paying. So I went with this. My question is, if an even cheaper fix came out while I'm still within the 14-day cooling-off period, could I switch again directly with E.ON without having to pay an early exit fee? Or would I have to cancel with E.ON, go back to Home Energy, then start a new switch from Home Energy to avoid paying the early exit fee with E.ON? And if I can switch directly from E.ON, would the new switch just have to be started within the 14-day cooling-off period to avoid the early exit fee? Or would it have to complete within the cooling-off period?

• 7:30Martin Lewis?

  No, the first thing is you can cancel within a cooling-off period. So if you're within the cooling-off period, it's the point of cancellation that matters, not the point of switch that matters. So once I've told them that you're cancelling, that's how it works. Now, it is quite complicated and it can be a bit convoluted. But the basic answer, first of all, if you're in your cooling-off period, the big thing that counts is have they actually switched you or not yet? If they haven't switched you yet, you can choose to either switch it or move the cancelling period, or just cancel it and you'll stay where you are. You haven't switched, you're basically, you're within the cooling-off period, you're just cancelling the switch, back to where you were, and then, so in your case, you'd move from Home Energy to the new one.

• 8:15Martin Lewis?

  If you have switched and you're still in your cooling-off period, you tell your new supplier that you want to cancel and they should give you your options. And you'll have 15 working days from that point, when they explain your options, to either agree a new contract with your new supplier, agree a new contract with your old supplier, or agree a new contract with a different supplier. So basically...

• 8:41Martin Lewis?

  You say, if you have switched, you say, actually, I don't want to be with you. I want to cancel the switch. I'm going to move elsewhere. And then you've got 15 days to sort that out, 15 working days to sort that out, is the honest answer. Now, just a bigger picture on that question. And I'm going to be honest here, Matt. This has been one of my biggest panics over the last few weeks, right? Why? So, we went for quite a long period after the start of the Middle East conflict, where there were no fixes cheaper than the current price cap. And the price cap, which 60% of the nation are on, and basically, unless you're on a special tariff, unless you're on a fix, unless you've chosen to be on a tariff, you're on the price cap if you're in England, Scotland and Wales,

• 9:25Martin Lewis?

  is likely to go up. It's currently predicted to go up 13% ish in July. It might be 11%, it might be 15%, but it's going to be somewhere around that order. And then much more crystal ball gazing, once you get to the next price cap move in October, it's predicted to stay about the same as the July price cap and predicted to go up again in January. But those could change quite radically because the world is so volatile at the moment. But it currently looks like the price cap is going to get more expensive. So then we had this period where, once the ceasefire was announced, because world wholesale rates dropped on the hopes that the Straits of Hormuz would open up, you were then able to get fixes below the energy price cap. So I came out and said, look, and I was very careful with my language, actually.

• 10:10Martin Lewis?

  I came out and said, look, if you're risk averse, if you don't want your prices to rise, you can currently fix, it's only 1%, 2% cheaper than the current price cap. But that price cap is certainly going up in July and may stay high the rest of the year. So this is a way of guaranteeing you won't have any price hikes. I did even say, and because I'm careful, I said, but I can't promise with hindsight it will be the cheapest, because of course, prices could get cheaper. And then it did get about a percent or two cheaper, and I was, because I racked myself with guilt, going, oh no, I kind of waited a week and people would have saved an extra 1%. Of course, I didn't know that because it was based, so based on what Donald Trump does, and nobody knows the mind of Donald Trump, so might argue not even Donald Trump himself, but I would never say such a thing.

• 10:53Martin Lewis?

  And so, because of all that, I'm sitting there going, did I call too early? Did I call too early? And then, of course, of course, the ceasefire fell down somewhat. It's still there to an extent, but the negotiations haven't happened. Wholesale rates have gone back up and fixes have got more expensive again. So I was calling it a window of opportunity and it was a window of opportunity. But even though I'd done all the caveats and even though I'd talked about it in risk averse, you know, and saying, if you're risk averse, this is better than the price cap because it stays. I know, and well, let's just be blunt because this is, you know, Question Time Podcast is intimate. We all know each other in this podcast.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  We do.

• 11:27Martin Lewis?

  You know, and the listeners as well, they get this is a sort of safe space to talk.

• 11:32Martin Lewis?

  I know that lots of people listen to me and do stuff because I tell them to, even if they don't necessarily understand it. It always petrifies me when someone says, I don't understand what you're talking about, but I do everything you say. I mean, that's the worst thing because my whole point is you have to understand it. And I thought, oh, but maybe they haven't read the caveats that this is if you're risk averse and I'm not saying, because you know, then I'm not saying this is definitely the best thing to do. And now it's got 1% cheaper. So I had a couple of days of going, I hope I've done the right thing. I hope I've done the right thing. There's a lot of pressure when you know, because a lot of people acted on the back of that call out. Anyway, that's just a little side message. But as it happened, because unfortunately, sadly, what's gone in the Middle East didn't get as much better as we thought it was going to, then wholesale rates have gone up, back up a

• 12:15Martin Lewis?

  little bit again, and some of those fixes have got more expenses again. So it was a window of opportunity, but you just don't know that. It's quite tough to make the call.

• 12:26Martin Lewis?

  So everybody, we're about to move to the second question. Normally I predict what it's going to be. Regular listeners say to yourself, what's it going to be now? I can hear you all saying, it's a caller, Martin. It's got to be a caller. Matt always puts a caller second in the podcast. Matt, is it a caller?

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Do you know what I might do? I might just one week, switch the order up completely, throw you off and...

• 12:47Martin Lewis?

  No, no, it's not me you're throwing off. It's all the listeners, Matt. You can't do that to them.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Okay, I won't do it.

• 12:51Martin Lewis?

  You can't do it to them. It's a caller, Matt.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  It's a caller, it's a caller. David in Berkshire, hi David.

• 12:55Martin Lewis?

  Hello, how are you doing? Hello, David. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I feel very privileged.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  Um. We are, uh, so my wife and I are just about to complete on the sale of a flat in London and will have about a £400,000 lump sum.

• 13:10Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  It's our only property and we've been renting it out for the last 13 years. Due to the currently living in free job related accommodation, my wife and I are not in a rush to buy and it may take a year or more to find the right property for us. As this money will be needed for that future purchase, I'm not looking to invest it or lock it in.

• 13:28Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so we'll take the investment pal and we'll just throw that one away. If you're keeping it for the long term, obviously investment can outperform savings for long term money you don't need, but that's gone here. We don't have investment in our, in our, but the, the cupboard has had investment removed from it. Carry on.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  Yes. So we want to be able to move on the property if we find that one. So my wife and I have already.

• 13:48Martin Lewis?

  Oh, no. Oh, no. You're in the middle of your question there and your line dropped, so we've now moved you onto a phone, um, because we've gone for old school technology. Do carry on where you were.

• 13:57Speaker 04

  So, uh, I was saying I'm a high rate taxpayer and my wife is near the top of the basic rate tax bracket. Um, my current plan is to use 50,000 each in premium bonds alongside high interest accounts and perhaps regular saver accounts to maximise the interest.

• 14:11Martin Lewis?

  Have you used your ISA? Yes.

• 14:13Speaker 04

  Yes, so I've used, uh, both of us have used our ISA this year already. Um, I have a couple of specific questions. Um, am I right in thinking we should put some money in my wife's name to gain interest but not tip her into the higher rate, um, as she would lose £500 of the interest allowance? And am I missing any sensible options for short term or a stroke no low risk investment savings?

• 14:34Martin Lewis?

  Okay, so David, you've asked at a very fortuitous time and I will come on to why in a moment. We'll go through the standard practice though. First thing, let's talk about savings safety protection. Do you know how your money is protected in savings at the moment?

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Uh, yes, so the SCS protection limits. Um, and I guess this will come under the lifetime event clause of six months. Is that what you're asking?

• 14:57Martin Lewis?

  I was, I wanted to see if you knew about that. It does come under the lifetime event for six months. You're protected up to 1.4 million pounds per person, per financial institution. Because you've sold your house and inheritance would do the same thing, you get much bigger protection for the short term in, in the unlikely event that the bank or building society you put your money in went bust, you'd be protected up to 1.4 million pounds. The rule after that is the standard 120,000 pounds per person, per financial institution. But right now you'd have 1.4 million pounds. Having said that, you're looking to keep money for the longer term, so there's a question. So the obvious things first is that you're going to be paying tax on the interest because, you know, you're a higher rate taxpayer, you've used up your personal savings allowance and all

• 15:40Martin Lewis?

  the other allowances, you've done your ISAs, you've got money in premium bonds. Generally, I poo poo premium bonds because the rate isn't that high and for most people, unless you're maxing it out and you pay tax on your savings, with typical luck, you would beat it in normal savings, but you are maxing it out and you do pay tax on your savings, so therefore it becomes quite a good deal for you. So the next question that we would normally look at is we would normally look at what different routes are there for maximizing your money in the short term and spreading the money into different accounts? Well, Matt, add a record screech here, because just launched in the last week,

• 16:24Martin Lewis?

  our new fixed rate savings from NSNI, NSNI is the state owned financial institution. Now, the important thing about NSNI is normally when we talk about the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, protection up to £120,000 per person per financial institution, ultimately that is backed up by the government, but with NSNI, all of it is backed up by the government. So effectively, all the money you put in there is government backed because it's state owned. And normally the rates aren't that great, but just now it's launched these fixed rate savings accounts, they're just fixed rate savings, it calls them bonds, they're still taxable, just like any other fixed rate savings. But the rates, normally the rates in NSNI fixed rate savings are way below the best buys,

• 17:09Martin Lewis?

  the rates of these are only about 0.2% below the best buys. You've got a one-year fix at 4.5%, a two-year fix at 4.4%, eight percent a three-year fix at 4.45%, a five-year fix at 4.4%. And with all of them, you can put up to a million pounds in there. So you could put £400,000 in there and it's absolutely backed by the government. So one option you have is you could take your £400,000 and you could put it in a one-year fix because I think you're sort of indicating you won't be buying within the next year, David?

• 17:41Speaker 04

  Well, no, that's the point. Do you want to have that option?

• 17:45Martin Lewis?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  Move on a property behind the one and converting it for £500,000.

• 17:50Martin Lewis?

  Oh, I got all excited. Matt, can you? No, we'll still keep the record screech because it's important information for other people. I mean, what do you have here? You could e-cout extra rates with notice accounts where you have to give notice to buy, but the highest at the moment aren't really beating easy access. You could be looking at six-month fixes. Again, the highest at the moment aren't beating the Chase account. Do you have a Chase account?

• 18:14Speaker 04

  No, that's the one I looked at when I went on to a website.

• 18:19Martin Lewis?

  Very good, very good. So, yeah, I mean, you and your wife could separately have money in Chase up to 120,000 each and get that protection. Obviously, for the first six months, you get the full protection. That's paying you 4.5%. After that, you're starting to drop down the rate. There isn't really anything clever if you want access to it. Occasionally, we get fixed-rate savings that pay, and you've used your ISA, so you can't use the fixed cash ISA that would give you access. Occasionally, there are fixed-rate savings accounts that give you access within the term if you close the account down for a small interest penalty. There aren't any of those available at the moment. So, it is just easy access. If you don't want to use the NSNI one, it's just easy access.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Okay, so what you're saying is put all the money into Chase initially, and then after six months, then I can move that over to then spread the protection into the different accounts.

• 19:09Martin Lewis?

  Absolutely. You might have a better idea of whether you could then lock money away in that time. And you could put it in yours and your wife's name. You asked about the tax. Absolutely right. Spouses can move money between you. So, anyone who's married or in a civil partnership can move money between them without any tax implications. So, putting money in your wife's name, which might be joint money anyway, is sensible. I'm so sorry I couldn't come up with anything extra clever. I do think, for everybody else listening, those NSNI accounts, if you've got a large lump sum you're sitting on that you're going to need access to, so you're not going to invest it or put it elsewhere, those are really useful because of the million pounds is effectively protected utterly only just below life events.

• 19:53Speaker 04

  Okay, sorry about the signal. Hopefully, well, I was scared I wasn't going to get my badge.

• 19:57Martin Lewis?

  You're getting your badge. You do not get punished for poor signal. You will still definitely get your badge. You will be the third recipient of badges once they are made. And thank you for your call.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  Thank you very much.

• 20:10Martin Lewis?

  Cheers.

• 20:13Martin Lewis?

  We've got Marcelo in Bournemouth. Hi Marcelo.

• 20:17Speaker 05

  Hello.

• 20:17Martin Lewis?

  Hi Marcelo, welcome. What can we do for you?

• 20:21Speaker 05

  Thanks for having me. So just for a little bit of context, so I'm 41 and I recently had a financial wake up.

• 20:29Martin Lewis?

  Okay. A lightbulb moment.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  And my wife kind of shut down when I tried to get her on board. So my question would be, how do I approach her? Without her making her feel criticised and what should I prioritise first?

• 20:49Martin Lewis?

  So I need sort of an idea of bigger picture. Is this you suddenly realised that your finances weren't organised? And you didn't have the right products and you weren't budgeting? Is it that type of lightbulb moment you're talking about?

• 21:03Speaker 05

  Well, she always kept things very simple, but very effective. So we always only had one account for everything.

• 21:11Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 21:12Speaker 05

  And I now come to realise that, you know, if we move that money maybe to Akashica, you know, that money can give us some a bit of extra money.

• 21:24Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 21:25Speaker 05

  Budgeting, you know, or investing a little bit. So I went full on and maybe I came on a little bit too strong.

• 21:34Martin Lewis?

  Yeah.

• 21:35Speaker 05

  When I was trying to give my ideas to her. And she kind of, I was criticising her for what she's been doing. Which it was not my intention at all.

• 21:46Martin Lewis?

  So can I ask you, between us, Marcelo?

• 21:50Speaker 05

  Yes, yes.

• 21:51Martin Lewis?

  Does your wife know you're coming on the podcast?

• 21:55Speaker 05

  She does now, Martin, because she saw the email.

• 21:59Martin Lewis?

  Okay. Well, look, what I would say, because if your wife is going to listen, I may as well. What's your wife's name?

• 22:07Speaker 05

  Catherine.

• 22:07Martin Lewis?

  Catherine.

• 22:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:10Martin Lewis?

  I've been doing this a long time. And what happened to Marcelo is actually quite a common thing. That's why I use the phrase lightbulb moment. People have an epiphany and they suddenly realise there's so much more that you can do with money. And like any convert to anything, they get quite excited at the moment that that happens. And so Marcelo's excitement in talking to you is really common. I am constantly learning more stuff about money as I go through my life and I think that we all are. And it sounds to me like you have been very organised in what you do with the finances. But there are two skills to financial management.

• 22:54Martin Lewis?

  And it's interesting because some people have one, some people have the other, but actually both is the best way to go. And for me, I hope there's an opportunity here for the two of you to work well together. It sounds like Catherine has the budgeting skill, which is absolutely core. Keeping your money together, making sure you're not overspending, making sure that everything is in hand. And that's absolutely crucial. The second skill is the product skill, which is saying, have we got the best deals on anything and everything? You know, typically for someone who's never worked through all the different bills and never gone to find out having all the money in the right place, the savings are potentially fifteen to twenty percent available. So you know, if you're talking, that can easily be, for doing it right, fifteen hundred, two thousand pounds a year.

• 23:37Martin Lewis?

  That you can have more in your pocket than otherwise. And I would hope, maybe if, I mean, that's not for me to say for Marcel, but if Marcel came on a bit strong with it. I actually hope that this is a journey you could have together. I would love both of you to come on board and start listening to the podcast regularly and we can all do it together. You know, and that's not, you know, the three of us doing it together is probably a phrase you shouldn't use in this time, in this type of environment, but I hope, I hope you get what I'm saying in a positive way. So ultimately, look, I mean, I'm presuming this is because you had the epiphany. That it came down and it's about the product and you're right. You're absolutely right, but there are some people out there who are great with financial products and who are terrible at budgeting and their finances still don't work.

• 24:19Martin Lewis?

  And there are some people who are great at budgeting and bad with financial product, not even bad with financial products, don't focus on the financial products. And then not maximizing what they have. And I would love it for you two to have both. So maybe Marcelo, it's actually a discussion, not about what you do, but the first discussion is, who's going to do what? How are we going to operate this? Let's give it a try. You know, see it as an experiment, I think would be the best way to go forward.

• 24:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:46Martin Lewis?

  And as for what you do first, you don't have any debts, do you?

• 24:50Speaker 05

  No, we don't have any debts and we do have a safe amount that we always fall, you know, as long as we don't go below that, we're okay.

• 25:01Martin Lewis?

  There are easy little things you can do to start that will just make you feel good. So go, say, get yourself a Lloyds Ultra credit card. Make sure you pay it off in full every month. So there's no interest and do that for all your normal spending. Have a direct debit set up to pay it off in full. Cause that pays you 1% cash back on all your spending. And also if you go abroad, it gives you, do you tend to travel a lot?

• 25:22Speaker 05

  Uh, when we can, yeah. Well, I'm from Brazil, so every couple of years we have to go there.

• 25:27Martin Lewis?

  So when you go and you pay from your UK account in Brazil, you use the Lloyds card. It gives you near perfect exchange rate and for the first year it gives you 1% cash back too. It's often when you want to start it, it's the little obvious, non contentious things that start to build a, we could do this on more. And in fact, if you listen back to, I think it was, Matt, was it a week or two ago when we had the couple who, who did so well? Two weeks ago, I think. So if you listen back to the podcast two, two weeks ago, the Question Time podcast, we had a couple there who were working together and they, they were thousands of pounds better off. So all of this is about how much effort you want to put in. But it can actually be quite fun working through the finances together. And hopefully Catherine, we haven't upset you and you're fine with us talking about like this.

• 26:10Martin Lewis?

  Maybe the two of you could come on the pod in the future. That may be the way to do this. Come on together.

• 26:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:16Martin Lewis?

  I wish you the best, Marcelo. Thank you so much for calling.

• 26:19Speaker 05

  Thank you very much.

• 26:20Martin Lewis?

  I can only remember hello in Brazilian. It's oi. I can't remember bye bye. What's bye bye in Portuguese? Ciao. Ciao, I should have remembered, ciao. Obrigado is? Obrigado is thank you.

• 26:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you.

• 26:32Martin Lewis?

  Thank you. There we go. There's our, our pigeon Portuguese. Thank you so much for calling. Obrigado.

• 26:37Speaker 05

  Thank you for having me.

• 26:40Martin Lewis?

  We're short of studio time for recording today, so there's no funny, Matt. Aw. But all of our esquires. Mm-hmm. Thank you very much for getting in touch if you're an esquire. If you've got more questions, it's [email protected] and just addressed it to Dear Martin. Dear Matt. Dear Martin. Dear Matt. You see, we've got one of those in. We don't have time for a funny, but we've got time for a bicker.

• 27:03Martin Lewis?

  Now, Matt, I'm going to stop you for a second because I have an update that you don't have in your schedule. Right. You may remember, we had a caller a few weeks ago about a website called You Know Who. And what he asked was, I've tried contacting them, telling them that their consumer rights are wrong, but I don't know what to do because they're not changing them. Through the magic of podcasting, now I've warned you about this, you're now going to add that clip, aren't you, Matt? Yeah. Here we go.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  I have a question from Paul. He has emailed in. He says, hi, Martin and Matt. I have a question about stubborn retailers who ignore UK consumer law. I've been looking at the returns policy for an online store. Their policy explicitly states that sale items are non-returnable and that delivery charges are non-refundable. As a loyal listener, I know this is a direct breach of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, which gives online shoppers a 14-day cooling-off period and the right to a refund on standard delivery.

• 28:06Martin Lewis?

  Correct.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  I've contacted the company twice to point this out, but have been met with total silence. I even reported them to Trading Standards via Citizens Advice, but weeks later, the misleading information is still live on their site, potentially tricking thousands of shoppers out of their refund rights. My question is, when the official channels like Trading Standards feel like a slow-moving black hole and the company ignores you, what's the best way to actually force a retailer to update their terms? Is there a nuclear option for consumers to protect others from being misled by illegal Ts and Cs? Love the show, Paul.

• 28:39Martin Lewis?

  Oh, thank you, Paul, and well done for trying to protect other people as well. That's exactly the spirit of what we want to do. So you are absolutely right. If you buy something online, unless it's personalised or perishable, then you have a 14-day no-fault right to notify them that you're returning it. And then another 14 days after, you've notified them in which to send it back, and you should get the basic delivery charge back. So if you've paid extra for fast delivery, you don't get that back. But if you haven't, you get that basic whatever. If it was free, it was free. But if you paid a pound, you get the pound back. So you're exactly right. Now, this is something I've been campaigning on because we did a review of 400 different brands, found 30 of them had incorrect returns information on their website, where they were

• 29:21Martin Lewis?

  giving you worse rights than were available that you have under your law, under the statute. And statute overrides any terms and conditions that a shop has. Of those 30, we got 28 corrected because I went very public on it. And two of them, by the time they got round again, I'm afraid had ceased trading, which I think is endemic of probably some of the problems they're having in the business, that they couldn't have the compliance and lawyers in place to get it right. So, look, just a slight note about trading standards. I'm a big fan of trading standards, but we massively under-resourced trading standards. There is not enough money given to them. They do struggle to deal with things. I think that's a real problem because you're right, that those people who are policing fair rights for consumers need the resource

• 30:02Martin Lewis?

  to do it. So if they have been slow, I'm not going to berate them for it, because I know that, I just think it's a massively underfunded organisation, and that's a real problem, rather than the brilliant officers who work in trading standards trying to do a good job. Is there a nuclear option? Well, without self-aggrandising, I think you're probably doing it. It's probably me, to be honest, if trading standards aren't going to work. So get in touch, Paul. If you can send us the details, I will have a look at it. And maybe we'll see if we can get that company together with your great research and my, I have a large reach, see if we can embarrass them into getting it right for consumers. I think that's the best answer I can give you.

• 30:40Martin Lewis?

  So I have a lovely update. My team got in touch with you know who. So beforehand, the website said you can return your items within 14 days of purchase, but it then said sales items are not returnable, which is incorrect. Under the rules, sales items are returnable within 14 days of purchase, as long as you notify them in 14 days of purchase. Now that's gone. The website's been fixed. The information is correct. We got it right. Calling up this podcast did mean that we got action. If no one else is doing it, the Question Time crew were. I hope you're happy with that, Paul, if you're listening. Thanks so much. Well, hey.

• 31:18Martin Lewis?

  And if you've got a question for us, remember from now on, you will officially be allowed to call yourself an Esquire, an extremely savvy questioner. You can put it after your name, as long as you're only talking to us on the podcast. So get in touch and anyone who comes on air and asks their question as a caller, well, you'll even get the new badge that Armatt is printing out. So if you've got a question, just get in touch to [email protected] and address it to Dear Martin. No, Dear Matt. Dear Martin.

• 32:06Speaker 06

  Martin Lewis is the founder of moneysavingexpert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing [email protected]. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

• 32:42Speaker 07

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• 33:27Speaker 07

  building a financial model, or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/solve. That's claude.ai/solve. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai/solve.

• 33:51Speaker 08

  So, a quick summer recap?

• 33:53Speaker 09

  Heatwaves, data leaks, AI hacks, folding phones, and a viral spinal challenge raccoon.

• 33:58Speaker 08

  Yeah, I think that covers it, right? I'm Thomas Germain.

• 34:02Speaker 09

  I'm Jess Maddox, and The Interface is back from its summer break.

• 34:05Speaker 08

  New season, new co-host, same deep dives into the tech that's shaping our world and our lives.

• 34:12Speaker 09

  So before AI wipes out all of humanity...

• 34:14Speaker 08

  Allegedly.

• 34:15Speaker 09

  Join us for The Interface.

• 34:16Speaker 08

  Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.