By continuing to browse you consent to our use of cookies. You can understand more and change your cookies preferences here. This is why we teamed up with MoneySavingExpert. We arranged a summit and launched a joint radio advert.
We kicked things off by gathering together representatives from all the major banks and credit card providers, regulators and the Financial Ombudsman Service. Our aim? The outcome? We highlighted how we want to help restore trust in the PPI claims process and got all parties to agree a set of actions. Our agreements included calling for a standardised complaints procedure, improving customer communication and providing tougher regulation of claims management companies CMC.
We think this is a job for everyone — banks and financial providers, government and consumer groups all have a role to play to make this happen. We need to work out how we can help encourage best practice from companies who base their business on managing claims on your behalf.
Have you turned to a claims handler as a result? View Results. I have claimed all my PPI payments for my credit cards and loans and have received all my money back except for Barclay Card. I rang them yesterday chasing my claim and they said that they have closed the claim as they believe it was not miss sold back in and that they have sent out a 2 page letter to me with the reasons.
Have anybody else had this problem with Barclays and is it worth me complaining now with the FOS. Hi Kat77, if you are not happy with the response from Barclays then yes, you are entitled to take your complaint now to the Financial Ombudsman. Details about this can be found about half-way down on our FAQs page. Good luck and let us know how you get on. If which can lead for big switch,why they can not lead for PPI claim.
People have more trust in which then claim Management companies. This is not easy task and it is not simple and easy for customers. Lead the people same as big switch! That would stop claims companies in their tracks. I get two or three calls a day from claims management companies inviting me to engage them to reclaim mis-sold PPI premiums.
I assume they have now realised the game will soon be up and they will no longer be able to con people into thinking they have to employ an agent to do something that the banks will process for nothing. The strange thing is that I have never taken out PPI as I have never had a repayment situation to protect, and yet these callers seem to know who I am and have my landline number.
Hold on. How many of them are there? And are they subject to any financial regulation themselves? Alas John, your experience is not uncommon.
This is an exciting time for the organisation as we develop our new strategy, and our campaigns remain at the heart of our ambitions to double impact along with commercial growth.
Confusion over Brexit continues to loom, so this year we launched our Brexit Charter for Consumers to press government to place consumer issues front and centre when decisions are being made. This involves giving consumers meaningful help ahead of big life decisions such as giving birth, choosing a university course and arranging long-term care.
Anabel Hoult, Which? As consumers, we have never had more choice or more convenience. But we still want to get what we pay for and, if things do go wrong, we want companies to take responsibility, rather than passing us from pillar to post or hiding behind the small print.
We provide people with simple, effective information and advice to help them understand and navigate their rights as consumers, and we give consumers meaningful help ahead of big decisions at key moments in their lives. Our mission to make consumers more powerful drives what we do — and it always will. Last year, we launched our ambitious five-year strategy, with the aim of doubling our size and impact.
This year we have focused on laying the foundations to help deliver our future growth and success. Our strategy involves better aligning our commercial and charitable goals, supported through a new organisational structure that is arranged around key market areas. We also want to grow our newer businesses, helping to lower risk and reduce reliance on our core subscription business. Serving people at key life moments is important to us, supported through websites that offer free support and advice to people when they need to make difficult life decisions.
This digital investment is expected to continue over the course of our strategic plan, and will help greatly to enhance the delivery of both our charitable and commercial objectives. One of the purposes of our new strategy is to better align our charitable and commercial goals, so that our commercial operations more clearly address the detriment inherent in the markets in which we operate.
We do this by ensuring that executives in charge of delivering our commercial performance are also accountable for the directly charitable activities the organisation undertakes. Accordingly, we report where we have provided a benefit to the public undertaken directly by the charity as well as the commercial activities of its subsidiaries in the following areas which are highlighted later in this Strategic report:.
We also undertake work which is non sector specific. Promoting consumer interests. The Council has fulfilled its duty and reported on this throughout this review by providing commentary on the significant activities undertaken by the charity to carry out its charitable purposes for public benefit, and our achievement against them and the associated objectives.
Self-funded means that all the work we do as a charity on behalf of UK consumers is financed from our commercial activities, without requiring any donations, fundraising or money from government.
Continued growth and success from our commercial enterprises enables us to undertake more work for the wider public benefit to support consumers at key stages throughout their lives.
Trading costs have reduced year-on-year, largely because of a reduction in our subscription marketing spend. However, our cost base has increased during the year, reflecting the launch of our digital investment programme and expenditure associated with the upcoming closure of our Hertford office.
In this year we shifted our focus to fewer but bigger, more integrated and ambitious campaigns. This allows us to concentrate on what we know are the important consumer issues, allowing us to combine our charitable and commercial strength to have the greatest impact for consumers. Our advocacy approach is to hunt out consumer detriment and identify solutions, actively driving awareness and change, while increasing our profile, influence and impact to shape the consumer agenda.
To focus our advocacy work, we have identified three main objectives:. Our Policy and Communications teams work in parallel with our Research team, which leads on product reviews and investigative research, to raise awareness of issues and push for change. The Council has applied with their duty and provides a review of the significant activities undertaken by the charity to carry out its charitable purposes for public benefit and our achievements against them and our set objectives.
We provide independent expert advice to help consumers make choices on everything from which refrigerators are safe to buy, to providing information about compensation for delayed flights and knowing what broadband speed they are entitled to. For the second year running, product safety has been the central pillar of our work, highlighted this year in February when we challenged the government to set out how it is tackling this issue by producing an action plan, which has since been published.
Our campaign has already been successful, with seven submissions on unsafe products to the Office for Product Safety and Standards. We joined forces with the London Fire Brigade and secured commitments from the former minister with responsibility for product safety, to publish an action plan.
The campaign launch was led in the media by our story on domestic fires caused by faulty white goods, supported by interviews with ITV News, Sky News and Good Morning Britain, coinciding with a product safety-themed issue of Which? Our expanded programme of testing and investigative research on product safety has provided valuable evidence to support the campaign, while also helping people to make more informed decisions.
We also launched an online tool for users to check whether there were fire-risk materials in their own fridge, which has already been used 80, times. Our persistent efforts have resulted in an agreement that the stronger standards we demanded will be incorporated into the new refrigeration standard and implemented from January Our regular testing programme exposed unsafe products, including a Stokke cot mattress and problems with the water resistance claims of sunscreens.
An undercover investigation revealed retailers giving poor advice when asked about a fire-risk tumble dryer that smelled of burning, and we challenged 34 brands for selling unsafe products. Our policy work has also supported the product safety campaign by analysing the impact of Brexit on consumer product safety. Our externally commissioned review described the risks and opportunities raised by different trading patterns, and regulatory and enforcement regimes, in other countries.
Being effective at making people aware of their rights and making change happen often depends on our ability to react quickly to events as they occur. We sprung into action when more than , people were affected by Ryanair cancellations, providing those affected with advice and a flight-checker tool. We helped to secure action by the aviation regulator against Ryanair for breaching compensation rules for delayed and cancelled flights. As a result, they were forced to give better information to the customers affected.
The CAA also took enforcement action against Ryanair for failing to inform passengers about their rights following the cancellation of hundreds of flights, after we wrote to both the UK and Irish regulators with our investigation findings.
Furthermore, the Court of Appeal has ruled that airlines do have to pay compensation for missed connections. After British Airways suffered a massive IT meltdown that caused disruption to more than 75, passengers, we demanded BA automatically compensate those passengers affected. When they ignored our request, more than 3, of our supporters joined the fight, sending a clear message to their CEO. Our investigations into travel have also driven positive change for consumers.
Following our investigation into pricing clarity within the car-hire industry, the Competition and Markets Authority CMA has taken enforcement action against car-hire comparison sites, leading to both Alamo and Enterprise updating their websites to make their costs clearer. Our evidence surrounding poor special offers has been provided to the CMA. I want to starting by thanking Peter Vicary- Smith for all he has achieved during his fourteen years at Which?.
During his tenure, our number of subscriptions has doubled; we have launched new products into the digital world; we have increased investment in product testing.
We have published a strategic review of the private rental sector to uncover the levels of detriment that exist in this sector and suggest possible remedies to address it. We plan to raise our concerns with industry and government alongside proposals to improve the market. Following sustained pressure from Which? The USO will ensure that everyone can reach speeds of at least 10Mbps by Our broadband speed checker helps people check their speed and see how it compares with their neighbours.
We provide hints, tips and advice on speeding up slow broadband and template letters if people need to escalate their complaints.
Our free consumer rights advice provides consumers with information, advice and tools that allow them to challenge the organisations they deal with in their everyday lives. Of our 6. People benefited from our independent advice on a range of topics, including how online retailers mislead customers over their returns rights, and advising consumers not to purchase World Cup tickets on secondary ticketing sites.
Again this year we were able to help consumers navigate Black Friday in November. Teams across the organisation worked together to ensure consumers were making the best choices and we increased awareness of Which? Our research into misleading Black Friday deals achieved pieces of coverage reaching nearly 48 million people, and and as a result we saw more than 2, new joiners to Which? Our subscription sales remained robust in an increasingly challenging market, although revenue was down year-on-year.
This was anticipated following our decision to reduce our marketing expenditure on TV advertising and sponsorship following lower returns.
In order to reinvigorate and sustain our subscription business over the long term we are conducting a major consultation with current and potential members to understand how best to evolve our core subscription business. This involves conducting more than 5, survey interviews and running focus groups across the country. Our subscribers , at June continued to enjoy the diversity of our investigative research across all our magazines.
Over the course of the year we published 4, new product reviews, we had more than million visits to our which. The most interesting investigation rated by members in Which? Gardening was rated the most useful of all articles across all magazines during the year.
In April we launched a new Which? Gardening Facebook group which has quickly grown to 1, members. It is proving to be a highly engaged community where members and non-members swap gardening tips, queries and pictures. Our Trusted Traders business continued to build on previous years and for the first time make an annual profit. At June we had nearly 9, traders on our books and around , moderated reviews on our website.
We expect that Trusted Traders will continue to grow organically and deliver further operational efficiencies. This year we saw nearly 2 million visits to the Which? Switch website. We are focused on guiding consumers to make smart financial choices that are right for them, and we encourage consumers to join together with Which?
We provided support and information as well as financial guidance and advice through Which? Money magazine, the Which? Mortgage Advisers service and the Which? Money Helpline. I had minimal records to go on, but your online tool was invaluable in claiming and receiving the above amount". We encouraged people to join together with Which? Already, reports have been submitted. Editorial work in Which? Money Magazine on ATM closures has supported this campaign with the first report in the February issue generating strong media coverage and interest from MPs.
A fee-charging ATM in a hospital was replaced with a free one as a result of our news story. We achieved a major campaign win this year when the Payment Systems Regulator announced it will be introducing a reimbursement scheme as a direct result of our super complaint on bank transfers, which we launched in This follows our calls for more protection for consumers losing money to bank-transfer fraud. We are continuing to work with the regulator and the banking industry to develop this scheme further.
We have continued to make progress this year on our campaign to end charges for unarranged overdrafts, with Lloyds Banking Group agreeing to scrap additional charges for them. We are continuing to put pressure on the Financial Conduct Authority FCA to require all banks to follow suit and already it has committed to take action.
We also went on to work with MoneySavingExpert. Money Online led an investigation into the leasehold crisis, to create a feature that highlighted issues affecting thousands of homeowners who unexpectedly faced thousands of pounds in future annual ground rent fees. By using all of our communications channels and securing widespread media coverage, we successfully raised awareness of this issue with a broad range of people.
This year we have reviewed financial companies or services and introduced 45 new Which? Recommended Providers. In addition we introduced two recommended provider sectors into the money space; student bank accounts and investment supermarkets, and carried out 66 investigations across the Which? Money magazine and the website. We relaunched the Which?
Money website to create a more efficient and enjoyable customer experience, helping members to get the financial advice they need through our online services and the Which? The site redesign included improved navigation and new interactive tools that deliver personalised results for users.
The site has doubled the volume of videos to more than , with the aim of making complex subjects easier to understand. In our effort to ensure that our information and help reaches the broadest audience, we launched the Which? Money Facebook page, which now has 7, likes.
We have seen Our customer service continues to gain high praise with a month average-net-promoter score of 83, demonstrating we are providing and excellent service for our customers. We know buying a house can be a stressful and confusing process. Mortgage Advisers was established to provide an impartial service in this area, offering mortgage solutions for customers from more than 65 different mortgage providers, with our advisers being paid a salary not a commission.
Performance improved year-on-year, although we fell considerably short of achieving the operational profitability we had hoped for at the start of the year, largely due to issues in generating anticipated volumes of new customer leads within a much more competitive environment.
We also launched Which? Insurance Advisers; an advice and application service for customers for all their protection needs, ranging from life insurance, critical illness cover and income protection. We provide people with simple, effective advice to help them understand and navigate their rights as consumers, helping them as they make key decisions through life.
Our free websites; Which? University, Which? Birth Choice and Which? Later Life Care continue to help people make difficult choices, such as choosing a university course or arranging long-term care. We produced powerful investigations into care homes over the course of the year which we used as evidence when asking the Competition and Markets Authority CMA for change in the sector. A further win came when the CMA agreed with us that urgent action was needed in the care home market.
We engaged our social care campaign supporters to demonstrate the postcode lottery on care costs across the UK, allowing them to find out about their area and compare costs to others. At each stage, subscribers receive relevant advice content, product guides and information from across Which?
More than 2, parents have signed up to receive emails so far, with the tailored information and advice attracting strong levels of engagement. We have been working hard to improve and develop new website tools to help students researching and applying to university.
This year we saw more than five million users, 1. Our personal statement tool, offering step-by-step and tailored subject guidance for students writing UCAS personal statements, went live in October and has helped to generate more than 14, draft statements. We redesigned more than 30, course profiles, incorporating new government open data on long-term graduate outcomes to help inform students considering their options.
We launched a student budget calculator, allowing students and parents to easily calculate the real living costs of going to university. We welcomed the establishment of a new student-focused regulator in higher education, the Office for Students, which has committed to making students its priority.
All Higher Education Institutions now need to comply with consumer law as a registration condition, submitting evidence o. Eight per cent of survey respondents said they had been the victim of a scam as a result of using an online platform. He was then contacted by a fraudster posing as a Standard Chartered bank employee. The fraudster convinced David to deposit his life savings and he has not yet received a refund.
He told Which? I am an honest person, and wrongly expected others to be the same. The money from the investment was to be used for a replacement joint operation — I will be in agony for months to come. Tech giants have put measures in place to protect consumers but Which?
Platforms not having enough legal responsibility allows unscrupulous individuals or businesses and criminals to sell unsafe products, mislead consumers and target potential scam victims with ease, causing serious harm to consumers and undermining trust in digital commerce.
Powerful tech companies often profit from this harmful activity — whether via investment adverts paid for by criminals or sales of unsafe products boosted by fake reviews — and the lack of a legal framework means they lack sufficiently strong incentives to shut down these practices. Despite having some of the most sophisticated technology known to man, the voluntary solutions put forward to date to tackle these problems by the major online platforms have been inadequate.
Link to Which? Encouraged by several positive comments, Carolyn placed an order for the bed.
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