Episode 2 Rip Off Britain

joined by the children's author Liz Pinchon.

Next on BBC One, though, Gloria Hunniford, Angela Rippon

and Julia Somerville are standing by ready to tackle all

And welcome to Day 2 of our special week of live

Today we've a whistleblowing former minister, one of the world's

best known film stars, and a masterclass in how

to get voice-activated technology to actually work.

As if that wasn't enough, we'll be tackling the strange case

What's the answer if yours do the same?

We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling ripped off. You told us

about the companies you think get it wrong and customer service that

simply isn't up to scratch. I've complained and complained that

nobody takes any notice of me. In all honesty I think it's a way for

shops to make more money. You've asked us to track down the scam

artist to have taken money off you. You don't want to spend any more but

they always want to offer you things extra. When you've lost out and

nobody is to blame, you tell us how to stop others falling into the same

trap. You ring up the company and they say it's not their fault. We

are here to find out why you are out of pocket and what you can do about

it. Your stories, your money, this is Rip Off Britain.

Hello and thanks for joining us once again for Rip Off Britain Live.

Thanks too for the huge response we had to yesterday's programme.

We've been inundated with your emails and messages.

After I told the story of how fraudsters targeted my life savings,

dozens of you got in touch to tell us how unhappy you are with bank

We'll read some of your comments later.

Our experts are standing by to answer your questions.

So please do get in touch right now - at [email protected].

Or look for BBC Rip off Britain on Facebook.

We've got another packed programme for you today.

will be spilling the beans on why she feels tens of thousands of woman

have been let down by her former bosses.

Also coming up this morning, voicing your frustration!

Why communicating with technology drives so many of you up the wall.

Star Wars' Luke Skywalker, actor Mark Hamill, talks coupons

And after some great results yesterday,

our experts are back to fight your corner

Personal finance expert Sarah Pennells joins us once again,

After all, we are live all this week and we want to hear from you.

But first, as we've reported before, there's a whole generation of women

furious about not simply a big change to when they're able

to claim their state pension but, crucially, how and when they were

Many of them say they've been left significantly out of pocket.

And a woman who's really in a position to know, says they're

Former pensions minister Baroness Altmann says she had

to hold her tongue on all this - at least publicly.

And when she decided to say what she really thinks,

Hard-working, self-motivated. At 60, Francesca never expected to be

updating her CV and looking for work. She had always imagined the

milestone age she reached in January would be the moment at which she

could retire. I naturally assumed that come 60 I would be able to do

pretty much whatever I wanted to do. I just envisaged I would live quite

comfortably, just muddling on, really. But Francesca is one of many

who say their plans have been blown out of the water by a major change

to the age at which women can withdraw state pension. For decades

they could do it at 60. Five years earlier than men. However, by 2020,

both men and women's state pension age will be 66. And while that is a

response to the fact we are all typically living longer, you would

hope that such a fundamental change might have been fully and clearly

communicated to those affected, well in advance. But that isn't what's

happened. I only found out my state pension age was going to change from

60 to 66 when I was 57, in 2013. I don't think it was fair notice at

all. We should all have been notified way before then. So we

could have put some sort of plan, if you like, into action. It's

estimated there are 500,000 women who, like Francesca, were born in

the 1950s and had planned and budgeted for giving up work at 60.

But it was already getting close to that date by the time they were

officially told that they wouldn't get their pensions for another six

years. Francesca resigned herself to simply staying longer at work. But

when she did turn 60, work dried up, and she struggled to find another

job. I felt that I had enough savings to have a comfortable

retirement, obviously that has dwindled now. Because I don't have a

pension, and also I'm actually unemployed. In fact it was way back

in 1995 that the government first passed a bill saying the pension age

would have to increase. But it wasn't until a full 14 years later,

in 2009, before letters started being sent to the women who would be

affected. Even then, the letters weren't sent to everyone at the same

time, or with the same information. Francesca didn't get hers for

another four years, which she feels left little time to totally rethink

her financial future. I've got over 40 years of paying in, national

insurance, and it was part of the deal then that I would retire at 60.

They have the government of the day, back then and now, have renege on

that deal. An awful lot of women feel the same way, as we saw at the

pop-up shop earlier this year. I've been in work all my life. All that

time I thought I could retire at 60, only to get to 58 years old and find

the goalposts had been moved. So all my dreams of retirement are

shattered. And someone who feels equally strongly about the issue is

former pensions minister, Baroness Ros Altmann. Having left the role in

July, she now feels free to say exactly what she thinks, and she

agrees with the women that how and when the change was communicated was

spectacularly mishandled. How did they get it so wrong? It seems to me

that successive governments have failed to understand how ordinary

people live, and what ordinary people know. They have failed to

tell them properly because they just assume everybody knows it, and they

don't. The changes were first announced in 1995. They had plenty

of years, plenty of time to tell people. How come they haven't done

it? It's a massive failure of public policy. The government had so many

years where they could have told them properly, had a national

advertising campaign and made sure people have the best possible chance

to find out what was happening to their state pension age, and yet it

didn't do so. Is it put down to incompetence? The government doesn't

want to spend the money on advertising, but as far as I'm

concerned, the government spends so much money on advertising things

that aren't nearly as important as this. And therefore, this is a

justifiable use of public resources. We have seen what problems have been

caused for women who didn't know about the state pension age changes

that were coming. The work and pensions select committee has also

said that more could and should have been done to communicate the

changes. Not least because even when women were finally told, it still

wasn't always made clear exactly what the changes were. We've got

just some of the documents here and they all say something slightly

different. A couple of the letters say that it's going to change, but

then you have to wait apply for a leaflet that runs to 44 pages. Why

didn't they put everything in one letter? Your guess is as good as

mine. My guess is that they went designing the letters for people to

send them out. They were writing letters that might have been

appropriate for themselves, who knew the information. And that's not good

enough. Baroness Ros Altmann hopes that from the House of Lords she can

try and help in a way that she's frustrated she couldn't while in

government. When you were Minister for pensions

you were very guarded when interviewed. When you are a minister

you are not allowed to criticise public policy and stay being gay

minister. You are obviously working within a literal straitjacket. --

being a minister. Do you feel any guilt that you couldn't do more? --

within a political straitjacket. I'm not sure guilt is the word I would

use, but certainly great sadness and regret. I believed what the

officials were telling me when they said what I should say, and I use

those arguments. It wasn't until later, when some of the women wrote

to me directly and I found a slightly different picture, which

was that the government failed in its attempts to communicate with

them. And it perhaps misled them, all loads them into a false sense of

security, believing the state pension age was still 60, partly

because the government led them to believe that. But the women most

affected are not giving up without a fight. With many, including

Francesca, taking part in protests around the country. They are not

objecting to the change in pension age itself, but to the way that

women born in the 1950s simply were not given sufficient notice or time

to plan. It makes a massive difference when you are trying to

plan for your retirement and have defined six extra years of money. I

only found out in 2012. It has adversely affected me because I've

got my mother who is 90 and needs some assistance with her care. I've

had to give up work and I'm living off savings. I just had to sell my

home and downsize. I shouldn't have been in that position. A rapidly

growing campaign group is calling for a more gradual transition for

the women born in the 50s whose expectations for retirement have so

dramatically changed. Is there any chance at all of the women, and

their are about half a million affected by this change, are they

likely to get interim payment to see them over that difficult point? I

had hoped the government would come forward on its own with some

measures that would alleviate the hardship and suffering that clearly

some women are experiencing. But I have to tell you honestly, Angela, I

don't see any sign of that at the moment.

With little promise of financial assistance on the horizon, Francesca

faces an uncertain future. At a time in life when she thought she would

be receiving a regular pension. This is not a benefit. It's an

entitlement. We paid in, and the government should pay out.

We are already being bombarded with e-mails from many of you watching

the programme this morning saying that you are in exactly the same

position as the people we have seen on the film.

Well, the Department of Work and Pensions told us...

"The decision to equalise the State Pension age

was made over 20 years ago and achieves a long-overdue move

There are no plans to change the transitional arrangements

already in place, and women retiring today can still expect

to receive the State Pension for 26 years on average,

I don't think that will be much comfort at all to the people

watching this morning. Ros Altmann is here,

along with Lesley Jaggard, who has been affected by those

changes, and - giving some advice - personal finance

expert Sarah Pennels. Starting with Lesley, when did you

hear about the changes and how did they affect you? I first heard about

the changes about 18 months before I reached the age of 60. All my

working life I have been knowing, not expecting or imagining, but

knowing I would retire at 60. And at no time before 2012 did anybody lead

me to believe, or give me any information about it increasing. I

will retire at 64 and a half. Women a year younger than me will retire

at 66. It's far too late to change your plans.

And this is something affecting not just your state pension but your

work pension. I have a small occupational pension and that only

kicks in, I can only take the full amount from the age of my state

pension age. I can take it earlier, but considerably reduced. Sarah, is

there anything in place the state can do to help women over this

period? The real problem, and the reason there result much activity

around this is that all the benefits that are designed to help people in

older age on low income are links to the state pension age. So for women

who cannot work or want to work but cannot get a job, it is jobseeker's

allowance, unemployment benefits, but after a few months if you have a

husband or partner, their income and financial assets are taken into

account, so you may find that you get no money. I think this is why

this campaign has found such a strong voice because these women are

really stuck between a rock and a hard place. And none of this comes

as a surprise to you, Rose. You said that when you were a minister, your

hands were tied but a lot of women are seeing, why did you not do more

when you were a minister? Believe me, I was really trying. I

campaigned for women in 2011 when the second state pension age

increase was going through, trying to warn the then ministers that this

was an injustice and it should not be happening, and we need to wait

and give people more notice. At that stage I did not realise how abject

the failure had been in terms of informing women about the 1995

changes. But that is what makes it so difficult for me. I assumed that

women knew about the first change and that women were aware that they

were not going to get their state pension at 60, but the second

increase had been imposed upon them. It turns out that the government

failed to actually tell them properly that it was not 60. They

sent letters to millions of people in 2004 around that time, telling

them roughly what sort of state pension level they would get and how

much they might get. And we looked at some of those letters. But it did

not tell them they would not get it at 60. So now you are in the Lords,

and we have heard the pensions minister saying there is no money

and he's not going to do anything. Briefly, what can you now do from

the Lord's to actually make things better? All I can try to do is keep

making sure that this issue is raised whenever there is a debate,

to keep trying to persuade the government that there is a serious

issue here. There are women really suffering hardship. It is a failure

of communication. I think there needs to be some legal action to

back this up. Ironically, the best chance is probably in Europe, but I

know that the women are looking at that route as well. And all we can

do is try to keep highlighting it but the government seems to want to

wait until everyone is getting the attention and then just say, well,

it is all sorted. And of course it isn't. We have literally been

inundated. We will pick up on what they have been saying later.

Well, let us know what you think about that, just as you did

on the stories we covered on the programme yesterday.

And after I revealed how fraudsters walked off the street and stole

money from my bank account, lots of you contacted us to say

the same thing happened to you, including Bob Turner,

But it's always good to hear the other side.

Angela Foster emailed to say she works in a building society

and every day she gets abuse from customers when she asks

She feels her employer's security measures are very stringent.

That's something Laureen Sinclair agrees with.

She says that when she asked a customer for identification

she was accused of being a jobsworth and subjected to foul language.

She added, "I agree more must be done, but please bring proper

identification and answer any questions with good manners".

Lisa David, for example, says, why can't banks use a thumb print

system like they do at her son's school

And that photograph, that somebody suggested.

Well, we love it when you pass on your own tips too.

As demonstrated by the reaction to one of our recent stories.

If you want to help me with this shredding, there is quite a bit. A

few weeks ago we meant some dedicated super shredders, lives and

John Cooper. That has your name and address on the inside. Every day

they shred everything and anything that has their name and address on

it, from junk mail to official letters and much more besides. That

is the lot. You have to shred everything that has your address on

it if you want to be safer. So much junk mail comes through the post and

it has personal details on it, so you have to shred those.

Particularly name and address. It has to be shredded. Because it

cannot be used. After seeing the Coopers, lots of you wanted to pass

on your own tips on how to make sure your personal details do not fall

into the handss scanners. -- into the hands. Tom adopts a novel

approach. He puts the paper in a sink full of water until it is

soaked through, and then he squeezes its like a dish cloth. He says if

anyone can find his details in this soggy mess, they deserve to have

them. Meanwhile Stephen suggests that rather than shred everything,

just rip off the bits that actually has your details on it, shred that

and recycle the rest. He says it reduces shredding waste by 90%. And

Frank, so careful with his personal information that he only gave us his

first name, says that after he shreds, he puts all the bits in the

compost heap in his back garden, mixes them up with grass cuttings,

weeds and the tea bags from his kitchen, and good luck to anyone

trying to reassemble his details from all that lot. Several times

recently we have reported on problems people have had their water

bills. Jean Garner and many of her neighbours in Northamptonshire

discovered they had been paying over the odds for decades.

Since at least the 1980s we have been paying Severn Trent ?370 a year

for a service that we are not receiving. Jean and the others had

been paying their local water company a fee for what is called

storm water collection, which it turns out they had never needed

because their homes were built with a system that lets water drain into

the garden. Even so, until we intervened, the water company would

only refund the last year's overpayments. It is the principal.

They have been charging us for a service they have not been

providing. After we got involved, refunds were backdated to 2003.

Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago we met a man who after discovering how

much could be slashed from his water bills, was determined to make sure

his fellow council tenants did not make the same mistake. He wanted

them to make the same savings. This year you have been paying ?284, so

you should be paying ?103. Crikey. That is a big difference! Michael

Johnson is now paying well under half of what he previously paid

after learning that for people like him living alone, having a water

meter could reduce his bills dramatically. Tell me what you want

now that you know that you were paying too much and you have a

better bill. Hopefully I might get some money back but I am not holding

my breath. Frustratingly, unlike other utility providers, we have no

choice about who supplies are water. But that may change. Yes, because we

understand the government is the king of opening up the water market

to competition in a similar way to other utilities.

Deryck Hall from the Consumer Council for Water is here.

Deryck, presumably you're all for it?

Customers would welcome choice, according to our research, but the

problem is that the government looks at costs and benefits, and of what's

view is that customers would save ?8 on average. -- Ofwat's view. ?8

Siemens a small amount. You have to understand that it is only the

retail outlets of the bill that would change. The water that you

receive, and the services you take away, would still be offered by the

companies that currently serve you. It is just the retail element, the

metering, billing and answering complaints. And that is just 10% of

the total bill. Tell us about this online water calculation system that

you have got going. We have a water meter calculator and last year

250,000 people used it. Last time it was featured on your programme, we

received ten hits per second on our website. It does help customers make

a decision about moving from an unmeasured charge to a metre charge.

And it could save them about ?100 a time. That is rather better than the

measly ?8. Yes, and bearing in mind that Ofwat have taken the view that

switching to a different retailer would probably be multiples of that.

We are talking about 3 million people. We do not think it is

feasible. We think the number of people who switched would be lower,

probably about 2%. We shall see. Thank you very much. Good news.

Yesterday, in our pop-up shop, we helped retired firefighter Noel,

who'd been having sleepless nights over a huge energy bill he should

Well, after we stepped in, his supplier wrote

And Gloria's outside hoping we can pull off

You bet. We will be doing our very best this morning. Lots of lovely

people around. Caroline Welles, doing her work. She is the financial

ombudsman and we will be talking to her later. And of course we have our

personal guru, Sarah pennels. Morning, both of you.

Now, sometimes we get emails that make us think, "Oh yes,

Well, Margaret Hutcherson from Torquay wrote to us recently

questioning why till receipts were literally fading

Margaret, tell us what happened to you?

Well, it started off when I bought some items from a local shop and

found that I did not need them, to be honest. I tried to find the till

receipt to exchange it, and to my amazement it had been on a sunny

windowsill, and it was as black as the ace of spades. As it was, it was

not an important item, so and never exchanged it and I never knew why

until I read later. Sarah will know about this but sometimes a shop will

say, no receipt, no exchange, no money back. So that receipt is very

important. That's right, if you buy something that turns out to be

faulty, you do not need a receipt to get a refund. But if you want to

exchange it, the shop will be within its rights. In the old days we would

have receipt on paper and they lasted for years but now it is an

thermal paper because it is cheaper. The problem is, if you pay with

cash, as Margaret did, or if you want to have proof of purchase, you

have to have a way of holding onto that receipt. Quickly, what would

you do? What is the tip? Firstly, shops can e-mail you the receipts

but check what they are using your e-mail for. Secondly, take a picture

of a receipt, or if you have a hairdryer, use the back of the

receipt, Blossom hot air on it and it might come back. My tip is you

can always use your bank statements. Come with me because Siobhan is over

here, and we are pleased to welcome you to the programme. She wrote to

ours recently with a complicated car insurance problem that you have been

delving into for how many months? To make years, since 2014. That is a

big problem. -- two years. You come up with, Sarah? Well, it is

completed its story but Siobhan thought when she switched to ensure

she might be blamed for an accident she did not have. The good news is

that once we got involved, your insurer said that your file had been

incorrectly closed. It is now refunded part of the premiums for

the last two years, almost ?200 and what is more, they will give you a

?250 goodwill payment as well. Result! I am thrilled with that and

I am thrilled that my records are now clean. I've treasure my no

claims bonus. It seems very unfair that sometimes it is knock for

knock. It is very unfair. It seems like this is a crash for cash scam,

which was popular a couple of years ago. They could really devastate a

no claims record. I am glad we got this sorted. Thank you. She is happy

and we get results! Back to the studio!

We'll see what else we can do throughout the week.

And there are warnings this morning from Samsung to all owners

of its Galaxy Note 7 device not to use it while it

investigates further reports of the device catching fire.

And we'll be returning to the story of another device catching fire -

those Whirlpool tumble dryers - later in the week.

Meanwhile, it's reported in one of the papers that fear of big fuel

bills means 29% of us delay switching on our heating.

That comes from a survey by one of the comparison sites,

which also found that next Sunday - October 16th - is apparently

the most popular date to turn the heating on.

And the front page of the Telegraph - apparently the BBC has been told

Well, let's hope we're still working when we get to grand old age of 50!

Yesterday quite a few of you responded to our story

on the best way to tackle those dreaded cold calls.

But Doug from Maidstone perhaps has the most unusual

He says if he gets one of those calls about a car accident

he's supposedly had, he tells the caller the accident

left him decapitated, but a wonderful surgeon managed

Well today - we've something else that drives you mad -

It's a familiar frustration for many. Liverpool.

And she's only trying to find out what's on at the cinema.

Useless. This research will lead to hundreds of new gadgets. In the 80s

voice recognition was heralded as the future. It should now react with

almost 100% reliability. We hope so, anyway. Right... As with any new

technology, there were teething problems. Go to word list. One more

chance. Go to word list! I suppose it is just one of those things. But

even now, despite increasingly becoming part of everyday life, it

seems that many of us are still having those same teething problems.

London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.

Not everybody thinks it's a nightmare, however. Set a reminder,

watch Rip Off Britain. Our technology expert David McClelland

is far more enthusiastic. So he has come to Liverpool to see if he can

help those struggling with those getting it to work. Nice wheels. My

little baby. Malcolm loves new gadgets, and with voice assisted

technology that was introduced a car is a few years back, he couldn't

wait to give it a go. But the novelty soon wore off. CD player,

track one. Oh dear, not off to a good start. CDC, disk four. Didn't

like it. Play track one. Oh dear. What do you know about the speech

recognition system in a car at the moment? It doesn't work! CDC, disk

four, track one. Playing track 47. It's frustrating. BEEP. IT'S

FRUSTRATING. Malcolm suggests using words that only the technology

recognises. When you are using the systems they are listening out for

keywords and unless you say that at the beginning of the sentence, it

doesn't have a clue what the rest of the sentence is about. One more

time, if it doesn't work, I'll buy your new car. Play disk four, track

one. Hurray! Congratulations. It worked, thanks for the lessons.

Unlike the technology built into cars, mobile phones are continually

updating themselves and getting smarter all the time. Do I need an

umbrella today? Welcome to the open top bus, we will

give you a bit of history and a bit of humour. That's all right? You

might assume the technology only works in the hands of people who

talk like our David, and it still struggles with different accents,

but that's no longer the case. Hello there, all right. Welcome to the

bus. Liverpool tour guide Dave uses his voice all day, everyday, but up

until now he hasn't been tempted to engage verbally with his phone. How

important is your voice in your job? Very important. A lot of the people

who get on wants to hear the Scouse accent. What is it about voice

recognition technology that makes you not want to use it? It's

frustrating, it doesn't always work. Not the way you wanted to. I come

from a generation that if something doesn't work, you smack it on the

top and it works. You can't do that with a computer, as I found out.

Dave changes his tune when he sees for himself what sort of thing is

the latest technology can do. Scientists are saying you can speak

three times faster than you can type into a smartphone. Would you find it

useful? One of the problems I have with my phone is that the buttons

are so small that quite often I will touch two at the same time. So this

touch-screen, and voice activation is brilliant stuff. Could you tell

me the directions from Liverpool to Wrexham? Getting directions from

Liverpool to Wrexham. That's quite useful. I might get one now. Very

soon it's this kind of technology banks will rely on to help us access

accounts. I must say, I would be interesting in finding more about

that after own recent experience with insecurity. I had the channels

to test it out with David at this year's pop-up shop. The first thing

you need to do is register your voice. What you have to do is say,

my voice is my password, three times. From those three times, it

will have all the information it needs to uniquely identify you. My

voice is my password. My voice is my farce password. It says your pass

phrase is now activated. To check it is really secure he tries to log in

using his voice. I will do my best Northern Irish accent. My voice is

my password. Oh no! I can't log in. That accent. For those struggling

with technology already out there, David has great advice. My top tips

for working with speech recognition software are, avoid background

noise, speak clearly, but make sure you don't leave big pauses in the

middle of sentences, and try not to run your words together too much.

Also, it's like learning a foreign language, learn the keywords of the

speech recognition software, what it is looking for. David is saying we

should get used to it, because it's here to some of us are still

waiting. Liverpool! I didn't catch that. We had fun making that. But

I'm not doing much voice recognition on my phone. It's very simple.

Teresa Saunders is with us now. She had some trouble recently with voice

recognition. We witnessed an accident, got back to my friends

house, and I thought the quickness we would use voice recognition.

Where was this? It was coming from Barnstaple. In Devon. We got the

number up and rang the app, and I was talking to a police officer. Was

that the voice recognition answerphone? It was. We were

talking, and I thought, he doesn't know where I am. What made you think

he didn't know? He kept asking, where's Mudeford? I kept try to

explain to him, and we kept talking at cross purposes. It was nonsense,

really. He must've thought, where are you? I thought, where are you

talking from? When did the penny dropped? I think it was when he

said, sorry, I don't know where you are. I thought, he doesn't sound

English, he's not English! It wasn't Barnstaple, where? It was

Barnstaple, Massachusetts? We tracked down that policeman. Did he

say how long it would take? She said, you probably can't help me,

and I said no, our response time would be six hours. I thought that

was quite good, actually! Oh dear, that's a comment. I find it

hilarious, it's not even the same country. Will you keep in touch with

that rather handsome policeman? I would like to. Maybe I would visit.

Rip Off Britain is good at sorting out problems. Leave it with us. A

funny side to that story, but in fact there are people for whom the

whole business of voice recognition can be very upsetting. Shane

e-mailed, who has cerebral palsy, tried to use it, and never what he

says. It affects the cost of the call and already affects his already

self-esteem. Is voice recognition technology something that drives you

crazy? Let us know if it is. On yesterday's programme,

Jeremy Vine told us how Twitter has become his sounding board of choice

when it comes to complaining. Today, we'll see if the consumer

force is always with Star Wars actor Mark Hamill -

or Luke Skywalker as his Hollywood actor Mark Hamill shot to

fame in the 1970s with his role as Luke Skywalker at the start of the

Star Wars phenomenon. The box office smash launched his face across the

galaxy and he became an immediate teenage heart-throb. He's since

acted on Broadway, in film and on television, and he's been the voice

of numerous animated characters. In 2015, the Star Wars reboot, the

force awakens, brought Mark back to the science-fiction big-screen and

his many fans. We are a consumer programme, and we love to ask people

about whether or not they have any money saving tips as consumers. I

can't resist asking you. I'm the middle of seven children, so this

was on our mind growing up. My wife is an only child, ironically, but

she cuts coupons. The money-saving things in the Sunday papers and so

forth. I thought, this was interesting, she said why aren't you

dumping them out? The coffee grounds. She said it's good for the

garden. If you mix it in with compost. It feels good because you

don't waste anything. In general, are you a good complainer as a

consumer if things aren't right? I think so, I think there's a certain

standard you should be entitled to if you are paying full price. My

daughter will say, the eggs are kind of runny. I say, send them back, get

them cooked more. There's finding that balance. You don't want to

complain so much that people don't listen to you. Pick your battles.

Wait until it's something that's critical to you. Otherwise it's like

the boy who cried wolf, they will not listen if you complain about

everything. But I think in the context of what you're asking, if

you are paying full price, you should expect to get what you are

paying for in general. Mark, you have been very generous with your

time. Thank you. It's such a treat to meet you. I've been a fan for

many years. I couldn't believe it when she walked in, Angela Rippon! I

won't ask for your autograph. OK, I won't ask for yours.

We've just time to get the answer to some of the questions

As well as personal finance expert we're

joined by Caroline Wells from the financial

We've had loads about pensions, particularly from men. Iain Munro

says that at 70 he was looking forward to his wife joining him in

retirement. But that will not happen until she's 67, greatly diminishing

the years they have to enjoy their retirement. We so often forget that

male perspective. That's right. When the state pension ages were

originally set at 60 for women and 65 for men, they said part of the

reason was that women tended to marry older men which meant they

could retire at the same time, which now they can't do. One from Jasmine

who says she has one of the Samsung seven phones and wants to get out of

the contract because this is the second time it's happened. Where

does she stand? She needs to go back to the provider and talk about the

phone. I completely understand. If you have something that might blow

up and you not sure if it works properly, you need to talk to them

it. I think... The floor is yours. We are going to have to end the

programme because Julia doesn't have time to tell you anything.

Well, once again I'm afraid that's all we've got time for today.

We hope you've picked up some useful tips -

and of course we'll be back tomorrow with more.

We'll be exposing the latest cyber crime - revealing how computer

hackers managed to steal thousands of pounds from a

And we'll be finding out why a teaching assistant from Lancashire

keeps being mixed up with a man on the run in South America.

Awkward. We will see you tomorrow. From all of us, goodbye.