22/02/2014 Your Money

film review. Now, it's time for Your Money.

This is your weekly guide to making the most of your cash here every

weekend on BBC News television, available all week on the BBC

iPlayer. We have all done it, paid good money

for bad service or delayed transport and felt thoroughly fed up. We'll

find out how to complain so your concerns are taken seriously. What

about picking up pet insurance or opening up a savings account while

buying milk and bread? Some supermarkets offer financial

product, but could they give high-street banks a run for their

money? House prices are back above the 2008 prerecession peak. We'll

find out what the future holds for the UK housing market.

Train companies have been told to do more to publicise refunds available

to passengers if their journey is delayed or cancelled. The Office of

Rail Regulation says most people are unaware of their rights and don't

know how to make a clap. If you're unhappy with the service, how Dow

make sure you are compensated? With me now is Yasmin Birtles. When are

you entitled to compensation? The rules say if your train is delayed

by at least an hour you can get at least 20% back on your ticket. But

tep of the companies say that if your train is delayed by 30 minutes

you can still get compensation. How do you go about claiming it? Go to

the train companies or Network Rail? There are two ways you can do it.

There is a form you can get from the ticket office, wherever you are. The

start or the finish of your journey. If you ask for the complaint form,

you get it and send it to the train operator, but also there is a

website and you can again download a complaint form and you can talk to

other passengers complaining about the situation. You can also put

information on that website about delays. We are not talking about

train companies when we are complaining. Us Brits don't be that

great at complaining, so if we have had bad service in a restaurant or

there's a delay in delivery, what should we do? There are various

things to do depending on the problem. With a dinner in a

restaurant, if there's something wrong, you should immediately ask to

speak to the manager or owner. I personal always think it is a good

idea to speak normally. Don't get aggressive. Don't shout and throw

things around. One of the problems we have in this country is either we

don't complain and we go, "Yes, thank you." Then we complain to each

other, or we shout and throw things which isn't helpful. It is good for

a restaurant owner to know if something is wrong and you can give

the reasons. Really, a good restaurant will say, "Fine, we'll

either take every off your bill or give you something for free." You

should ask for something for free and don't give a tip if you don't

think the service was right. Similarly, if you buy something in a

shop or you get bad service somewhere and it's all wrong, you

should always go to the shop first and ask for a replacement or your

money back and if it's something like a delay, bad service, I would

get in touch with the company by letter and ask for compensation. One

of the new areas of complaining is using social media. I noticed before

we came on air, you have 20 times more followers than me, so you

obviously have a great to read when you're complaining. Are they

effective? Does it work? Yes. It often does. Not always, but there

are quite a lot of companies now that have people specifically

watching social media. Watching for complaints about their brand. It

doesn't matter how many followers you have, if you've got ten

followers, but you've had problems with a bank or whatever, you can

tweet that bank or that big company and it tends to be the bigger

companies who are watching and you can say this is a problem. Quite

often they'll come back to you. If they don't, you'll have to try the

traditional routes of emailing and sending letters. By the way, when I

send a letter and I have done this in past, I've asked for an amount of

money in compensation. I usually pick a figure is twice what I think

I'll probably get and if she say no after the first letter, you write

again, still asking for compensation and if they say no, you write a

third time. Usually by the third time you get something. Great

advice. Thank you. Millions of people have bought some

sort of financial product from a supermarket. Are the stores genuine

challengers to the high street banks, as has been long predicted or

will they always play second fiddle? We sent Kevin off to pick up our

groceries and find out. It's time for your weekly big shop. Here's

something for dinner. Don't forget the essentials. And how about a

savings account? Here at the UK's largest supermarket chain, the

banking arm has just opened its 7 millionth customer account. They're

tiny compared with the big banks, but is this finally making an

attempt to go mainstream? It's another area of operation for them.

It's an obvious one to expand into, because they know so much about

their customers and the banks have a slightly bad reputation, so they can

capitalise on that. Use their marketing muscle to show complienTS

their products in the banking and insurance world and pick up quite

awe few customers. They'll become a real worry in the banks. Do they

operate in different ways. ASDA Money offers a basket of financial

products from various providers and M is wholly owned by HSBC, but

Tesco, once in bed with RBS has gone it alone since 200 # and Sainsbury's

has just made the same -- 2008 and Sainsbury's has just made the same

move, cutting links with Lloyds. Most supermarkets have yet to enter

big-time banking by offering current accounts. If and when they do, will

we be comfortable putting our standing orders and sausage in the

same basket? Definitely. It's about competition. Where there's the best

deal for me, that's where I'll go. If it's the supermarket, then

definitely. Banks give you 100% banking and Sainsbury's do banking

and shopping in both, so you got to draw a line somewhere. The offer

would have to be competitive to take me away from the bank which I'm with

now. Let's see and wait and see. I think fruit and vegetable from the

supermarkets and that's it. High street banks say they welcome

competition, but with challenger banks have to jump lots of hurdles

to get started, do they have much to fear? Supermarket banks have been

competitive with the simple products like loans and cards and savings.

Over the last couple of years we have seen a couple of them talking

about getting into the current account market. That will be much

more challenging for them. The challenge that all the new people

will have, including the supermarkets, is getting people to

switch. People are still reluctant, so the challengers will have to come

up with something really special to switch. To really get a foothold in

the financial services sector, the grocery giants need to offer

bargains for banking too. He still forgot my butter. News of

more places. Customers of many banks will be able to do some of their

perm banking in the Post Office. The State-controlled bank will allow

retail and business customers to pay in cheques at any banks of the Post

Office. It already provides basic services to many other banks,

including Lloyds and Barclays. Inflation has fallen to 1.9%, the

first time it's been below the Bank of England's 2% target for more than

four years. The Office for National Statistics said that low inflation

was partly due to a fall in the cost of recreational and cultural

activities, including DVD prices and lower entrance fees to attractions

like amusement parks. Household appliances may not be as energy

efficient as we're led to believe. The Energy Saving Trust, said one in

five products do not match their claims. The organisation is to

tackle the problem with mystery shoppers, who will test products in

an attempt to prevent the problem occuring.

The average house price in the UK has hit ?250,000 for the first time.

That's according to the Office for National Statistics. The property

website rightmove says asking prices are up 7% and more loans are being

given to first-time buyers, so the market looks to be in good health

again, but can anything throw it off track? He needs no introduction. I'm

joined by Henry Prior, resident property expert. That's quite a

threshold to pass, because the stamp duty will go up, so will it impact?

It is somewhat ironic that here we are 12 months away from the next

general election and the Government have been demonstabley feeding the

housing market over the last 12 months. Asking prices are up 7% over

the last year and sale prices, the actual deal prices is up nearly 5%.

And the tax man just on Friday confirming that in January the

number of houses sold in January was 30% higher than it was 12 months

ago, so from that point of view it looks like good news. What is the

impact that other schemes have had? We have had lots of Government

schemes. Help to buy, what impact has that had? It's been a huge

stimulus to the building trade, very much the aim of help to buy one,

which was launched in April last year at the Budget. That has made

sure that construction sites have been demothballed and builders are

out there. The danger and warning signs are reports recently that

house builders have been selling as much as even 25% of their new homes

to people who have taken up the offer of Government assistance. At

some future date that will be withdrawn and when it is

unfortunately there has to be the chance that prices and the market as

a whole will then fall back. Going back to the 250,000, that stamp duty

will go up to 3% for people? Correct. We have the extraordinary

situation where the slab-like tax, something which has provoked a

considerable amount of debate in the industry, has now reached ?250,000,

so people buying a house for that amount of money, which a phenomenal

amount, will face a 3% tax. There are things in the offing. We have

the Budget next month. What could trip up the market? It's not all

good news. We have got in April the mortgage market review kicking in.

It's a rather bland title for some new rules and regulations that

providers will adhere to. They'll have to be responsible for borrowers

being able to afford not just repayments to date, but repayments

when interest rates rise, as they will. In 12 months' time, overseas

buyers of property, which have been somewhat in the news in the last 12

months, particularly if London and the south-east, will face a capital

gains tax of 23% and that is expected to put a dampner on rampant

house prices in the south-east. Henry, thank you.

that is all for this week. News, tips and information on saving,

borrowing, pensions and spending, any time you like online. You can

get updates by following our feed on Twitter. We are back next week. By

bye for now. Here are the headlines: Protesters

in Ukraine, wearing helmets and carrying back is, are guarding

government buildings and the president appears to have left the

capital. The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and