23/11/2013 Your Money

Doctor Who celebrates its 50th anniversary today. A special episode

will be broadcast tonight in more than 90 countries.

Time for this week's Your Money. If you have ever tried to buy a

broadband package and you have been bamboozled by the wording in the

advertising, we will have the answers for you. Do you know the

difference between a megabyte and a megabit? They are spelt differently?

We will have the answer on this week's programme.

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

weekend on BBC News. Available all on the BBC iPlayer.

Not everyone will be enjoying the festive period in their own house

this year as some people face the prospect of losing their home.

Shelter is bracing itself a deluge of calls in the run`up to Christmas.

If you want peace of mind when buying big electrical items this

Christmas you might be tempted to buy an extended warranty, but is it

worth it? Ever been bamboozled by broadband

advertising? You are not alone, and in some cases it could mean you are

paying more. We will be cutting through the jargon.

While most of the UK will be enjoying Christmas at home with

family and friends, many families will face the threat of homelessness

as the rising cost of living bites. Shelter is bracing itself for a rise

in demand after a surge in demand last Christmas. I'm joined by

Antonia from the charity Shelter. Why is the many people calling you

at this time of year? At this time of the year, people's problems come

into focus. We know that the most important thing is that whatever you

do, if you can, keep up with your rent or mortgage payments. If you're

getting into trouble, make sure you get help and advice early. After

Christmas is when people begin to get into trouble with their rent or

their mortgage. Will the banks listen to someone if they cannot pay

their mortgage? What we have found is that banks are willing to talk to

people as long as they tell them early that they are getting into

trouble. If you're struggling to make your mortgage payments, please

get in touch with Shelter. Look at our website, there is a really good

guide on what to do if you were worried about making your mortgage

payment. Also you can call our helpline. It is open every single

day and we can really make sure that you can stay in your home. We are

not just talking about people with mortgages, we are talking about

people who are renting as well? Absolutely. One in four renters are

struggling to pay their rent in this country. Rent is at the highest

level ever. There is help and advice available, please do call our

helpline. Make sure you make your rent your priority payment every

single month, try not to go for short`term measures like payday

loans. There is a simple message, people always think, I can pay the

mortgage, I will put it to the side. But they do not prioritise

properly. If people are getting into trouble they need to ask for help,

there is no shame in it. People should know there is help available

from the government and charity. When should the alarm bells start

ringing? When should you think, actually I need to do something

about this right now? If you are beginning to think this month may be

the month you cannot make your rent on your mortgage, that is when your

alarm bells should start ringing. It is important to make sure your rent

and mortgage are your first and most important payment. If you think you

are going to struggle, get some help, get some advice. No one needs

to lose their home this Christmas. If you are worried about losing your

home, you can ring the Shelter helpline. Here is the number:

you can find a lot of advice on that website as well.

It is merely the season to be jolly and spend on Christmas presents. How

much are you willing to fork out for that extra peace of mind? Every year

we spend about ?1 million on extended warranties which retailers

promise will protect our purchases over a longer period than

manufacturers guarantees. But do we really need them? It is the

beginning of the Christmas shopping season and shoppers are buying gifts

for loved ones. But with that new item, many people are paying extra

to protect their purchase. We looked at three of the best`known

electrical retailers in the country. If you are planning to buy a

television from Currys PC World, a standard five`year extended warranty

will cost you ?89. The same warranty from Tesco will set you back ?64.99.

John Lewis offer a free five`year warranty on all of these

televisions. Which? Has done research on extended warranties

which casts doubt on whether they are needed in the first place. They

are sold heavily by staff at retailers. You come to the desk,

your body new TV, and someone is selling you peace of mind for around

?100. That is tempting, especially if you have spent a lot of money on

TV. The truth is you do not need to buy an extended warranty. In

reality, your product is very unlikely to break down the first

place. When the manufacturers' guarantee on your cattle or

toaster, the extended warranty will kick in. It can cover you for things

like damaged but not where on terror, fire or theft. Of course,

this all depends on the contract. `` but not wear and tear. They are not

good value for money. You get 12 month warranty anyway. I have bought

one and I am delighted with it because it is for my cooker. If they

were not so expensive maybe I would. I try to avoid them, they are profit

opportunity for the retailers. Some experts believe warranties can be

worth it in the right circumstances. If you're buying an expensive

electrical item, then look at something like an extended warranty,

just to cover you for those additional costs after the

manufacturers' 12 month guarantee is over. If you are buying that item on

a credit card, you also will be covered. An additional thing to look

at is your home insurance which will cover you for extended damage.

Before paying for peace of mind this Christmas it is worth considering

the benefits and the cost. Fed up with unsolicited calls and

text from claims management companies? The law is about to get

tougher with them. Stricter rules to crack down on these firms were

announced by the government this week. The claims management

regulation unit at the Ministry of Justice will be taking on more in

force on staff to deal with these problem companies. 5375 new homes

were bought in the last six months using the governments Help to Buy

scheme. 92% of them were sold to first`time buyers. The scheme was

launched in April to help people buy new`build homes with a shared equity

loan. It has been extended to all types of homes. Under the second

phase up to 50% of the value of the home can be guaranteed by Treasury.

Yorkshire building society is to offer new mortgages to people with

just a 5% deposit. The dealer is being seen as a sign that

competition amongst lenders is increasing. The UK mortgage market

is continuing to revive. Gross mortgage lending rose to its higher

level for five years reaching ?17.6 billion in October, a 9% rise

compared to September. Drivers are paying the lowest

average price for petrol in more than two and a half years. The

average price of unleaded has fallen from just over 130 2p per litre to

130.4 p this month. Prices have fallen 8p since September. You

should get an extra ten miles compared to two months ago.

Do you know you're a megabyte from your megabit? You're not alone if

you do not. One in five of us cannot decipher the words or abbreviations

used in broadband advertising. 46% of those surveyed say they do not

understand the majority of words used to describe their own broadband

packages. And millions of customers could be paying up to ?100 extra in

unnecessary charges because of this. With me now is the lender, chief

executive of a company dedicated to giving accessibility to women and

technology. What is the difference between a megabit and a megabyte? 8

megabits in `` equals one megabyte, but most people don't know, and most

people have no desire to know the difference. I think it is up to the

broadband companies to make it simple and make it easy for us to

understand. In terms of the advertising, are the times when you

have seen things on adverts and you think, somebody does not need a lot

of the things on offer? Often it is misleading, cause `` because you are

comparing apples and pears. We need to understand what level of service

you are getting. We are obsessed with performance, but a lot of it is

unknown. We want to focus on the service, so when something goes

wrong, do people know what level of service they are going to get? I

chose broadband because without Internet it is a disaster. I chose a

provider that actually guaranteed that they would service it by the

end of the next day if something went wrong. So let us focus on the

after service. You have to be quite technically

savvy to understand what a lot of these adverts are saying, do you

think the companies are conning us, or do you think it is an innocent

stake the way that they sell broadcast `` broadband packages to

ask? The problem here is that the people creating these products are

engineers, and most people using broad and our mums, kids, families,

and ultimately they just want the thing to work and work well. So

there is a lack of empathy from the broadband companies. We talk about

download speed, why should the normal consumer care how fast the

broad and is? What they want to know is how much contact `` content they

can consume. What I care about is how much hours of BBC iPlayer and so

on. Companies are using meaningless jargon that nobody understands. In

your job you are quite technically savvy. Do a lot of people say to

you, I do not have a clue what I am paying for? Yes, and people do not

want to look stupid and ask all of this, but they do not want to spend

hours reading a manual. It is important that the companies stop

bamboozling us. Keep it simple, think about the after sales as well.

There are a lot of deals out there, ranging in price as well. You might

get a broad package for ?3 a month, 230, ?40 a month. Why is there such

a different `` difference in price? You are comparing different things.

Get recommendations, because it is likely if your neighbour is not

getting a good signal from a certain provider, you are not going to

either. The key thing is, for companies to realise that this is an

issue, and broadband companies must start to keep it simple and avoid

the children `` jargon. Thank you for joining us.

That is all for this week. Advice on saving, borrowing and spending on

the money pages on the BBC website all week long.

You can follow our feed on Twitter. We are back next week.

I for now. `` goodbye for now. This is BBC News. Let us look at the

headlines. Foreign ministers from the world Paris `` are gathering in

Geneva amid reports that a deal over Iran nuclear capability could be

close. The Attorney`General says

politicians need to wake up to the problem of corruption in some

menorah to groups in Britain. Latvia declared three days of

mourning for the 52 people killed when the roof of a supermarket

collapsed in the capital