Caravaners denied refunds on fees

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Electricity and gas bills will rise in April by an average £96 a year - an increase of 9 per cent at a time when inflation is less than 1 per cent. Ellen Fraser, energy specialist at Baringa Partners explains why.

Static caravan owners are paying £5000 a year or more in holiday park fees. But they have been unable to visit them during the lockdowns and say that they have been denied refunds on their annual bills. Paul Lewis talks to Gary Rycroft, a partner with solicitors Joseph A Jones and Ros Pritchard, Director General of the British Holiday & Home Parks Association.

Barclays bank is refusing to refund the costs incurred by a listener after it wrongly told her it had not sold her a payment protection insurance policy (PPI). We hear from Alex Neil, Chief Executive of the consumer complaints website, Resolver.

And Paul asks if firms that sell solutions to people in debt are more concerned about generating fee income than helping their customers. Sara Williams, who founded the debt advice website Debt Camel, talks through the issues.

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporter: Dan Whitworth Researchers: Darin Graham and Sowda Ali Producer: Ben Carter Editor: Rosamund Jones

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
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0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put
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0:35.0	check out BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:41.3	Hello, welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:44.3	Gas and electricity prices will rise by more than 9% from April 1st,
0:48.3	even though inflation is less than 1%.
0:51.3	Barclay's bank told a customer she hadn't been sold, payment protection insurance, so she
0:57.0	couldn't claim compensation.
0:58.5	She had in fact been miss sold it.
1:01.0	And the broken market in selling solutions to people who are deeply in debt.
1:06.0	But first, people with holiday homes on caravan sites across the UK have told Moneybox they've been denied
1:11.2	refunds on their annual fees of thousands of pounds a year, even though they haven't been able
1:16.0	to visit their caravans for most of the pandemic. There are hundreds of thousands of static
1:21.1	caravans on holiday sites around Britain, owners buy a caravan from a site owner, and then
1:26.4	they're charged 5,000, even £10,000 a year
1:29.5	for facilities such as gyms and so on,
1:32.0	and also, of course, for maintenance and security.
1:34.9	The fixed costs are still met by the site owners during lockdown.
	...

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