Investing in Gold and Accessing Child Trust Funds

Money Box

BBC

Business

4.2 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Money Box investigates fees being charged of teenagers who are struggling to access their child trust funds. We speak to an 18 year old who agreed to pay a claims management firm 25% of his fund plus VAT, not realising he could do it for free. Lord David Blunkett was in government when Child Trust Funds were created in 2002, he tells Money Box that the unclaimed public money sitting in CTFs should be going to young people not firms looking to cash in. Gold has seen rising prices this week in response to global markets turmoil. The precious metal is traditionally seen as a safe investment during times of economic turbulence. We look at the pros and cons of investing in gold and the different ways to do it. Bank branches continue to close and in some remaining branches hours or services are being reduced. We hear from a Money Box listener who struggled to make a face to face appointment at his local bank branch.

Presenter: Paul Lewis Reporter: Sarah Rogers Researchers: Eimear Devlin and Jo Krasner Editor: Beatrice Pickup

(First broadcast at 12pm Saturday 19th April 2025)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, it's Lucy Worsley here and we're back with a brand new series of ladies swindlers.
0:07.5	Promise never to mention a word of what is going on.
0:10.1	Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we revisit the audacious crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men.
0:19.5	This is a story of working class women trying to get by in a world made for men. This is a story of working-class women trying to get by.
0:24.4	This is survival.
0:25.3	Join me for the second season of Lady Swindlers, where true crime meets history with a twist.
0:31.4	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:36.4	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:40.2	Hello, welcome to this Moneybox podcast.
0:43.2	6,000 bank branches have closed in 10 years.
0:46.3	You may be relieved if you hear yours isn't one of them until you try to use it.
0:51.2	A quarter more staff to deal with double the workload, the DWP's plans to help
0:56.2	carers who earn too much, and shiny, heavy, unique, as gold glisters up to a record price,
1:04.2	is it time to buy or sell? But first, Lord Blunkett on teenagers being charged hundreds of
1:10.4	pounds to access funds set up for them by the government.
1:14.3	Clearly, because they don't know how they can access those funds, they're open to exploitation.
1:20.3	We'll hear more from Lord Blunkett shortly.
1:22.5	He made those remarks to Moneybox this week.
1:24.4	We told him that a firm that's not regulated by the Financial Conduct
1:28.4	Authority is charging 18-year-olds up to £420 to find their state-sponsored Child Trust Fund,
1:35.8	which average around £2,000 each. But that's something they can do themselves, easily,
1:40.9	and free. Brad was one customer of this firm called Turner Lewis, and he's one of about
	...

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