Property stocks pushed out of FTSE 100
House price slump ‘to last four years’
House prices to fall 9% in 2008
Housebuilders hit by gazundering
Barratt against wall as housing crisis grows
Axe hangs over 15,000 estate agents
4million pay mortgages with credit card
US ‘will beat UK’ out of the credit crunch
First-time buyers need a £32,500 deposit
Bad debt to keep growing, says HBOS
Archive for the ‘Credit cards’ Category
Egg crackdown on 160,000 customers
Monday, February 4th, 2008Egg annouced it was forced to make an unprecedented move to curb overspending after a review revealed 160,000 customers had a ‘higher than acceptable risk profile’. The cardholders received letters within days warning them their Egg credit cards will stop working in 35 days’ time. Those with a higher risk would typically mean people who spend over their credit limit or fail to make minimum repayments. However, Egg’s actions backfired when hundreds of those affected say they settle their debts every month and incur none of the bank charges which make money for Egg. But the lender defended the move, saying the ‘risk review’ was carried out after the banking giant Citigroup bought Egg last year and the decision was not prompted by the credit crunch. The Office of Fair Trading has yet to receive a complaint. But sources indicated an investigation would be launched within days if a sufficient response is received from customers.
Barclays boss lost out to fraudsters
Tuesday, January 15th, 2008A fraudster posing as chairman of Barclays (Marcus Agius), tricked his own bank’s credit card arm into issuing a new card before taking £10,000 cash from his account. The new card was wrongly issued after a caller gave card operator Barclaycard some of Agius’s personal details, but staff also failed to follow security guidelines in asking for more information. Like any customer, the chairman later had the money refunded to his account. For the past few months, officials have been blamed for several high-profile losses of personal data held by the government, most notably the loss of two discs containing personal details of 25 million Britons; more than a third of the population. Read Martin Lewis’ article on how to protect yourself, what to look out for and what to do if you think your ID has already been stolen.
