There is still deep-seated public anger against the banks three years on from the financial crisis caused by their greed and stupidity, and from which the taxpayer bailed them out.
A report commissioned by The City UK showed that 56% of the public felt it would be no bad thing for the UK economy if bankers carried out their threat to relocate, although the tax they pay on their earnings is appreciated. Continue reading
Following close behind the bankers on the hate list are energy companies, which are currently coming across as very customer-unfriendly.
o NPower is to raise prices to 3.3 million cash-strapped and captive customers, despite the company already showing impressive profits so far this year. The company has also been identified by Ofcom as using the much-hated automatic dialling systems that leave the line silent, leave marketing messages or hang up.
o British Gas has been fined £2.5 million by regulator Ofgen for its poor handling of customer complaints. The regulator is now looking into the complaints procedures of a number of other energy firms.
o MPs are calling for a ban on cold calling, doorstepping and “Del-Boy tricks” by energy firms after Ofgen found that 40% of users who switched ended up paying more, not less.
The fact that our family doctors now write three times more prescriptions for antidepressants than thirty years ago is mainly due to the very clever marketing of drug companies.
This is the view of James Le Fanu, who writes the Doctor’s Diary column for the Daily Telegraph. Continue reading
The lucrative gravy train in fees paid by predatory ambulance-chasing lawyers to insurance companies for the names of those involved in accidents is to be derailed by the government. The system feeds and encourages the unhealthy compensation culture and puts up insurance premiums, the subject of a current Office of Fair Trading (OFT) Investigation.
Sadly our police forces are setting a bad example in this regard, earning millions of pounds from passing on details of cars involved in accidents to breakdown firms to milk a fee, an equally unsavoury arrangement our government is happy to allow to continue.
Those impressed with BT’s patriotic new directories proclaiming “Backing Britain For Generations” have been rather less impressed to discover they are being printed in Spain, as they have been since 2006.
Lib Dem MP for Colchester, Bob Russell, has accused BT of “blatant hypocrisy” and has tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons calling on BT to back their patriotic PR with patriotic actions.
Google has acquired Zagat, a publisher of independent restaurant guides, to milk more advertising from restaurants.
Established since 1980 the guides are published for more than 100 cities and users will now need to evaluate if the opinions are going to be compromised by the new advertising focus.
Tesco have been fined £10 million by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) who say that the supermarket chain colluded with other supermarkets and suppliers to fix the price of cheese, which the OFT say cost consumers £270 million.
Tesco deny the charge and are considering appealing against the fine.
Others fined were J.Sainsbury (£11.04 million), Asda (£9.39 million) and Dairy Crest (£7.14 million) with smaller fines handed out to Safeway (now Morrisons) McLelland, The Cheese Company and Wiseman.
A total of 285,000 bottles of the new Cidre cider from Stella Artois have been recalled by the company following some bottles bursting and causing minor injuries.
The batch codes of the reassuringly explosive stuff are 1182381, 1214381 and 1217381 and the company blames yeast contamination.
Up to 40% of Brits booking holidays did so to better one that a friend, family member or work colleague had been on.
This is one finding of a survey by Sunshine travel company which also found that nearly 80% of the 1,208 polled admitted that they had bragged about their holiday when they got back.
To a fast-shrinking number of friends, and Facebook fake friends, it is hoped…
The above takes place October 18-20 at Olympia, London and features 230 exhibitors offering more than 2,000 properties and nine free seminar sessions.