Currently the Financial Ombudsman receives more than 100 complaints annually about these accounts.

Bonus current account attract a fee, normally around £10-£15 per month, and the customer received a benefits package in return. This normally includes insurance for travel or for electronic devices such as mobile phones, plus more attractive rates on other financial products.

The Financial Services Authority says customers are being sold these packages without proper advice and guidance. Some people who purchase…

The government is unable to prevent councils from increasing council tax rates. However, it has set up a £805 million fund as an incentive for councils to hold off from raising their council tax charges, or at least limit them to an increase of no more than 2.5% this year.

The fund will help councils to cope with the loss of revenue that an increase in council tax rate would usually bring. The £805 million…

Of more than 250,000 complaints against Barclays from customers, 53% were upheld.

The number of complaints was actually a drop from the previous six month period when more than 275,000 complaints were lodged.

Lloyds TSB, Santander and Natwest followed Barclays with just over 180,000 complaints reported for Lloyds, 168,000 reported for Santander and 147,000 complaints reported against Natwest. The total number of complaints reported in the survey was 1.76 million.

The data covers…

An announcement from TUI Travel, who own the large Thompson and First Choice package holiday companies, states that a rise in the cost of transport will be passed on to their customers next year. This is likely to mean that prices increase by approximately 10%.

Winter package holidays have also suffered this year with a 7% drop in bookings. TUI Travel are already reducing availability for some package holidays in response.

Shares…

The Mirrlees Review has called for an overhaul of the current system of taxation in the UK and has outlined a number of changes which could be made to help reform it. They have suggested that these changes will help to save the economy tens of billions of pounds. At the same time, they could create thousands of new jobs.

The report claimed that there is no clear direction for tax policy in the…

The practice of selling personal injury details has become common in recent years and has had an impact on the rising cost of insurance. Experts have labelled the practice a ‘racket’.

Jonathan Djanogly, the Justice Minister, has suggested that the current referral system encourages too many spurious insurance claims and that too many people are able to make a profit on…

The average pay for female managers is now at £31,895 per year, where the average for male managers is £42,441.

The CMI has confirmed that female management pay is continuing to rise at a faster rate than men. However, the current rate of growth is only 0.3% higher than men. At this…

Discount vouchers have been a part of shopping for a long time. Websites such as myvouchercodes.co.uk and vouchercodes.com have long offered people easy access to discount codes when shopping online. Other sites such as Groupon take advantage of group discount offers and allow people regular opportunities to sign up…

The investigation into the two companies began in July 2010 after Ofcom received over 1,000 complaints from customers who had been overcharged.

Ofcom is an independent regulator for the telecoms industry. They are able to issue fines to any company who are found to be in breach of telecoms rules, and those fines can amount to up to 10% of a company’s turnover. The…

In May 2011, the cost of unleaded petrol rose to a record of 137.43 pence per litre – the current price is an average of 136.58 per litre. However, since the 18th April, the cost of crude oil has fallen by 18%, from $126.65 per barrel to $103.74 per barrel.

However the figures show that the cost of unleaded petrol has risen by 1.8%,…