A frugal life is an easy life!

This post could apply to any business, but has come to light now as I search pathetically for flights and or holiday accomodation on the internet.

My aim is simple - to find flights to San francisco and return from Las Vegas. I'll need a hire car as we want to drive down the pacific coast.

Every website search IS monitored - The more you and other people search for flights/holidays the more the price increases

The prices shown on websites are almost NEVER available - 7 websites for flights so far, on all of them the price shown increased significantly once I clicked to book or phoned them up to enquire.
EXAMPLES:
cheapflights.co.uk - quoting return flights to san francisco for £580 with air france (inc. taxes and fees) - when you click through to air france's website, enter all the details in again, cheapest flight they come up with is £977 per person.
cheapticket.co.uk - quoted return flights at £415 on cheapflights website, when you click through best price quoted is £235 per person plus taxes and fees. A quick phone call to them reveals that taxes and fees add on £350 to this price, which makes it a total of £585 per person.
They kindly did a quick search for cheapest prices and came back with £694 per person being their best offer. Miles away from the £415 they were quoting via the cheapflights website!
When I had the audacity to question why they were misrepresenting prices to people, they simply denied they were!

When quoted a price, ALWAYS ASK what it includes - I rang an airline directly for a quote, they were £1400 more than the cheapest website price for the same airline. When the lady had worked it all out, the prices the cheap flight websites had quoted were very different from what I had asked for!
I asked to include a seat for sprog2, I was given a price based on sprog2 being on my lap and not in her own seat, 23 hours of flying each way, that's a hell of a long time to be on my knee!
The difference in price for this alone was over £700
The cheap website tickets were also non refundable, nor were they open to be changed.
By this I mean, if a flight is delayed, we would in effect be left stranded and forking out for replacement tickets. If illness strikes and we are unable to travel, then we would lose our money and have to pay for replacement tickets ourselves. With the higher prices charged by the airline direct, the tickets are changable and include a seat for sprog2.

It is an absolute minefield buying a holiday/flights, online, on the phone or at a travel agents.

Is there a single occasion when you want to travel, that isn't either "Peak time" or "School holidays" or "In high demand"?

I'll end this post with a simple fact:
To fly to San francisco, spend 19 days there and fly back from Las Vegas, I have been quoted between £9000 and £12,200 - each one of those quotes tells me that it's inflated prices because of the taxes and the price of fuel (one even told me that crude oil is now at a record of $49 dollars per barrel!)
To fly to Orlando with the same companies, the price drops to £8870 to £12,000 - a stunning saving at best of £130, yet we would be flying thousands of miles and 16 hours LESS, yet saving less than £20 per person.

How does that work then?

Without exception, I know of no one that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, who thinks all is well with the world of car insurance!

The reason why was brought home to me only this week.

Back in October, I was driving towards my school, where I was volunteering to help out with a netball practice for the children.
As I turned into the road junction, an artic - which shouldn't have been there making a delivery as part of the planning permission - was coming the other way and blocked off any access.
I rolled back a matter of inches, when I heard a horn beeping at me. I stopped immediately.
Getting out of the van, a car had also been turning into the junction and had got that close to my footplate at the back, that it was out of sight.

I had grazed the plastic bumper of the car, with my van footplate, to the size of a 50 pence piece.
The driver of the car got out and immediately insisted that his ten year old car had immaculate bodywork!
Before I could write my details down for him, he'd already estimated that the 50p sized graze on his plastic bumper would cost "£150 to put right"
I told him to get a quote for the repair from a garage and I would probably pay him in cash to have it fixed.

Later that afternoon and the phone went, the garage quote came in at £152 (uncanny I thought, within 30 seconds of the 50p graze to the plastic bumper of a ten year old car, the owner of the car had estimated within £2 of a garage repair!)
Not happy with paying this out in cash, I put it through on my car insurance.

I provided the reference number to the car owner, instructing him to send in his garage quote and the insurance would take care of it, I wouldn't be arguing against it, I admitted fault, etc.
The owner of the car was surprised by this and even thanked me for sorting it out in such a speedy fashion instead of arguing about it and making things difficult.
Here's where the fun begins...

The next day I was informed by a friend that the artic blocking the road off, should not have been there at that time of day, it was against planning permission given for the substantial building work going on nearby.
I rang my car insurance company, who seemed to be not bothered at all!
I could try and get a copy of the planning permission, just the section that shows that the artic shouldn't have been there, but was told that the car insurance company would "probably just pay out on the claim regardless"
I asked why, when it was in both the insurance company and my interests to charge the bill for repair to the company carrying out the building work?
The insurance company were not interested.

I heard nothing more about the whole graze/repair episode, so I presumed that was that.
Until last week, when I received a letter from my car insurance company, stating the following;

"We are about to settle this claim in full. We have read the claim file and will finalise settlement for the total of £554"

£554? What has happened to the £152 quote and claim?

I rang my car insurance company (Churchill car insurance) and asked what was going on, their attitude was shocking!
"You win some you lose some!" - But what about the claim, are you not bothered about paying out more than £500 for a graze (on a plastic bumper so it wouldn't rust) the size of a 50p piece on a ten year old car?
"Not really, you cannot raise a complaint against the claims officers" - This repair was quoted at £152 by the garage fixing it, now it's shot up to £554 aren't you even going to query it?
"No, the claims officers will be settling in full for £554" - Regardless of your company's loss and my loss of no claims bonus, you don't feel the need to investigate this?
"No, as I have said already the claims officers will just pay it!"

When my policy is up for renewal, I will be paying out more money.
But that is not the issue here.
Knowingly making financial gain by making false representation is FRAUD!

One of two things is happening here:

• The owner of the car and the garage owner are splitting the extra money they are now claiming, above that of the repair quoted for
• The owner of the garage is claiming money for repair work he will not be carrying out

Either way, someone is falsifying documents to make financial gain. The alarming thing is that my car insurance company are not the slightest bit interested in stopping this practice. Why not?

I was under the impression that car insurance companies represented the best interests of their customer?
The insurance company won't be bothered as they will make their money back off me when my policy comes up for renewal.
By ignoring what is an obvious fraud, they are an indirect party to it are they not?

What ever is going on here, it is the car insurance customer that loses out everytime, it's a no-win situation, which invariably pushes up everyone's premiums in the long term.
It needs to be stopped.

UPDATE:

After ranting on the phone to the claims office, who want to pay this magical amount to settle the case in full, they invariably let some information slip, which might interest anyone making a claim on their car insurance.
Apparently, car insurance companies have agreements in place with other car insurance companies.
In my case, the owner of the car I grazed, rang his own insurance company and they took over from there. This insurance company (LV) I am told, paid out for the repair (I'm guessing they paid the bloke £152 that was quoted?) and from this, they have raised a fee owing with my insurance company of £554 - an increase in the claim value of £402!

Car insurance companies DO NOT check claims made by other car insurance companies, if they have an agreement in place.
I was told that claims are normally just paid out in these cases.

"You win some you lose some" is explained by this.
Money lost on a claim by my car insurance company are recovered when my insurance makes a claim from another insurance company, where an agreement is in place?

Thanks to my intervention, the payment has been stopped and documents have been requested.
This clearly shows that my car insurance company have not seen or verified any paperwork/quotes regarding this claim. Why not?

UPDATE 2:

Now a week later, so I ring Churchill car insurance up, speaking to their claims department.
How is the claim going?
"The money has been paid out and we are awaiting the documents still, but we might not get them because we don't have the facility to receive them!"
So exactly what is the point of requesting the documents?

Without question there is fraud taking place somewhere along the line with this claim.

"If a claim from another insurance company is less than a £1000 insurance companies do not ask for verification"
So churchill car insurance is operating a cartel with other car insurance customers then!
"No we wouldn't do that!"
So why not check claims before paying out on them?
.... no reply!

So last week, churchill's advisor was lying through her teeth when she told me she had stopped the payment and would have the documents within 7 days.
I was also lied to when I was told that the case would be investigated.

For a graze the size of a 50p piece, my insurance are paying out more than my entire years policy price, without any question - despite having a quote for £152 for the repair.
If it's under £1000 then churchill insurance do not question or stop payments regardless.

Is it any wonder everybodies car insurance prices keep rising year after year!

Charity backed leaflets and/or collection bags are being posted in letterboxes all over England.
Most of the companies and/or charities doing the collections, do not have a license to do so, which makes even posting bags/leaflets a criminal offence.

It is also theft, as they are stealing from legitimate charities who have applied for and do have a license.

The collection companies are making huge profits for their businesses from these collections, giving a token payment to the charity named on bags/leaflets, whilst creaming off the vast majority of money made from the sell on of clothing/footwear donations made by the people whose homes they visit.
First the public were told that, "We give £50 per collection to [insert charity name here]" - then once the public rumbled that the average price per tonne of clothing sold in eastern european countries (which is where most of the clothing collections end up) is anything up to £600 per tonne, the collection companies and charities they say they are working for changed leaflets to "We give £2000 per month to [insert charity name here]"

Today the situation is getting worse.
There are sporadic reports of people putting clothing collection bags out for genuine, large charities and are having them STOLEN (because it is theft) by collection companies doing unlicensed collections.
There are also reports of the large collection bins in schools, supermarkets, council car parks, etc, being "raided" by these collection companies.
Many "Charities" and their collection companies are not even bothering to apply for licenses to make doorstep collections. Those that are granted licenses, often carry out doorstep collections after their license has run out!

So who is going to put a stop to this illegal practice?

The charities themselves?
Not going to happen - they are desperate for funding so sign up to agreements with collection companies. Many charities actually duplicate services and other charities work at the same time as paying themselves well in wages no doubt.
Little treasures children's trust were told by myself about an unlicensed collection in my area, they could understand the reason for my complaint and were "having a meeting with ELT the collection company that morning and would tell them to stop"
The collection company rang my council licensing office later the same day admitting they did not have a license to collect - saying they wouldn't be collecting.
The next day, a van pulled up on my street looking for collection bags.
I contacted Little treasures children's trust and quoted the van registration, they confirmed it was in fact one of their own vans doing the unlicensed collection!
Despite knowing about the collection 24 hours in advance, they still went ahead with an unlicensed collection. This is illegal.

The police?
They are not interested.
In the case I've just mentioned, they sent around a neighbourhood and a PCSO officer to discuss my enquiry.
Despite the collection being against the law (House-to-House Collections Regulations 1947 (as amended). House-to-House Collections Act 1939) whereby any company or individual who advertises [via leaflet or bag] or operates a collection, from house to house, without a license whilst in a licensing area, is deemed to be in breach of said law, the police would only say that "it is a civil matter, contact the local council"

Local councils?
Waste of space!
Chief licensing officer's own words, "What they are doing is illegal" - I rang his office on the day of the collection to inform him that their van had just attempted a collection in our street. The police informed me immediately afterwards that they had stopped the van on a neighbouring estate.
Not five minutes later, the chief licensing officer knocked on my door asking for details of the van, which I gave. The licensing officer went off "to catch them in the act" in the opposite direction to that where the police had just stopped the van!
Some decent councils are scrutinising the profits being made and refusing licenses on that basis, most local councils are not even asking questions of collection companies as regards profits made.
Even when a license is not applied for and collections go ahead, councils are still failing to act, saying "it's a finance issue with the council!"
Have they never heard of the police?

Charity commission?
"Unless we receive around 3000 complaints in writing about the same company/charity we do not normally investigate!"
The commission have this year, a budget of £29 MILLION - I can prove an illegal unlicensed collection is taking place in less than five minutes, with the backing of the local council licensing office, the police and the charity itself!
What else is so important that the commission need to "investigate?"
When I put a complaint in wiriting to the commission, they took weeks to even reply, even then the best they could do was to say, "if you feel this might not be a genuine charity then you should consider not giving to their collections"
Useless!

A local councillor?
Even though, the councillor I spoke with, receives lots of these collection bags through his own letterbox, I was simply advised to, "raise awareness of the issue!"
Here's a crazy idea, why don't you do your job and sort it out?

Trading standards office?
Not even worth including them in this post.
Our "local" trading standards office is based in Preston. They were notified via consumer direct and didn't even respond with a phone call or notice in writing, let alone, god forbid, they actually turned up in the area on the day of the unlicensed collection and actually caught them in the act!

So who or what body is going to put a stop to the constant streams of unlicensed charitable doorstep clothing collections?
Maybe it's time for me to get active and rustle a few feathers!

According to British gas, replacing your old back boiler (30 years old in our case) is, and I quote...

"Replacing an old boiler with a new boiler, will NOT save you any money on your gas bills!"

So exactly why are we all being told that we need to be more energy efficient and to upgrade our boilers?
A 30 year old Baxi boiler, of the old back boiler (behind the fire) standard, is what we had.
It didn't even have a working thermostat, it was either "on" or "off"

I asked for a clear confirmation this morning with one of British gas' billing "experts" - will a brand new boiler save me money when heating my home? - the answer was a firm "No!"

Perhaps British gas would like to speak to OFGEM?
British gas should visit the Department for Energy and Climate?

"Improving energy efficiency is a sensible thing to do. It saves money, makes the home more comfortable, and reduces carbon emissions" (DECC website Feb 2011)
According to the facts, our new boiler is running at 91% efficiency - our old boiler didn't even get above 50% efficiency, yet they both use the same amount of gas according to British gas?

British gas cannot explain that for the month mid November 2010 to mid December 2010, we paid FOUR TIMES our normal monthly gas credit. It was however a very cold month, so why did we pay FOUR TIMES our normal gas credit from mid December 2010 (With a brand new boiler) to mid January 2011?
From mid January 2011 to mid February 2011, it has been (so far) very mild, temperatures have not fallen below zero in our area and regularly we have had temperatures 15 degrees higher than in Dec - Jan, yet our credit remains on track to be FOUR TIMES higher than normal. British gas have not got the option now of blaming "an exceptionally cold period!"

In the past three months, British gas' excuses have been:

• "You must have a leak"
• "Your meter must be faulty"
• "You can't have loft insulation!"
• "It's because of the VAT increase"
• "It's due to the price increase for gas" (This was three days BEFORE the price of gas went up!)
• "You can't have had your thermostat set properly" (This was on a back boiler that didn't have one!)
• "It's the exceptionally cold weather"
• and my personal favourite... "I don't know!"

If the company charging us FOUR TIMES our normal gas monthly bill doesn't know, how the hell are we, as customers, supposed to know and do anything about it?

 

An urgent warning for all people insured to drive a van - check your insurance covers you to drive any other vehicle!

A friend of frugal ways came unstuck, when they discovered the fully comprehensive van insurance they had, did not cover them for driving any other vehicle, even though it had in the past.
It has happened to myself as well, though luckily I discovered it by accident during the renewal process.
In my case, my yearly van insurance went up from £380 per year - fully comprehensive/driving any vehicle - to a staggering £780 per year. More than double!
I asked several times why it had increased by more than 50% (with direct line) not a single one of their advisors could tell me, even their customer retention department knew.

I cancelled the renewal, then looked around (without using price comparison websites) individually.
AA insurance quoted just over £400 so I opted to go with them. I called them up and was going through the motions to get a years cover, when first of all they told me that a different company was insuring me (in which case why do they not state they are brokers who make a profit and don't actually do insurance themselves?) and then answered a question that I thought was obvious... With my fully comprehensive van insurance, am I insured to drive any other vehicle?

The line went quiet and the answer came back... "No you are not insured to drive any other vehicle!"

Van or car insurance is insurance on the individual, the excuse that AA insurance gave me was that I wouldn't be covered to drive any other vehicle as the policy was designed to stop parents insuring their children to drive a mini metro, so they could drive around in subarus and other expensive cars!
I pointed out that if I take out car insurance I would be able to drive any other vehicle, including a van, the advisor went silent.
They tried to get me to take out insurance with them by saying that no other van insurance policies would cover me on any other vehicle and all others would be like theirs, in that it would only insure me for the van.
The AA advisor was telling me lies!

Now back to our friend of frugal ways, who was using a family car, thinking he was insured to drive it because of his "fully comprehensive" van insurance.
After a bump in the car he rang his insurance company only to find he was not covered!!!

The result was a £60 fine and SIX penalty points on his license!

This will now increase his insurance premium in the future.

It is easy to say, "Read your policy" as most car/van insurance companies do, but when you have been with your insurer for a number of years, being previously covered on any vehicle, then without notice your yearly premium goes through the roof and the advisors there have no idea why, when it is in effect taking out two policies to cover first your van, then another policy for any other vehicle, it really is not good enough!

Major changes to insurance policies by law have to be issued to the individual, in writing, giving 28 days notice. I myself and our friend, received no notice, either verbally or written, whatsoever!
There is also a good case, I believe, for the insurance companies to be reported to trading standards.
After 4 years (in my case) of insuring my van fully comprehensive, where I have been able to drive any other vehicle as well, qualifies under "Implied terms and conditions" - changing these without notification, even at the time of renewal, could be in breach of trading standard's law.

There are some van insurance companies that do cover you on any other vehicle on the same fully comprehensive policy, I went with Churchill insurance, although wether they still do this, you would have to check.

The lesson here is clear, write down a list of things you need from your policy - Insured on any vehicle? Etc.
Then ALWAYS ASK the advisor who you take out insurance with, BEFORE you pay a penny or sign anything (Calls are almost always recorded).

Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law, as our friend found out with penalty points and a fine!