Consumer issue predictions 2017 In this feature l online scams l stark choices l fraud e n ur te r ll oe Ft i th w fly ks nd g ar a in ve s p ds th a wo eh r ts e sa go om 17 te s 20 xp a it e ds th h r an oe s the ea s, w s y rd r a t d a sk r a oa rge h itt fte rb ha w rf A ve c xit Pa ho one Bre uise ph lled ? lo a ore c st in A s we land in January with a post-holiday bump, most of us will be checking bank balances with some trepidation and doing a bit of belt-tightening after seasonal excesses although rather more in the spending area than our waistlines, I suspect. In addition, wed be wise to keep a closeeye on what is happening with our hard-earned cash: financial fraud in the first half of 2016 increased by a quarter, to 399.5m, according to the Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK), as a result of scams and online attacks. It does indeed seem that online scams will continue to be an ongoing problem for consumers in the next year and beyond. A Which? survey found that 653 people had lost 5.5m because of fraudulent bank transfers and thats just a small snapshot of the scale of the problem. According to scams expert John Peerless, principal trading standards officer at Brighton and Hove City Council, the problem isnt going anywhere. I think well probably see an increase in online scams in 2017 as more people perform transactions online, he says. Which? is continuing its call for banks to do more to protect consumers who fall victim to fraud, but Peerless thinks that while banks could probably do more, customers must also shoulder some of the responsibility of keeping themselves safe online. While the banks can take some more action, fraudsters are never going to go away, he says. This year, we need to keep on educating consumers not to give out their details and to check the authenticity of sites they visit. Louise Baxter, National Trading Standards Scams Team manager, agrees there needs to be more community awareness of schemes such as the Friends Against Scams campaign, but she believes banks will be forced to take more action to protect consumers in 2017, too. What is unclear, however, is how far these LookINg aHEaD measures will go. Weve got an initiative Other big consumer issues this year according backed by the Home Office to help ensure to Which? will be the demand for broadband banks start to do more to protect people, providers to deliver the bandwidth speeds such as a slower payment system for some they promise consumers in adverts, and better customers, and theres a pilot scheme testing compensation for rail passengers. out issuing a stamp of approval to banks that Recent research conducted by Which? meet certain fraud prevention behaviour, she shows that a third of people in the UK are getting says. Our challenge this year is to keep the broadband speeds of below 10Mb and twomomentum going. thirds have experienced disruption to their According to Citizens Advices latest broadband service. Providers need to up their figures, the next big consumer credit scandal game, and the government and regulator should press ahead with plans that mean could well be the spiralling costs of buy now, people get automatic compensation when pay later deals, when customers fail to pay things go wrong, says Alex Neill, managing in full by the end of the interest-free period. director of home and legal services. Last year, the charity helped nearly 24,000 As Southern Rail commuters face yet more people with 50,000 catalogue or mail order disruption to their journeys, consumers are debt problems, with 70 per cent of the issues becoming increasingly infuriated at the time relating to debt repayments. taken and methods employed to decide If the economy falters once Article 50 is whether to pay compensation for rail delays. triggered, and the pound loses more ground, In 2016, 47 million rail passenger journeys were the charity fears many people could be at risk cancelled or delayed by more than 30 minutes, of falling into a vicious cycle of debt, and is but only 34 per cent of passengers who may have been entitled to a refund said they actually calling for greater clarity on how catalogue claimed. Passengers need to be able to easily firms advertise these deals in a bid to prevent access compensation where it is owed and the consumers being hit with shock charges. system for handling complaints must be urgently Chief executive Gillian Guy explains: overhauled, says Vickie Sheriff, director of Missing a payment deadline can make the campaigns and communications. cost of catalogue borrowing sky-rocket. Insome cases, peoples debts have suddenly soared to double what they originally borrowed. Clearer explanations by catalogue firms when advertising these deals will prevent people being hit with shock bills that could send them spiralling into debt. An analysis of 250 cases dealt with by Citizens Advice revealed common problems, such as high fees for missed payments, inadequateaffordability checks and poor debt collection methods, including repeated demands for payment from customers struggling with their finances. For the people it has helped, Citizens Advice found the average catalogue debt was 1,300, and suggests younger people, aged between 25 and 29, are most likely to have problems with such debts. Citizens Advice is now calling on the Financial Conduct Authority to look at the way catalogue firms display the charges people face if they dont repay the full amount before the interest-free period ends. Whats hotting up and whats not The ongoing saga of the Whirlpool tumble dryers is set to run on well into 2017. Citizens Advice saw issues with tumble dryers increase by 374 per cent in the second quarter of 2016/17, with defective goods accounting for 84 per cent of these. The product recall working group, set up by consumer minister Margot James last year, is due to publish its recommendations on improving product safety later this month. Mark Gardiner, product safety expert and senior trading standards officer at Gloucester Trading Standards, sees continuing safety issues caused by imports from smaller traders that are imported from overseas without going through safety checks. There have been attempts to address this at the European level, but we need to do more to coordinate ourselves at the national and international level to deal with the traders who are bypassing conformity assessments, which demands resources, he says. And Brexit has put everything up for grabs. Were not sure what the regulatory environment will be like by 2019 will we still be using EU regulations? This year, well be working with Royal Mail to identify envelopes from known scammers and preventing these getting into the postal system. But how will this affect other scams? Will it push more scams into unmarked envelopes? Could it push the problem elsewhere into phone scams or online? Only time will tell Louise Baxter, manager of the National trading Standards Scams team As the winter cold really begins to bite, fuel poverty has again hit the headlines. Figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) show that more than 2.3m families face an eat or heat choice this winter. According to Which?, energy prices now top the consumer worry list, along with fuel prices and public spending cuts. Nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) of people said they were worried about energy prices arise of eight per cent since September. Distrust within the energy sector has also increased by six per cent, meaning a third of consumers (35 per cent) now distrust the sector. Expensive standard variable tariffs, which often come into effect at the end of a fixed-deal period, are why people sometimes end up paying too much for their energy. CTSI has called for greater regulation of the sector, and Which? and Citizens Advice are calling for more to be done to make sure people are on the best deal. The clock is ticking for energy companies. With16million households stuck on variable tariffs andtrust in the industry falling, more needs to be done to move people onto better deals, says Alex Neill, managing director of Which? home and legal services. Energy companies will have no-one else to blame but themselves if the government and the regulator have tostep in and intervene. However, CTSI lead officer for energy Steve Playle thinks 2017 will not bode well for energy customers. Were at the stage where the level of consumer switching is at an all-time high but, at the same time, were seeing companies introducing more complex tariffs, so it is even harder for consumers to compare deals and switch safely, he says. I am disappointed that the regulators are not clamping down, but I dont think change will come from the government or from the industry. This year looks like things will carry on as they are; I think it will get worse before it gets better. Whatever 2017 brings Article 50, legislation change, more innovative technology (and more innovative scams) trading standards as a profession needs to decide how it can best ensure consumer safety in an environment of belt-tightening, fewer officers and increasingly overstretched resources. Credits Louise Parfitt is a writer for TS Today. Images: Masterchief_Productions / Brent Hofacker / Shutterstock To share this page, in the toolbar click on You might also like The top 10 insurance industry predictions for2017