Constant vigilance
Why we can't always have nice things.
As we watched the T20 cricket yesterday, my friend1 told me about the time they bought tickets from a tout. It was about 15 years ago. Unlike today, they had to physically meet the seller in order to exchange the cash for tickets.
Some reflections:
There very little to no risk of the tickets being fraudulent (they had the shiny thing on them)
They could see the hike in price being charged - it said £40 on the tickets, and he was charging WAY over that amount. Gross
Ticket touts suck
But at least he wasn’t a scammer
Concert tours (Taylor Swift), festivals (Glastonbury), sports (the Olympics, Euros, Wimbledon), summer holidays; it’s all happening. It’s summer! We’re more optimistic, happy and more likely to take a ‘treat yourself’ mentality.
And it’s prime time for scammers.
Last year consumers lost £86m in more than 156,000 cases of these ‘purchase scams.’ And The Guardian this week has a feature on holiday scams; fake listings, conversations being moved to WhatsApp, holiday providers claiming to be ATOL protected but actually not.
It cautions us to be careful while booking, after booking, before getting on a flight and after returning home. It’s enough to make you just stay at home, to be honest. How infuriating that we have to be alert all of the time.
Someone I worked with years ago messaged me on WhatsApp yesterday. I didn’t have their number, and I had no reason to expect to hear from them, so my first thought was that it was a scam. And, earlier this week, I was added to one of those random WhatsApp groups, and immediately reported it.
After having two phones stolen last year, I’m now so much more conscious of my stuff when out in public. And this caution has now permeated my digital life.
Everything feels more combative than annoying. And it requires more headspace. That’s the bit that’s annoying.
There’s a line you could draw here from the breakdown of community, social contracts and the rise of individualism. And it involves institutional players taking a more laissez-faire and hands off approach. Because everything becomes the individual’s responsibility.
And that’s how ‘free markets’ work. If a company is being driven by maximising profits, if criminal activity isn’t affecting that, it won’t prioritise combating crime. Even if it is the right thing to do. In the meantime, I’m afraid the onus is fully on us.
So enjoy your summer. Don’t forget your SPF nor constant vigilance.
1. Get £000s back from your energy provider
Energy firms are said to be sitting on over £3 billion of our cash, building up this huge reservoir from the two-thirds of homes who pay by monthly Direct Debit.
Why? There’s a Direct Debit cycle2 where, in the winter months you’re ‘in debt’ and summer months you’re ‘in credit’ - because we use more energy in the winter, but the Direct Debit remains the same every month.
Ideally, this will balance itself out over the course of the year. But, often, it doesn’t. So at the start of the credit cycle (early May/June) is when you want to check if it’s out of whack. If you’re over 2 months’ worth of credit at this point in time, you want to ask for your money back.
2. Pension jargon explained
I think it’s now pretty commonplace to know that, while you’re working, you want to be paying into your pension. But not too much is known about how pensions work when you want to access that money,
For that reason, this guide on jargon is quite helpful.
Some key terms:
Annuity: An insurance product that provides a guaranteed income for life (good for certainty, not so good for getting value for money)
Marginal tax rate: The tax band you’re pushed into once all income, including withdrawals from your pension, has been counted
Income drawdown: A retirement income scheme which allows you to take chunks of money out of your pension pot regularly, while the rest remains invested (complicated and risky, but becoming more popular)
Crystallising: When you do something to some of. your pension money (like drawing income), that part of it becomes ‘crystallised.’ Anything still invested and therefore untouched is ‘uncrystallised’
3. Tribunal cases to rise as UK firms push back on remote working, experts say
What happened? Earlier this year, an employee unsuccessfully sued her employer (the FCA) for not being allowed to work from home full-time.
The employment judge Robert Richter ruled that the financial watchdog was within its rights to reject Elizabeth Wilson’s request. He said there were “weaknesses with remote working” and added that the case raised a key issue “which will no doubt be the subject of continued litigation”.
And lawyers believe that this will embolden other employers to push back on similar requests. This is as companies are mandating more time spent in the office, and staff are becoming resentful that the flexibility they enjoyed since the Covid crisis is being slowly rolled back.
MONEY
Around 200 people went to the Bank of England this week to get the newly issued banknotes featuring the King’s face. But the headlines said ‘hundreds’ - technically true but actually not nearly as many as implied
So you want to win the Premium Bonds’ £1 million jackpot? The average amount previous winners had in Bonds was is £38,779. (But having this amount doesn’t really change your odds)
Super-ATMs have launched in three towns that don’t have bank branches. It means residents can deposit and withdraw cash for free. More are to follow
More people are pawning jewellery amid a lack of quick credit options
LIFE
UV levels increase by 10% for every 1,000m increase in altitude - why you should always wear SPF on planes
“My internalised fatphobia means that I still try to slim my face with bronzer every day”3
“Somebody might not be able to afford a ticket to go see you in a residency in Vegas. Somebody [else] could just afford a $200 ticket, but they can’t afford a $200 ticket and then a flight. And you got to touch everybody.” I love Cardi B
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Highly recommend watching the first two minutes of this for an explainer. Also, Martin Lewis 🫶
I am super new to bronzer (like 3 months in). Had not considered this at all 😔