Who watches the advocates?

Actions from the Office of Fair Trading last year were meant to help consumers avoid high credit card fees.  Instead, they opened it up so the credit card companies could justify adding more fees and services.  Then, they attacked the bank’s overdraft fees. The banks turned around and hiked other fees, tightened up mortgage lending criteria, and recently withdrew some of the affordable mortgage products. 

It does shed a sinister light over the Office of Fair Trading’s actions.  Of course, it is totally conceivable that the OFT failed to fathom how aggressively the banks would protect their profit margins.

Not all programs backfire.  After all, thousands of people have benefited from the watchdog groups who are fighting to help people process their endowment miss-selling nightmares.  The financial-ombudsman has helped many people with their claims, as other watchdog groups have.

 Watchdog groups have helped return millions of dollars in unfair – even illegal -  overdraft charges to their rightful owners.  Millions of claims have gone out, but you cannot download the letter used by these people from a government website – it is on a private watchdog site.

With these two government watchdog groups, you can go to their web pages and find some short ‘blurbs’ that give people a brief outline of the problem, and what can be done, but they don’t take a stand for the consumer.

When did it become the task of the media and the watchdog groups to advocate for the population? What are we paying for, through our taxes? We paid to have the OFT protect us from unfair bank charges, but we were not protected.  Instead, they shifted the blame and changed the rules.   I’m all for capitalism, and I’m all for profit – but at what cost?

Energy Watch, Citizens Advice, and websites like this one all raise concerns, and instigate change, so why isn’t the tax money coming to these organizations?  Without Energy Watch it is very possible that many people wouldn’t have known the energy companies were over charging them, sometimes a few hundred pounds.

Citizens Advice, armed with a collaborative effort on the part of other charities, was the voice behind the recently feared program the government prepared to launch that would allow bailiffs almost ‘martial law’ freedom in the homes of debtors.

The Consumer Credit Counseling Service (CCCS) received 33% more calls in the first three months of 2007 compared with 2006 with 86,990 calls made to the helpline in the first three months of the year.

A few hours on the web always brings up statistics:

Energy Watch

• Recovered £6.7 million for consumers in compensation and reduced bills.
• Resolved 60,075 complaints, 95% in 66 working days.
• Dealt with 500,000 queries from consumers

Citizens Advice

• Citizens Advice has nearly 13 000 advisors handling:
• 4,990,000 cases in England
• 258,000 cases in Wales
• 252,000 cases in Northern Ireland

Credit Action

• In one day 5300 people will seek debt help in the UK

There are other organizations that help, it does bring the question up, ‘who are watching these watchdogs?’  When you go to one of these advocates for help, are you getting the best assistance you can?  And, why are these organizations doing the ombudsman’s job?

The problem is, an unsatisfactorily resolved, takes you to a watchdog group, and if the watchdog group doesn’t help, then you go to the government ombudsman, which, brings you to the simple fact that no one is watching the advocates.

This makes it important to start fighting our own battles.  Today it is easier than ever to learn how to protect our own interests. As insolvencies grow by 330 a day, and citizens advice will deal with 5 330 cases today, according to credit action, we are left with one problem.

If there are government ombudsmen protecting us, and consumer watchdog groups, then why are the vulnerable sections of society still suffering?

It only takes a few hours surfing to find that the inflation rate for the elderly is 10% plus higher than the rest of the population, that Carers are being forced into debt problems and insolvency, and that people are still being miss-sold financial products.

The only way to protect your wealth is to learn how to protect yourself. When it comes right down to it, we are the advocate’s watchdogs.  The responsibility for staying out of trouble, and protect our own wealth.

Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) clients have an average of £13,000 of debt which is nearly 17.5 times their monthly income. On average it will take CAB clients 77 years to repay their debts in full.  While some of these people, the elderly and Carers, cannot help themselves, most of us can. No one tells the 80% of us who overspend regularly that they must spend.

We need to govern our own spending.  And, in the end, we are the advocate organizations watchdog.