Question Time: 5 year old TV’s faulty, can I get a refund? Your caller helped me sort my debt! When shouldn't I pay IN FULL?

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1:20Martin Lewis:This isn't the bottom point. This is the start of the journey out of your debt. I realize it's only 90p, but 90p would increase again. Some of you were nodding, going, yeah, that seems a sense of a thing for me. If you're going to have to be charged the interest anyway, you might as well earn your£4 back. Do not cancel this voluntarily yourself. Hello and welcome to the cunningly named The Martin Lewis Podcast. I do wonder what that's going to be about. And this is our Question Time episode, where you can ask me your questions on absolutely anything and everything. Open brackets, within reason, close brackets.

1:52Martin Lewis:And this week, you ask me, if my holidays cancel due to the Middle East conflict, can I get a refund on the travel insurance? Vodafone promised me a 50 % discount. Now they're chipping away at it. What can I do? Then we have a wonderful success story. Someone inspired by the pod to finally seek the debt help they desperately need. When is paying off a credit card in full not actually worth it? And my top-end telly has got faulty after five years. I might do any money back. Play the theme tune. I got meals. I gotta pay. So I'm gonna work for the world I never live I got a mouth, I got a feet So I'm gonna make sure everybody eats Hello everybody, welcome to this Question Time edition of the Martin Lewis Podcast.

2:42Martin Lewis:Yes, this is where you get to ask me anything and everything, open brackets within reason, close brackets. Sometimes by writing in, sometimes we get you to call. and of course everybody knows by now who's listening, who is in charge of this podcast, who is at the pinnacle of making the decisions, who has the life or death, not quite life or death, but let me go with it, say over who gets their question asked and who doesn't. It is the one, the only, the curator of questions, Professor Sir, Dr Matthew Burnham Esquire. Oh, I get to keep the doctor this week. You've got the full honorific of all those titles.

3:21Martin Lewis:just for anybody listening for the first time Matt doesn't actually have any of those titles they're just within the canon of the podcast he is just Matt Burton literally just that but he is the curator of questions I am, yes so are we going to do some more of our what, because I have a title and you have a title what is the title of the people who get their questions read out or call in on the show we need to sort of, we're sort of clubbifying it and we had quite a long list last week this is our last week of deciding give me one now and we'll do a few more at the end how about that? OK, let's go from Alistair.

3:53He says, money maximisers. People want to make the most of their money and make it go further.

3:58Martin Lewis:I like money maximisers. I like it too. I like money maximisers. And just a subtext. We're going to stop there and we'll do more at the end. Here's the issue for Matt. The issue for Matt is the current favourite is Martin's podcast contributor, MPC, a bit like the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. But the problem with that is? It was suggested by podcast producer Simon, who produces the pod with me and Adrian. Yes. And Matt is finding that very difficult, aren't you, Matt? I am. We are in competition and I would like to win. Yeah. So Matt is desperate for somebody to find something that knocks MPC off the list.

4:37Martin Lewis:Money maximisers could be it. We'll do some more of those at the end. What's your first question for me, Matt? Got a question from Richard. He's emailed it in. MartinLewisPodcast at BBC.co.uk. He says, hi, Martin and Matt. Fine. Fine. Acceptable. Completely the right way to do it. Do you know what? I don't think I'm going to argue this week. This week is my, do you know what? I'm just going to let it happen. I mean, I know you say that, but it is the Martin Lewis podcast question time edition. I know. It is fair that people put me first in the email. I know, but the emails come to me. Because I've been very encouraging for people to include you so it's inclusive and not just do hi, Martin.

5:14Martin Lewis:But you don't read the emails. I don't read the emails. But I'll be honest, between us, just between me, you and the podcast listeners, I do have other shows. You are aware of that? No. I do, including on the one with, you know, the Radio with Pictures one. No, I don't think that's quite reached us here. OK, but you know the Radio with Pictures one. And on that one, it goes to the team of that show. And they don't get their names in the email. And people still do it that way. So we've encouraged the listeners to engage and include you as the curator of questions, as is your right. But I think asking for primacy in the order, I mean, if they do it, they do it.

5:55Martin Lewis:But I think, you know, I don't think you should feel hard done by that you don't get primacy is my point. Right. OK. Is that fair? That's fair. He goes on to say, love the podcast. And I finally have a question for you, which may affect other listeners. And that's the most important bit, Matt, is he loves the podcast. He loves the podcast. Which means he loves what I do, he loves what you do, he loves the entirety of the podcast. We can both take love out of this. Yes, we can. That's nice. Shall I read his question? Yeah. My wife and I have booked a holiday to Jordan in July and following your advice, bought insurance when we booked it in January.

6:28Quite right. Due to having chemo last year, which appears to have been successful with just six monthly monitoring going forward. That's good. Congratulations. Very pleased you're out in remission. Well done.

7:06He says,

7:07Martin Lewis:Okie dokes. Well, just before we get to can you get a refund on the insurance policy, some basics for anyone listening who's been affected by the Middle East crisis or your travel plans have been. The golden rule, as Richard quite rightly understands here, is do not cancel this voluntarily yourself. If you do, you lose all your rights. It just becomes that you've chosen not to go. And if you choose not to go, well, then you're not entitled to a refund and your travel insurance company won't cover you. If you are looking at what to do, well, if you get a cancellation and if they cancel on you, you should be entitled to a full refund.

7:42Martin Lewis:If you don't get a cancellation and you don't feel safe to go, then you need to look at the foreign offices travel advice. Now, there can be two types of different levels of advice that they're giving. The strongest one is no travel. If they are advising you against any travel in that country. The second strongest is against no essential travel. Now, different travel insurance policies have different attitudes. Some will only cover you for no travel. Some will cover you for no essential travellers way. Some may say, I'm sorry, you don't get any coverage for wars. I may exclude you from any cover on the back of that.

8:19Martin Lewis:And it is simply a case of what your travel insurance policy says. So anybody who has a trip booked to one of those areas, I would be getting your travel insurance policy now. Get the document. My tip would be take it. It's normally a PDF. put it into a chat GPT or a Google Gemini or, you know, an anthropic claude. Put the document in there and then ask it questions about what you're entitled to, because these documents are long and turgid and it's a lot easier. They do ask it to give you the exact paragraph so you can double check that it hasn't hallucinated on the back end. Another thing people should be checking is what is the level of cancellation cover on your travel insurance policy?

8:57Martin Lewis:In other words, if the holiday is cancelled and you had ancillary costs, how much would they cover you up to? But now let's get to Richard's question, because I think Richard knew all of that, but I do think that was important stuff to say. So, Richard, you're asking, will you be able to get a refund on your insurance policy? Well, arguably, you have had some benefit of that insurance policy, though you may not perceive it, because you've had the policy in place since January. And if something had happened to you since January that had stopped you going, then this whole travel insurance policy would have covered you in the meantime.

9:30Martin Lewis:So that is that is a benefit. It's really weird with insurance because, of course, insurance is a policy that we pay in the hopes that we won't have to use it. So the fact that you haven't used it or you haven't claimed on it doesn't mean you didn't get value from it because the value is in the protection. The value is not in the necessarily just in that you have to claim. Having said all that, if the holiday is cancelled and you're not going to go away, there are some companies who may give you a rebate on a portion of your travel insurance fees. So my big long answer, if I were to summarise it down, would be, you can always ask.

10:10Martin Lewis:And that's it. And that's it. Yeah, I mean, there's no writing there. I mean, you can have a look in the travel insurance policy. The policy document might mention something on it, but I don't think they tend to. But I would just ask. Ask and cross your fingers. So are we going to a caller now? Yes, we've got Matt. He is in Devon and he is here. Hi, Matt. Hi. Hi, Sally Martin and Matt. Oh, Sally. You knew Sally was here because you listened last week and I said Sally would be here. I did listen to last week's podcast. And Sally got the first mention. That was really annoying, Matt. I love it. It has.

10:49But you've got a good name, Matt. Yeah, no, you've got a great name as well, Matt. I have to give that to you. Okay, get on with it, boys. Even though I said you last. Right, what's the question? Well, back last year when I was up for renewal on my mobile phone contract, I was considering leaving Vodafone and had done all the things like asking for a pack code and then going on to the web chats. I negotiated a 50 % discount off my bill. Add some round of applause, Matt.

11:19Martin Lewis:Add some round of applause. That was always referred to as a 50 % discount and is referred to on my bill with the exact words 50 % discount. So prior to that discount, my bill was due to increase from£26 to£27.80, or 6.9%, in line with the stated pounds and pence increase. However, I've just got my bill for the forthcoming period, which includes the beginning of April. My 50 % discount has stuck at£13 off. I thought you were going there. So basically you're saying you should also get a 50 % discount of the£1.80 a month up list, though it should only be an uplift of 90p rather than£1.80. That's what I feel would be in line with the spirit of the Ofcom rules, to be fair.

12:02And I realise this is quite a small and nerdy question, but I'm sure there are lots of savvy podcasts. It is very nerdy. It's not about the money. This isn't about the money.

12:13Martin Lewis:this is about the principle, isn't it? Absolutely. Yes. So where have you got to it with them? Have you tried to tackle it? What are your thoughts? So I have tried to talk to them on web chat, and they basically have taken the approach that the price increase is the price increase, and the discount was only ever applied to the original price. And that is where I've got to. And I suppose my follow-up question is, is it worth going down the line of something along the lines of the ombudsman to have a look into this. Okay. So I'm just going to sort of recap for everyone to make sure everyone got it.

12:50Martin Lewis:You negotiated a 50 % discount on your mobile bill under the firms must tell you in advance the pounds and pence increase that you're going to get. You assumed that you'd only be getting a 50 % increase because it's a 50 % discount on your bill, but they have increased it by the entire amount and not giving you a discount on the uplift that you get each April. So, first question, when you negotiated this, did you only do it over the phone or in writing? I know it's on your bill saying 50 % discount. Where did we get to on that? It was on WebChat where I did the negotiation last year. And you don't have it saved on WebChat?

13:26I don't have it saved anywhere.

13:28Martin Lewis:They may well do. OK, look, let's just go into practicals. What would I do? Obviously, there is no hard answer here. And clearly for everybody listening, this is only 90p a month. So we're talking about a tenner in total, but we're going to deal with it on the principle rather than the metric, because clearly it's probably not worth the time that you're going to spend on it unless you're doing it as a principled stand. Fair? 100%. Okay. Now, there's something very interesting that happens in telecoms. And I got told this by somebody senior at a telecoms firm who told me never, never to say who he or she or it was.

14:05Martin Lewis:So I'm not even going to give away that they were human or not, but you can probably work out that they were. And what they said is they have a special team for dealing with complaints if people are threatening to go to the or escalate to the ombudsman. Because if you go to the ombudsman, they have to pay a fee to the ombudsman when you make a complaint to the ombudsman. And therefore, they have a special team, which is trying to forestall those complaints who tend to be better to deal with. So in the first instance, I would make a formal complaint back on web chat or preferably in writing by email.

14:37Martin Lewis:I think that might even be a better way to go saying, you believe you're entitled to a 50 % discount, that 50 % discount has not been applied. Therefore, you think this is incorrect and you would like to turn this into a formal complaint that they are overcharging you and you would like a response within 28 days. Now, hopefully, if that goes to the right team and they see that you're a difficult fella, which is what you're effectively trying to do, for them it is far cheaper for them to say just give them the 50 % discount on the£1.80 than it is for you to have to go on to the ombudsman and then to have to pay the fee.

15:12Martin Lewis:So my progressive step would be next is make the formal complaint but say that you're planning to go to the ombudsman if they won't sort it within the formal complaint and my hope is that'll do the business. How's that sound? No, thank you, Martin. That sounds entirely sensible. And yeah, as you say, I realise it's only 90p, but the 90p with cumulative impact next year would increase again. Yeah, absolutely. You've got an agreement with the company. They gave you a price. Why shouldn't they stick to the price? So, and this is our question. This is, you know, the pod... Let's be honest. This is a podcast that quite a lot of nerdy people like.

15:50Martin Lewis:So we're all with you, Matt. We're all with you. We want to know what happens as well. So you've got to promise to come back? I will let you know what happens. All right, mate. I will let you know what happens. And just as an aside, I think given Sally's in today, I didn't, you know, doffing my cap to Matt Chorley on Five Live as well. An appropriate term today, I think, would be a member of Sally's Parliament or MSP. MSP. OK. I tell you what, because that's not what we're going to be adopting properly as a name full term, but you can be an MSP today. you can go and call yourself an MSP on the way back Excellent Lovely, thank you for calling Matt, appreciate it Thanks all Cheers Bye bye

16:51for support with contract queries or issues.

16:55Martin Lewis:On the back of standing up for the principle of when is a discount a discount, where are we going afterwards? Where in our journey, our fiscal journey, are we wandering next, Matthew? I thought it would be nice to do a success now. Cool. So this is off the back of Robert, who we had on a few months ago with his success of being debt-free. Oh, yeah, that his was amazing. It was what does he do now? He's debt-free. He was so into budgeting and restraining his finances of all of those years to get himself out of crisis debt. It was a very moving story. It's hard to be debt free. And the success is on the back of that.

17:26Martin Lewis:Let me hear. Yes. So loads of people got in touch with their stories. One that I liked was from Carly. So she emailed it in. She said, hi team, just listened to Monday's podcast and the last caller in his story. This is me. I'm mid thirties and I've never not been in debt. My childhood was spent seeing my family just use credit to buy whatever they want and then have to make some heartbreaking decisions later in life. My grandparents split as one had remortgaged the house to the hilt, leaving them homeless in their 80s. This week I contacted StepChange and set up a debt management plan. I'm over£60 ,000 in debt.

18:01I reached the point where I could no longer refinance and the interest was as much as the multiple repayments. I listened to the podcast and cried with relief that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for having this caller on. I've never ever been taught or thought about seeking budgeting advice or education. I feel silly for only just starting to think about it now at the age of 35, but appreciate him and you so much. I can't wait till my debt free day is in sight. But I know it's a long way away, seven years away, but at least it's realistic now.

18:36Martin Lewis:Oh, Carly, thank you so much for getting in touch. I think I'm moved by it. I'm sure Robert will be listening and he will be moved by it too. and it's so important that you've taken like anything else in in life where you're having difficulties taking that first step is the most important you're now dealing with it and you've now got a plan and I think back to my early days when I used to do money makeover television programs and I'd go into someone's house who had debt and one of the things no one who was in a lot of debt they never add it up they never want to know what the total figure is they they actually forget, often forget some of the debts they've got.

19:13Martin Lewis:And I would go in and I would compile it all and I would say, OK, we've now got the figure. In your case, it's£60 ,000 worth of debt. And you would see people's faces go white and you would see them looking scared and intimidated. And they'd go, oh, gosh, it's so much worse than I thought. And what I would always say at that point and mean at that point was it's not. The debt was always there. All we've done is work out exactly what your debts are so that we can start to deal with it. This isn't the bottom point. The bottom point was yesterday when you weren't tackling it, when we weren't thinking about how do we get you out of it.

19:57Martin Lewis:Today, now that we actually know what the debt is, the total, This isn't the bottom point. This is the start of the journey out of your debt. And that's exactly the sentiment that Carly had and the right sentiment that Carly had in her email. Wonderful. For anyone struggling with debt, you know, and we're talking struggling to meet your minimum repayments, can't sleep because of your debts. You've got more than a year's after-tax salary in unsecured credit card or loan type of debt. any of those, if you're in that, then go and get yourself non-profit debt counselling help. Step change, as you heard there, Citizens Advice Bureau, National Debt Line, Christians Against Poverty, who do emotional counselling too.

20:40Martin Lewis:And you will get to that point where you can sleep. Matt, I don't know if it's possible, but if you can, if I remember right, Robert, who was at the end of his debt journey, he was out of debt, he had a brilliant summary to people at the end. Could you play that here? Because I think this would be a good way to end it. Absolutely. The main thing I'd like to take out of this call is for anyone else listening who finds himself in that situation to just make the leap and make the call. I found that there have been lots of interactions with StepChange. They've been incredibly helpful. Never judge you.

21:11They're just there to help. They sorted everything out for me, made a plan. That plan has varied over the five years as things have gone up and down in life. And just to go out and do it, I understand that it's scary. I've been there with my head in the sand. That doesn't work. And just go out and do it, because every day that passes is a day that you could be closer to your debt-free day.