Question Time: Am I short-changing my kids’ savings? How to stop loans for gambling addict? Does Section 75 work with vouchers?

23:22Martin Lewis:I'm doing it like this is the worst version of an X-factor result where you give the big pause because I'm coming to it at the very end. Sorry, Jules, but I'm enjoying myself. That's quite all right. So am I. Thank you. The point about the... There is a trick on the PAC code number, and I suspect Jules knew this, which is why it was coming in. Many people, when they send, ask for their PAC code, this is the porting authorisation code. It's the code that you then give your new provider to keep your existing phone number. Your existing provider will actually offer you a better deal at that point, especially if you're out of contract.

23:55Martin Lewis:They'll say, OK, you're free to leave, but by the way, please stay and we'll give you this deal. So it is really worth doing. And some people cut out all the other stages and don't do the comparison sites, and they just go for this sort of shortcut cheat code, if you like, because it is a cheat code of just texting PAC for free to 65075, just on the off chance that your provider will then give you a cheaper deal, even if you're not planning on moving elsewhere. So now to answer your question after all of that is said and done, and it's a really simple answer. So the answer is, if you've got multiple numbers, you can't get a PAC code by text.

24:30Martin Lewis:Instead, you have to request your PAC code by calling your provider or logging into your account with them online. The PAC code must be provided immediately if you request it via phone, or if not possible, then text it to you within two hours. If you request it online, it should be provided to you within two working days. Those are the Ofcom regulations on it. So I would probably do it on the phone, give them a call up and find out. And I wouldn't be surprised, and please report back, Jules, if when you did that, they offered you a better deal at that time too. so the the one pack code that i would get by actually phoning the provider would cover all four numbers you would probably get four different pack codes right okay so um so when yeah when i approach a new provider with a view to switching i can then give them those those four codes and then that would just proceed as if i'd just given them one pack in my view you're doing it in the wrong order.

25:26Martin Lewis:Yeah. Right. So you could do the shortcut PAC code trick where you just ask them for the PAC code to see if EE give you a better deal and if they do, you stay with EE. Yeah. Alternatively, I think you're too worried about the PAC code situation. I think go and find the cheapest deal that you want. You don't need your PAC code to do that. Your PAC code is the last code. It's the code when you're ready to switch and to change your phone number over. then you call then you call up then you go to the new provider and give it your pack code once you've got a deal or you could shortcut it and cross your fingers and do the pack code first to see if EE will give you a deal at that point the key is your pack code should be valid for 30 days so which is why I would sort of do it at the end of the process rather than the beginning there's no point getting your pack code and then if you you know you don't quite get there if you're going to do it quickly there's no problem doing the pack code first but it tends to only be valid for 30 days all right okay that's clear have we have i solved everything have we got it i think that's uh that's fantastic that martin yes you've covered all the aspects of my query with greater plumb so thank you for that where are you from by the way where's that accent you is that sounds like north of manchester i'm well i'm originally from oldham so yes that's a very accurate um piece of accent placement you've got going on there i do know living clither also so a bit further north.

26:50Martin Lewis:OK, I was going to go with Bury, not Oldham, but it's not too far away. Yeah, not far off. That's pretty good. Yeah, good. I'm feeling it. Did you get that, Matt? Yeah. How was my accent detection? It was very good. I was very impressed. Thank you very much. Very impressed. And the badge will be winging its way the fastest that Matt can possibly send it, and we will report back, hopefully next week, that it's been delivered. Yes, I couldn't be more grateful, Martin and Matt. That's wonderful. Thank you very much. Lovely to chat to you. Thanks so much. Cheers, mate. Likewise. Take care now. Thanks.

27:23Martin Lewis:I really like Jules. I want Jules back. Can we have Jules back again in future? Yeah, of course. We'll get him on. See if he actually managed to get a good discount after getting his PAC codes. Let's cross our fingers for him. Right. What have you got for me next, Matt? It's a read. It's a read. Question from someone who I'm going to keep anonymous just because of the content of their email. So they say, Dear Martin and Matt. Is it a man or a woman? Do we know that? It's a man. Okay. So I was going to call them an-onymous. So we need another name for Anne. Anne-onymous. What? Andy-onymous. Oh, I like that.

27:58Martin Lewis:Isabel suggested Andy-onymous. Andy-onymous. So what's Andy's question? It's always easy to refer to a person. Andy says, Dear Martin and Matt, I listen to your podcasts on my commute to work each week since discovering them a couple of months ago. Lovely. That's nice. My question is, is there a service that can stop my daughter accessing loans and credit cards to help her with a gambling addiction? She's undergoing counselling and we hope that will cure her addiction. But this is now the third occasion this has happened. And as parents, it's the third time we've financially helped her out. Some would say enabling her to face any consequences of her addiction.

28:31She has current debts of£17 ,000 and no hope of ever paying them off in her current financial situation. However, I'm mortified to see that she can access loans at 90 % interest rates and credit cards at extortionate APRs, despite having a spent IVA. What's an IVA?

28:47Martin Lewis:It's an individual voluntary arrangement. It's effectively a cut down version of bankruptcy. Okay. And being self-excluded from gambling sites. In short, temptation is always there, even when on sites where they're advertising pre-approved credit cards and loans that could tempt desperate people. What I'd really like to know is, is there a safeguard mechanism available to her? Many thanks for reading this and I hope to share a future success with you. So this is a question which I'd seen previously and I held so I could go and speak to my charity. So I have a charity that I chair called the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute.

29:23Martin Lewis:And within it, we have a specific gambling action lab, which is set up to work with major banks to come up with ways to reduce gambling harms from a financial services perspective. And I wanted to talk with them about this. I know gambling and we've long had proposals. One of them that we've had out there that has now been adopted by most Maida card providers is that you can have a gambling block put on your credit or bank card. Now, so that's to stop you bank gambling, but that doesn't stop you getting out new credit cards or loans if you don't want to do it. It was interesting just to talk about that for a second.

30:00Martin Lewis:When we first came out with it, many people misunderstood because the key is within, I think it's 24 hours, you can take the lock off. You can't do it instantly, but you have to be allowed to take it off. And people said, well, what's the point? people will take it off. Misunderstanding that actually this is what is known in the trade as a friction policy. And friction gives time for people to think, gives time to people maybe they've been drinking and it's the next day and suddenly go, no, I don't want to put those blocks on for a reason. I want to stop it. It's been a very successful policy.

30:27Martin Lewis:But there is a long way to go. And we still don't. And it's something on our look at what we want to look at regulating, have the ability for people to say, please don't lend to me. So there are some options available in the current setup. And I have to say, Andy, none of this is perfect. One option you could do would be to request that a notice of correction, or your daughter could request a notice of correction, is put on all of the three major credit reference agency files. Now, you normally put a notice of correction on when there's a problem or something has happened or you're having a dispute, a company says you owe money, you say it doesn't, and you put a notice of correction on to say this isn't a default, this is a dispute and we're going through court at it at the moment.

31:16Martin Lewis:You could put that on and note that, or your daughter could note that she has a gambling addiction problem and she should not be lent any money to. You could also do it in a way that doesn't explicitly mention gambling if that might be a risk in some future career or something that would be negative, for example, working in the financial services. So you could put a risk, there is a risk with the money, I do not want to be able to lend money to due to my circumstances, and please don't. You would need to submit a notice of correction with all three credit reference agencies, and lenders will have to manually read this statement.

31:52Martin Lewis:So it first of all, delay any future applications, and they would need to take that content into consideration. they don't have to adhere to it. A notice of correction doesn't mean they have to do it but hopefully a responsible lender would see the risk involved in that and I would think under the consumer duty if they ignored that someone was recovering from a gambling addiction and asked not to be offered credit and gave them them that would be grounds to make a complaint to the financial ombudsman service at later times. Other recommendations for people who are struggling with gambling are install gambling blocker software on your online devices, whether it's bet blocker, gam block and gamber.

32:33Martin Lewis:Sign up to national self-exclusion schemes like GamStop, although your daughter may well have done that. That means you can self-exclude from online gambling and betting shops and casinos and bingos. There's GamStop online as well and do the gambling transactions to block her on her current account and most major credit providers, which is the one with the policy I was talking about earlier. I don't have a perfect answer for you. What I may suggest, and I hope this isn't breaking guidelines, if we have one of the things that we do brilliantly in the money and my team at Money and Mental Health, they're fantastic.

33:13Martin Lewis:I'm so proud of them. It's about 30 of them full time working on the charity and coming up with ways to change policy or process or practice or law to help people who have money and mental health problems. You may want to, and you can do this as a relative, to sign up to our research community. It's not going to help your daughter in any way, but you may want to feed in. That will enable you to feed into the issues. And when we do research on these policies in future to be able to talk to you about what the issues that may or may not help in circumstances are. It's not something you will practically gain from, but you might gain from just being a part of engaging in that and seeing that there's a way that you can feed in on the back to help other people in future.

33:55Martin Lewis:I don't know whether you want to do that or not, and if you don't, it's absolutely no problem, but I hope I was able to help in a little bit of a way. Thank you for your question, Andy. I'm wishing you and your family and especially your daughter all the best. Gambling addictions can be helped. Martin, just to say, if anyone's listening and is worried about their gambling, there is a range of organisations and websites that can offer advice and support. You can find them on the BBC's Action Line website. It's at bbc.co.uk forward slash action line. Yes, certainly. The sooner you get help, the better.

34:23Martin Lewis:And I believe that those type of agencies also tend to help family who are concerned as well.

34:31Jen is in London. She's actually from Great Yarmouth, but she's in London. Hi, Jen. Hello, Jen.

34:37Martin Lewis:So when you say you're in London, does that mean you live in London or you're in London on like a day trip going to the theatre? Yeah, I'm just visiting London, yeah. okay right and that maybe we've got a bit of a dodgy line there matt that may be why yeah maybe the london lines are down it's terrible yeah i mean you could have come into the studio if i'd know you could have done it there so what's your question jen um so i know section 75 on the credit card covers purchases over 100 pounds regardless of how much you actually put on the credit card And does that apply when you're using vouchers or coupons?

35:15So, for example, if I paid for a hotel that was£120 and I put£1 on the credit card and paid the other£119 with a voucher, is the credit card company liable for the whole£120 or just the pound?

35:31Martin Lewis:So just to be very clear about the nature of the voucher, We're talking a voucher like a gift voucher or gift card, not a discount voucher, I presume. Yeah. The only reason I ask that question is a discount voucher would affect the price you paid. So if you had a 20 % off voucher and so something cost, you know, 200 quid and it reduced what you were paying, then it would be what you actually paid that counted as a total, not with the voucher. But with what you're talking about, I understand it. The good news is yes. So the way that Section 75 works, as you rightly explain, is if you pay on a credit card for an item costing£100 up to£30 ,000, the credit card company is jointly liable with the retailer for the entire amount.

36:17Martin Lewis:So the fact that you paid in vouchers is irrelevant. So if you put£10 on the credit card and the rest was paid in vouchers for an item of£120, then the credit card company is liable for the entire£120 purchase. The fact it was on a voucher doesn't matter. And you would get your money back from the credit card company. You'd get it as a credit on your credit card statement. There's no invalidity. In fact, whatever the other method of payment is, within reason, whether it's cheque, whether it's cash, whether it's debit card, whether it's bank transfer, as long as you have proof that that was the legitimate amount that you paid for the item and it was done in one transaction, some of it was on a credit card and the rest was in the other payment mechanism, including vouchers, section 75 is still uh is still in play uh is there something specific you're thinking of um i was just thinking like for example if you know with uh the dreaded c word christmas coming up if somebody got this card and you put the rest on a credit card even though you haven't spent the money for the gift card does it still count as the whole transaction yes because the way i would deem that is someone else but if somebody gave you that money in cash you wouldn't I'm not demeaning your question at all but you wouldn't say to me as I didn't earn the cash someone gave me the cash does it count and in a way a gift card is just that it is a gift of um it's a financial reward gift that you're paying with it's still your money you were given that money and the voucher element doesn't disqualify it I absolutely understand why you asked the question because vouchers do disqualify you from many other things in terms of how you get refunds but this that's Because Section 75 is a law, it's literally about credit card purchase cost.

37:55Martin Lewis:Did you put it on a credit card? Was the purchase amount correct? We've discussed in the past other things that can invalidate it. What was the payment method that you put it on the credit card can invalidate it in some routes? And was there a causal break between the payment and the, you know, in a standard retailer, it should normally be fine. But on a travel agent, because it's an agency intermediary, you don't get the Section 75 protection. Basic answer. I'm getting way too complicated. Yes, it works. Hurrah. It's lovely. Thank you so much. And have a lovely... Is it something fun you're doing in London or is it...?

38:27We are going to Harry Potter. We've never been before. So we'll take a day and we'll go to Harry Potter World.

38:33Martin Lewis:Oh, Harry Potter World, the big studios. Yeah, yeah. Oh, how very exciting. Yeah, I've been there. It is really interesting. We've got the new TV show coming out as well. Fascinating. Anyway, time to get rid of you. Expelliarmus. Thank you very much, Martin. Take care. Bye-bye. Thank you, bye. Are you sitting there thinking, oh, I know what I wanted to ask him? Well, this is your opportunity. If you've got a question, then just send them in to martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. And please do start them, dear Martin. No, dear Matt. Dear Martin. Dear Matt. So, we've done two reads. We've had two callers.

39:18Martin Lewis:have we got time to squeeze our fifth one in I assume it's a read yeah I would like to squeeze in a success Matt may we just before you do it I think we need a success sound okay I mean maybe it's a like a fanfare yeah a fanfare or something I don't think we have the budgets to have a proper jingle made for it I don't think we've got that if there's anybody out there who's really good and wants to do us a success jingle if you're listening Are we allowed to ask for that? Yeah. Are we allowed to use it? Absolutely. Okay. You know, anyone wants to make us a sex... Ooh, say that again. I don't know what I just said.

39:56Martin Lewis:I don't know. A jingle about what? I don't know what that... Let's move on. Anyway, what's the success, Matt? A success from Hannah, who's emailed it into Martin Lewis Podcast at bbc.co.uk. She says, Hiya, Martin, Matt, Rosie, Isabel, and anyone else I've forgotten. I don't think that she's forgotten anyone. No, I think that's perfect. That's everyone. Absolutely perfect. Well, it's core team. it's called team occasionally it's podcast producer Simon it has been another podcast producer Matt but it's cool team okay I've been following your advice when renegotiating phone contracts for years and when my colleague heard about how little I was paying I taught her the ways I suppose it's the Martin Lewis ways isn't it she was paying well have you my head wow she was paying approximately 40 pound for her mobile phone and approximately 40 pound again for her home broadband, so£80 a month.

40:43She asked for the PAC code, and sure enough, it is a lot, sure enough was offered a tempting deal. However, I taught her to reference cheaper deals that she found online, which she did. Her provider matched the cheap deal, and she's now paying£35 a month total for both her mobile and home broadband. That's£540 a year. Woo! Add applause, add cheers, man. Woo! Bring them in.

41:06Martin Lewis:I love it. She says, it put a smile on my face when she told me, so I thought I'd share it with you. Thank you. But Hannah, what puts a smile on my face as well as the saving is that spreading of the message. Is that especially I think, because I tend to think Question Time podcast listeners, they're hardcore. They know what's going on. And I think all of you who listen to hardcore, I hope you're out there helping other people who haven't been converted to the ways of saving money and the ways that you can stop yourself being ripped off. and each one of you is your own mini money-saving expert out there helping your friends and family.

41:42Martin Lewis:That's what I really loved, Hannah. So you've done a success to us and a thank you to us. Well, it's a thank you from me to you. Thank you so much for getting out there and caring about the cost of your friends. I hope they brought you a drink or something or a little meal on the back of that. I hope so. I'd hope so. Also, get them listening to the podcast. That's where they get all the tips. Quite right. It's that point in the show where we do something funny or something askance. has someone sent in something funny or a scans? No. No one sent one in. We had a long list. We had a long list. Do you want the real answer?

42:14Do you want to know what happened?

42:15Martin Lewis:Yeah, what's the real answer? Well, over the summer GDPR came in and she got rid of them. She said we should start afresh. She has deleted the funny questions. She's deleted the funny questions. And we probably can't even get them back because of real GDPPR. Exactly. So GDPR, Google Docs professional Rosie. It's lucky she's not in the room. it's lucky Isabel's in here otherwise my wrath my wrath oh I'd be scared of wrath Rosie I'm not sure I'd probably have internal wrath I might get you know I might you said I might give her an askance look okay in fact I'm going to do that Rosie if you're listening over the airways that was my askance look did you hear it I heard it it was it was terrifying okay so then Matt you're going to have to do one yeah so can we just say we like the funny and askance questions it can be questions about me nothing to do with money.

43:04Martin Lewis:It doesn't have to be serious. It can be, you know, we've had, would you rather fight 12 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? We've had, you know, some questions, origin questions, origin story questions, all of those types of things. So get them in because this is the bit, this is our little bit at the end where we just get to go, oh, and talk about something else. So Matt, you're going to have to come up with it. Come up with one, Matt. Yeah, so just send it in to martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. You forgot to say that, Martin. I did, but that's what you're here for. That's what I'm here for.

43:30Martin Lewis:You're so brilliant at it. I know, I know. So if you, when you go to listen to the podcast, you'll see that there's a little write up at the bottom tells you what we're talking about. And then it tells you where you can send the email. And I always change it. I don't know if anyone notices, but I always say, if you've always wanted to know. So this is in the long blurb? In the long blurb, yeah. Wherever you listen, you'll see it. I always put, so if you've always wanted to know, and then I make up some weird questions. So when was this? On the 13th of July, I said, if you've always wanted to know why he speaks so quickly, if he organises his wardrobe by colour or garment type or you have a very complicated question about your finances, email it in.

44:09So I was actually wondering, how do you organise your wardrobe? Because I know what you're like. So I can imagine there's a system. There is absolutely a system.

44:18Martin Lewis:So, and a lot of this, you have to, there's a subtext here that sometimes I present breakfast television, okay? Now, when you present breakfast television, they, well, between you and I, they like me to be in for four and I negotiate and I get in for five, but that means I'm having to get up very, very early and often the briefings have come in, because you get briefings on some of the subjects. The briefings have come in, you know, I tend to ask my own questions, but you read the briefings. I've come in late the night before, there's not much sleep. So I am about sleep maximisation, which means dress time minimisation.

44:58Martin Lewis:So I will often shave the night before, because if you shave just before you go to bed, it should last for breakfast television. Right. And then my wardrobe is organised so that everything can be done as quickly as possible. so I sort of have in one area I have all my because I exercise a lot so I have all my sort of gym and sporty and all that type of stuff which is separate and then I have sort of my more casual stuff that I wouldn't wear for work and then in my work area I would have shirts and jackets right next to each other underwear and socks right below and trousers all hung up and all the work stuff is in a really condensed space so that absolutely everything can be grabbed as quickly as possible to minimise the getting dressed time.

45:50Martin Lewis:I mean, it makes sense. It does make sense. And the whole thing, I properly ergonomically worked it out so that I should not even be having to take a step when I'm getting dressed because that reduces time. And I have managed to get so that when I am doing breakfast telly, okay, what do you reckon the alarm time? Because I walk everywhere, but the one time I don't walk because if I'm doing breakfast telly, they send a car. What do you reckon the alarm time difference between alarm time and car time is? Right, so when does the car pick you up? It doesn't matter. Let's say... No, because I want to work it out.

46:28Martin Lewis:Let's say if the car is set to pick me up at 4.40, what's my alarm time? Do you shower? Yeah, always shower. Always shower. Shave the night before. Shave the night before. Brush teeth. Other evolutions. I won't be named. I'm going to say 27 minutes past. 27 minutes past? Yes. Okay. Gives you 13 minutes. I used to do exactly 13 minutes. Oh. I've now decided it puts too much pressure and I have gone really relaxed and I go for 15 minutes. Oh, you do treat yourself. I treat myself to those extra two minutes because I like to have breakfast as well. I should have pointed that out. Really? Yeah. Four in the morning?

47:17Martin Lewis:Yeah, I need to eat something. So I have a bowl of cereal that I've put out with the cereal in the night before. So all it needs is a bit of milk poured on it. What kind of milk? Oh, God, I'm going to sound all... Oh, look at you. I'm an almond milk person. Oh, OK. The reason that this is not for any, I don't like dairy, I do like dairy, I do eat dairy, I do all of that. it's just less calories almond milk's less calories I also quite like a hazelnut milk if I like a little bit sweeter but unsweetened almond milk is the least caloried milk for my cereal that doesn't mean I drink it in other things because I just think milk is a wetner for cereal and I need something that's going to wet it that isn't water so I use almond milk because it's got the least calories in it God I'm learning so much about you I know it was quite a good question you did in the end wasn't it but the get up and going thing the other thing if we're going on I've got to get into way too much detail and people are probably very bored.

48:12Martin Lewis:The thing to understand, though, do you do night shifts? Have you done night shifts? I've done night shifts before at the BBC, yeah. OK, so when I was your age, I worked at the BBC as a producer and I had two night shifts. I had one that started 9pm till 9am and one that started 3.30am till 12.30pm. That was the killer. The 9ampm was fine because you just reversed your day. The 3.30am start was the worst because you would go to bed like it was an evening, but you'd never go to bed early enough. And so you will understand, have you ever done a shift like that? Yeah, breakfast show here at Five Live starts at 4.30.

48:48Martin Lewis:Okay, so it's very similar to the breakfast telly thing. You will know, the problem is, you go to bed too late, you set three alarms because you're paranoid about not getting up, and then you spend the whole night waking up and checking the alarm and checking what time it is. And you never get a proper night. My sleep score and my tracker is awful when I do that. And I never get, so actually, even though I set my alarm for 15 minutes beforehand. I generally find I'm up another 10, 15 minutes before that anyway because I can't sleep because I'm so paranoid about not waking up. Do you just get up?

49:16If you wake up, do you just think, all right, I'm just going to get up? Depends on the time. Okay.

49:20Martin Lewis:If I wake up an hour and a half before, no, I force myself to try and stay in bed. If I wake up 15 minutes before the alarm, I get up. And then I think, oh, I can have a relaxed, relaxed time and go and sit at breakfast and maybe read a bit of the paper or something like that. Because obviously I'm reading them when I get in and all that type of stuff because I'm presenting breakfast telly. I need to know what's been going on or I'm reading them in the car on the way and all that type of stuff. So there you go. There you go. You asked how I organised my wardrobe and you got how I organised my life.

49:46Martin Lewis:Is there anyone still listening? Jane? Jane in Yorkshire? Thank you, Jane. This is a narrow podcast. We're broadcasting just to Jane in Yorkshire. Jane, you've been listening and we appreciate it. And that is it for this week's Question Time. Don't forget to subscribe so you know when we release a new episode We put out a new Question Time episode on the Monday And the Big Topic podcast with Adrian on the Thursdays Aren't you lucky? Two doses of money-saving tips and tricks a week And please make sure you send in your questions You can email martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk And don't forget, if you come on the show, we'll send you That exclusive money-can't-buy and money-probably-shouldn't-buy Martin Lewis Podcast Question Time ESQ Badge.

50:38Martin Lewis:Yes, anyone who comes on and voices their own question or success will get an ESQ Badge. What more could you wish for in life? Please don't reply. It'd be a long list.

51:04Martin Lewis is the founder of money-saving-expert.com. But of course, other consumer and price comparison websites are available. You can get in touch with Martin's podcast production team by emailing martinlewispodcast at bbc.co.uk. The offers and rates mentioned in the podcast are correct at the time of recording. However, if you are listening on demand, it's worth double checking as details can date. Remember to subscribe on BBC Sounds and leave us a review however you listen.

51:59You're Dead to Me.