Question Time: Council Tax £6,000 refund! £700 saved ditching O2! And a warranty schmarranty winner

0:17Hello 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 edition, although this week maybe we should call it success time as it's our last podcast of the year, so we're celebrating the many and varied successes that you, our podcast listeners, have had. The successes you've told me about this week include a£700 saving from Ditching O2, a council tax refund of over£6 ,000, an iPhone warranty schmarranty success, how knowing your consumer rights can really pay off. Two bank switching successes, a first-timer and a multi-mule account switcher who really raked it in.

0:59And we finish with the biggest one, worth over£100 ,000. But I'm going to leave it as a Christmas teaser so you have to listen all the way through to find out what it was about. Play the theme tune.

1:20I got to feed, so I'm going to make sure everybody eats. So hello everybody and welcome to this episode of Question Time, our final Question Time of the year. And something very, very exciting has happened. Because podcast producer Matt is here with me in the studio in London. Normally he's in Manchester and I'm in London. Welcome to the studio, curator of questions himself, podcast producer Matt. Thank you very much. It's nice to be here and actually be able to see your face. Well, yes, this is the first time that we've met. Now, many of you will know what I look like because I'm relatively ubiquitous on the television, but I think it's important you understand what Matt looks like.

1:58I think I need to take you back to the 1980s now. I want you all to think of Burt Reynolds. I think he had nice big parted hair, a big bouffant hair, a lovely big moustache. He's got a Hawaiian shirt and flares on. There's a lot of chest hair, a lot of chest hair poking out of the middle of that, Matt. Cowboy boots on the bottom. and you know, funny because your voice, I always pictured you as sort of being, you know, mid, late 20s, but it's actually sort of that rugged 40s type look that you've got. You're a big man. You tend to fill the room out. It's not what any of us were expecting. Got it spot on there.

2:31Well done. Thank you very much. Exactly what I look like. Yeah, big moustache. The hair. It must take you a long time to do your hair in that bouffant style. It's actually stuck on. Is it really? Oh, good. So there you go. So hopefully now in future, while Matt has his soft tones, you can picture him picture him as a younger more modern more chest head version of Burt Reynolds forming everybody I don't want people actually thinking that's what I look like though because I really don't he does I really don't he doesn't okay he doesn't but you know what he might not look like that but you should still picture him like that anyway yes yeah okay now we're doing a different podcast today because normally this is called question time but today it is success time because what we wanted to do at the end of the year is celebrate some of the actions that you have taken after listening to the podcast.

3:18And also we'll be talking about them so how those of you listening who've not done that type of stuff can follow in the footsteps of those who have saved. So, Matt, as it's a different type of podcast, are you following on normal structure and formula? Are you, I don't know, going wild? I just thought I'd throw the structure out the window and just go for a caller first. Who have you got? I've got Jeremy. He's in Leicester and he's on the line. Hello, Jeremy. me. Hello Martin, how are you? Very good, thank you. I'm looking forward to hearing your success and what it is about. What have you done, sir?

3:50Well, for some time, all four members of our household, me, my wife and my two kids, we've had a mobile phone contract with O2, picking on for a long time and we're paying about£17,£18 a month each. It was initially convenient because I could keep an eye on what the kids were doing and it just sort of rolled and rolled. And then we were listening to you and we thought, hmm, you know, you let us know a little bit about the price hikes that were coming next April, we went, hmm, we should take some action here because we're really not very good. So we found a particularly good deal through Labara, and it turns out that two of us have changed from paying 17, 18 quid a month to paying about£1.65 a month, and they're both getting 35 gigs of data.

4:30And as teenagers, they get through quite a lot. Yeah, I can imagine. So what's the total saving then? Well, my wife, Abby, she's the one that keeps a spreadsheet of all our direct debits. Oh, you've married well, sir. Thank you. You've married well. I mean, there we go. I would have liked that. So I looked at it on the sofa and we said, well, with the price, what would it be? We reckon it'd be about, how do we say, loyal, about 900 quid a year. And then we sort of broke it down and went, well, it's going to be about 218 quid for a year, projecting what it's going to be in the future. So I thought, well, that's definitely worthwhile.

5:03So it's a huge saving. Yeah, enormous. Enormous. Yeah, 700. Yeah, over the whole year, yeah, indeed. Oh, well, that's absolutely fantastic. I mean, I should do the background for people who are listening. So what we had with O2, O2 broke the mould here. Regulations came in last January that said that when you sign up to a mobile or broadband deal, they need to tell you an advice of any price hikes, and that needs to be done in pound or pence. The only firm that didn't agree to do that is Sky. So Sky instantly says, we can hike prices, but we'll have to let you leave with 30 days notice. O2 broke the mould and announced that it was going to hike its price hike.

5:39In other words, it told people what increase they would have next April when they signed up for contracts, but then announced, no, we're actually going to increase prices by more than that. I went ballistic. I think you probably remember that, Jeremy. Indeed. And I went ballistic with Ofcom because I thought its rules weren't strong enough. I wrote to the Chancellor and I went loud and large on every one of my outlets saying that people who are with O2, you have to do within 30 days of notification of this, you can leave penalty free, which is what you did, didn't you? You took advantage of being able to leave penalty free.

6:09You didn't have to wait to the end of your contract and you got out of there. Absolutely right. Yeah, sometime in November and it worked out over a couple of weeks. No problem at all. Now, what's interesting is some O2 customers might be listening to this who've missed that. And my frustration with the regulations is you will notice the price hike next April, but you could only leave within 30 days of notification. I think the rules should also allow you to leave within 30 days of the price hike as well, in case you missed it, because actually many people don't listen and get their letters. I think it's only because I was really gobbling off about this pretty much everywhere that some people have heard it.

6:38But it also shows you, I mean, that was the saving that you would have made, just how important it is for people. If you're on a mobile bill, once you're at the end of your contract, don't automatically assume that you should just be renewing. And remember, too, that there are only four networks in the UK. All the other networks are piggybacking off their signal. So you can find always three or four different providers that are offering you roughly the same signal that you currently have. So if the reason that you don't switch and the reason you're not a Jeremy, which is a good thing, being a Jeremy, that's good, then is because you want to keep your signal, then actually many comparison sites will show you which providers keep the same signals as I've currently got, even though you might move to a different network, it would be the same main underlying signal, piggybacked, and the new network would be piggybacking off the top of it.

7:31Jeremy, thank you so much for inspiring everyone. Lovely to speak to you. Thanks for your help, Martin. Thanks very much indeed. Cheers, buddy. Jeremy, you're not originally from Leicester, are you? No, Sheffield. Sheffield originally. Sheffield originally, OK. A northern twang. That's what I thought. All right, lovely to speak to you, mate. You too. Thanks very much. Thank you, Jeremy, for that call. And I just need... For older listeners here, I'm feeling... I'm feeling a little bit... I just need to tell you this. Matt has sent me a note during that to say that he doesn't know who Burt Reynolds is.

8:09anyway moving on from that matt uh what we're doing next have you got a it's not it's a read i presume it's a read it's a success i keep thinking question it's not question it's a success so this one's from mike he says hi martin just wanted to say thanks i listen regularly to your podcast and my ears pricked up uh some months ago when you talked about potential discounts for mental incapacity on council tax bills my elderly father has vascular dementia and thanks to your programme have been able to obtain a 100 % discount on his council tax bill, some£2 ,000 plus a year, albeit he already received a 25 % single occupancy discount.

8:44Additionally, the council have refunded some nearly five years of charges resulting in a refund to his bank account of£5 ,989.30. Amazing, things are tight with carer costs and increasing tax bills, so this is a lifesaver. Thanks again. Oh, Mike, thank you so much for getting in touch. That's quite moving, actually. I have long been campaigning about the horribly named severe mental impairment discount for council tax bills. What it effectively means is someone who has a severe loss of social functioning. Now it is common with Alzheimer's, dementia, people who've had severe strokes, some people with severe Parkinson's and who are eligible for certain benefits, many of the standard sort of disability benefits out there, can get the SMI, as I'm going to call it because I don't like the name, the SMI discount on council tax.

9:44And it is hideously under-publicised. And I do hear of some council officers who their frontline staff don't even know in full detail how it works. I've campaigned on it for a long time. Wales has actually improved its system hugely. And we need England and Scotland to follow on the same. So what happens, just so everybody listening understands in case this is ringing a bell for you in the same way that it did for Mike, what happens is if you get the SMI discount, then you are effectively disregarded for council tax purposes. What do I mean by that? So you will know that if there are two or more people living in a household, you pay full council tax.

10:23But if there are only two people and one of them has an SMI, then it counts like there's only one person living in the household. And therefore, you would get the equivalent of the 25 % off single person's discount. So if you're living with your partner and your partner unfortunately qualifies for an SMI, then you should only be paying, as long as there are no other adults in the house, you should only be paying 75 % of the council tax. If somebody lives alone and qualifies for an SMI, then they are disregarded for council tax purposes. And just like an all-student household doesn't pay council tax, then an all-SMI household doesn't pay council tax either.

11:02Now, what Mike also mentioned was this backdating of nearly£6 ,000. One of my frustrations here is backdating is council by council, though in Wales they have standardised rules. So whether you would get a backdated payout or not depends on your individual council's particular policy. In the campaign that I've been running and the government is doing a consultation on, and this is something I met Angela Rayner on when she was Deputy Prime Minister and in charge of local government, they are looking at consulting and what we've asked them to do at standardising the application form for SMI because it's different all over the country, standardising the literature for SMI because it's different all over the country and sometimes confusing, and standardising the back payment for SMI.

11:46And that way it should be easier for councils and individuals and people like me to communicate the SMI discount and people should be told about it in an event that they may qualify and more people will get it. Mike, thank you so much both for telling us of your saving and letting me use it as a way to hopefully inspire other people who might know someone who's eligible and helping them get the discount too. And what I would suggest is if this rings a bell, there are some great guides online to the SMI Council Tax Discount, which you should read in detail to see whether, I mean, it will generally be you're doing it for someone because someone with an SMI, this can obviously be quite a complicated process to do, which is another reason it's really outrageous that it's under-publicised, to see whether it is likely they qualify or not.

12:31It isn't that simple. It's relatively easy to do, but it's worth sitting down and doing some reading. Right, we've got another success, Martin. Good. Well, that's what the whole programme's about. Exactly. I'd be quite surprised if you didn't. It's on sad fart. Okay, yay. We love a sad fart. I keep shouting sad fart. Okay, if you shout it, can you do it? Right, okay. Satisfactory. Quality. Quality, as described. That's your sad. Fit. Fit for purpose? Correct. Yeah. I can't remember the art. And? And. Go on. Last a reasonable length of time. satisfactory quality as described fit for purpose and lasts a reasonable length of time not bad i got the start not bad i'm proud and that's the whole point of sad fart is to remember what it is you got quite close that's good we'll we'll get you there i'll test you at some random point in the middle of next year i'll just go bang what's the sad fart matt i'm gonna keep practicing okay good okay should we go into this this success it's from fiona it's quite a long one okay i'm gonna read it to you dear martin i wanted to share with you a success i had using your sad fart.

13:33My 19 year old daughter bought a new iPhone after just two weeks, a hairline crack appeared on the screen. She hadn't dropped it. So she booked it into the Apple store for a genius appointment. And I went with her. When we first arrived, the genius guy looked at the phone and examined it. He said he couldn't see any of the signs of damage and therefore thought it would be repaired under the warranty. He took the phone and then quickly returned. He'd been made aware that there were problems with the screen and they weren't covered under the warranty. At this point, I channeled my in a Martin. Hurrah!

14:00I uttered the classic words, warranty schmorrenty. Warranty schmorrenty! I explained that I considered that under the Sales of Goods Act, it needed to be either repaired or replaced. He looked at me blankly, so I asked to see the manager. Quite right. Much to my daughter's embarrassment. No, not embarrassing. You've got a campaigner of a mum. I'm sure she did it politely. I'm sure she did it firmly, but with plight and with charm. Well done. Carry on, sorry. The manager wanted me to explain why I considered I was covered under the Sales of Goods Act and tried to convince me I was not covered under warranty.

14:33I suggested that it wasn't fit for purpose and hadn't lasted a reasonable length of time. Sad fart! He said he needed to take the phone and look at it under a microscope to check if there were signs of impact or damage that might have caused the crack. Returned a few minutes later, said he'd replaced the screen and I thanked him for resolving the issue. Warranty, schmarranty, the best phrase in the world. I love that Fiona. I absolutely love that. That is brilliant. So just for me to back explain to those of you who might not know, this is what happens and it's very common with mobile phone stores, especially with your Apple and your Samsungs, where the store is also the manufacturer brand.

15:13So when you have rights under our law, the Consumer Rights Act, those sad fart rules, they are with the retailer that you bought the item from. but what happens especially in those stores where the firm is the retailer and the manufacturer is they talk about the warranty and they make it all about the warranty. Now the warranty is a voluntary contractual arrangement given to you by the manufacturer on its terms of how it will look after the product that you've bought and it is valuable extra cover but where I say warranty schmorrenty is because the warranty is secondary to your statutory consumer rights.

15:58Those rights that are embedded in UK consumer law that have been voted through parliament and they are your primary rights. Now they are with the retailer. That's what the whole sad fart thing is all about. So if you have bought an item and it is not of satisfactory quality as described, fit for purpose and didn't last a reasonable length of time, then you go back to the retailer and you ask it to fix it. Now, in this case, that's exactly what happened. You pushed the retailer. You said it was wrong under the Consumer Rights Act, which used to be the Sales of Goods Act. Now, what's really interesting here, and the reason why I do warranty smorrenty to put it in all your heads, is what you'll often find on mobile phones is you get a one or two year warranty.

16:37You take it back two days after that and they go, I'm terribly sorry, sir or madam, but unfortunately, you're out of warranty, so there's nothing we can do. But that isn't right, because that's your contractual right. Now, when it comes, if I bought a thousand pound phone, which is what a big iPhone or a Samsung were to cost, I would argue that as long as I haven't damaged it and I've used it right, if after, you know, 25 months it stops working through no fault of mine, then I don't believe it has lasted a reasonable length of time. And while I'm taking it back after 30 days, so I don't have a right to a refund, I do have a right to either a partial refund, replacement or repair.

17:19And I would push that right. And that's why I tell you warranty-shmarranty, because the fact it's out of warranty does not have any impact on whether you still have your statutory consumer rights or not. Fiona, you listened and it paid off. And that for me is joyous. Thank you so much. At this point in the programme, Matt, it has to be a caller. Yes, there is. We've got Vish. He's in Broadstairs. Hi, Vish. Hi, Martin. Hi, Matt. How are you? Hi, Vish. You've got a success, not a question. How lovely. Yeah, that is great. What have you done? Well, I listened to your podcast, Martin, a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago.

18:00I'm a regular listener as well. Well done. So you told me about Bank Account Switch. and then I did the switch. I was with my regular bank and I did switch to Barclays Premier. Nice. 400 quid? Indeed, yes. It was quite nice. So interesting. How long had you been with your previous bank account before then? Oh, for a long, long time. In my email, I've mentioned I have the same phone number since 2008. So, you know, I'm a very loyal person. But, you know, loyalty doesn't pay, it seems. No, it doesn't. And it pays to switch. And this is, you know, one of the strange models that we have in this country.

18:42Now, there are about three bank accounts who are still willing to pay people at the moment. Many of them disappeared. Santander's got one. Nationwide has got one and First Director's got one. They're all paying at least£175. If you're listening at the moment and Vish has inspired you to do a bank account switch to get rid of that loyalty, the Barclays Premier£400, which is a high earners one. well done Vish that one's gone at the moment but you never know they might bring it back now you say you've been with the same phone company how much are you paying for your mobile phone bill let's just go into this while you're on it's not it's probably about 17 quid and what are you getting for that?

19:20unlimited data and unlimited calls so it's quite a good deal ok it's not too bad you could probably cut that down to 10 pounds but you're not if it's unlimited data and unlimited calls and you lose a lot of data do you? yes I do yes ok then I won't be telling you off. I was just wondering if we'd get a little extra saving in. Fish, thank you so much for getting in touch. Really lovely to hear from you. Thank you, actually. Thank you for encouraging it. Switch is actually a piece of cake. It's just instantaneous and they switch everything. You don't have to be worried about anything. That's right.

19:50When you do a bank switch, they switch over your old. Your old account closes. All money is paid into a new account. Direct debits are switched automatically for you. Standing orders are switched automatically for you. Yeah, correct. It is very, very easy. Well done, mate. Thank you for calling. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Vish. Cheers.

20:08And on the back of that, Martin, we've got another success. It's from Will in Didsbury. We like Didsbury. I was born, I was born, my first house I ever was ever in was in Didsbury. I was born in Withington Hospital and we lived on Red Court Avenue, I believe, in Didsbury for the first year of my life before we moved into the Delamere Forest area of Cheshire. So, hello, Didsbury. Anyway. He's made over£750. I thought it was quite nice, Mimi, giving a bit of my background. There'll be someone out there listening to this who knows someone who lives in Red Court Avenue and will say to them at some point in the next six months, did you know Martin Lewis spent the first year of his life in Didsbury?

20:46So I don't think you should put down my little fact there, Matt. It's lovely. Shall we get on with the success, though? Yes, please. I have made, this is from Will, I've made over£750 over the past three months from bank switching alone. I set up a Mule account with Starling Bank with no offers, then switched to First Direct,£175, then to Lloyd's and got£200, then to Barclays for another£200, then to NatWest for£175, also picked up six free cinema tickets, two-month subscription to Apple TV along the way too. Where there's a will, there's a way, and Will certainly found it marvellous. Listen, so just to explain, the one term in there I think I'll do my post-explainer on is a mule account for people who don't know.

21:30So if you want to actually play the bank switching game, and the one warning about that is don't do it if you're about to make any significant debt applications, because regularly switching current accounts can diminish your credit score. So if you've got a mortgage you need to do, you don't be doing this in the three to six months before that. A mule account is where you actually have a bank account you're quite happy with that you're using for your day-to-day banking, but you want to do regular switching in order to get the free bonuses. So you set up like a spare account, an account that you're not really intending to use that much.

21:58You have a couple of direct debits going out from it because you normally need those to qualify and you pay money into it once you're switching because they have minimum payment requirements. So you pay that money in but then you just take it out the next day and then you use that account just as a mule, if you like, to move from one place to another so that you can switch and get the benefits exactly as Will did perfectly. I mean 750, that's a good haul. It's not the record haul. I know people who've done it for themselves and their partner and in the over two grand type level. But it's absolutely brilliant and inspiring and shows you where Vish started with his£400 for his first try.

22:35Will has taken it up a notch. Love it. And Matt, I'm guessing this is our final one. A final success for you from Geoffrey. Okay. Dear Martin, just wanted to say a huge thank you for opening my eyes to getting my UK pension and the April 2025 deadline. I had only nine years of contributions and was therefore one year short of getting any pension. But after hearing your podcast, I managed to submit 18 years of voluntary contributions, which is the maximum for him. Now he has a regular monthly income and indeed it is a multiplier. As a way to say thanks, I will donate one month's pension to a charity.

23:11Still need to decide which one. Oh, how wonderful. And may I suggest as we're doing that, the theme we're talking about, Citizens Advice, would be a wonderful charity that you could donate to. But of course it is your choice. Well, listen, that was one of my big themes of the year earlier in the year, that you had the ability to buy back pensions going back to 2006. And this is voluntary years of your pension. Now, what's fascinating in your accounts, Geoffrey, is you're quite right. You had only nine years of contributions and you need a minimum 10 years of contributions to get any pension. So even if you had just bought one year, that would have had a massive impact.

23:46That would have been incredibly lucrative. But you bought 18 years, probably cost you, I don't know, depending on whether you were self-employed or not, probably cost you somewhere in the region of£10 ,000 to£15 ,000, so it's quite a lot of money. But on the back of that, just so everybody understands the context here, on the back of that, you would have got, what, 18 years, I would estimate, about£120 a week of state pension, which is, what, about£6 ,000 a year of state pension. Let's say you live 20 years in your pension age, which would be a typical life expectancy,£120 ,000. And that is inflation proofed because of the triple lock that it will go up each year.

24:27So£120 ,000 in today's money, but it will stay that in real terms in the future. I mean, that's a huge success to finish with. Thank you for doing that one last, Matt. Now, just to say to people who might be thinking about this, the whole issue about April 2025 is that was the deadline for going back to 2006. The rules now are that you can only go back six years. And it was a special, it was about the transition from the old state pension to the new state pension. I'm not going to bore you with that. But if you are missing years in the last six years, it is worth checking and doing the maths. And there are some guides online that will help you deciding whether it is worth you buying those extra years to make sure that you're getting the full state pension.

25:08If you are missing years, it can be very lucrative, but it isn't right for everyone and it's a bit of a process. But wow, what a success to finish with. If we have Jeff's, well, we say£120 ,000 minus Wilson UB6, let's call him£100 ,000 and we've got about£109 ,000 of successes in here. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas. So that is it. And this is our last podcast of 2025. although podcast producer Matt is going to be putting out some special best of podcasts, but it's the last one I'm actually recording for you. So I would like to wish everybody who is celebrating a very Merry Christmas and all of you a Happy New Year.