The Money Advice Service will offer guidance over the telephone, through a website or during face-to-face appointments.
This replaces one of my favorite sites – moneymadeclear.org.uk and should be a must for all potential borrowers. Here there are no sponsors and it is a government website which provides comparison tables.
The difference between other comparison websites is that the government do not spend the money on advertising the site to all and there are no sponsored or paid for link allowing the person in the street true impartial advice. I can not recommend it highly enough !( apart from my own website of course ! yeah yeah )
On my way into work this morning, I was listening to the news on the radio 4. (my days of listening to radio one have long gone) The programme focused on Portugal needed further funds as it was in debt, it went on to talk about Ireland and how it had also been in financial crisis.
Dealing with debt daily and credit agreements, it was not surprising that if as a country finances are poorly managed, how does the government expect the person in the street to manage?
At whatever level, banks are a sales institution and something that only now people are recognising. “We are here to help” and “we are here for the journey” is simply a fudge for …. how can we encourage you to borrow money from us and therefore put you further into debt. I did a rough calculation over the past few days watching bank adverts, the vast majority are about lending money, not saving more or any other services.
The problem at any level lending money is what is the cost of the lending and does the person borrowing understand this. My experience is that most people do not understand credit agreements and are simply desperate to borrow money and will unfortunately agree to most things. Only when presented with options, can the person in the street make an informed choice.
How independent are the comparison websites? in truth I do not know they certainly admit to sponsored links and many of their famous owners are making millions from their sites. “The site is a substantial part of my income; and I make a very good living” says one consumer champion. I am sure there are many others out there. Remember the rule of thumb – nobody does anything for nothing, there has to be a pay off somewhere, and in the case of comparison websites it is paid for links.
Finally it is worth a point to remember that an interest rate is different from an APR – an APR is in simplistic terms a the cost of the lending when all charges levied by the lender have been taken into account. However, some charges may only be conditional and as such will not be included in the APR but may well make your borrowing in your circumstances much more expensive.
