Consumer Concerns
Welcome to Consumer Concerns, the consumer action website dedicated to exposing scams, buffoonery, bureaucracy and downright bad behaviour in the Internet age. With the realisation that organisations like Trading Standards are useless, and that the Office of Fair Trading may be in cahoots with the big banks against us, this site is determined to bring power back to the consumer by strong popular means.
There are also lots of useful resources on this site which you may well find useful on a daily basis. A lot of these are free. So is this site, so use it as often as you like.
Fair Affiliate Section
Increasingly people are making a second living or even giving up their regular jobs completely by turning to affiliate marketing. Let us draw upon our 6 years experience of affiliate marketing to show you the best affiliate programs to promote.
If you ask "What is affiliate marketing?", or you are interested in learning more about making a decent living online, go to our associate site Home Business Angels which is packed with sound advice and ideas. You can even enrol on our 40-part course, which is free (surprise, surprise!) to join.
One affiliate program that a lot of experienced affiliate marketers are keen about at the moment is the HomeTownQuotes insurance affiliate program. It's a CPA program based on people simply filling out a form. In other words, a sale does not have to be made for you to earn money. CPA programs based on leads, rather than sales, are becoming increasingly popular as merchants channel their metrics to capture more prospects into their marketing funnels.
Fairness to the Consumer Means Fairness For Everyone
There is, inevitably, a subjective bias to this site. I cannot verify that something needs challenging unless I experience it myself, or I have it verified by a close personal friend or trusted associate. If someone else approaches me and says that a third party has been acting in an unreasonable manner I am not able to post those sentiments because I will then be assumed to have agreed that this behaviour is unreasonable without having experienced it myself or have it related to me by another trusted party.
Whether it is unsolicted sales calls from overseas that phone you hundreds of times a month even though you told them to stop doing it last year, whether it is British Telecom or OfCom (who say they are powerless to do anything about this and yet clearly don't give much of a damn otherwise they would simply extend the "Choose To Refuse" option to cover analogue calls in the case of BT and legislate in the case of OfCom).
Whether it is Trading Standards Offices up and down the country who are toothless, useless and a waste of taxpayers' money (why do we continue to fund them if they don't do their jobs?)
Whether it is rogue debt collectors who terrorize honest people into paying more than they can afford so that the very roofs over their head become at risk, and still persist, trying to meet their sales targets even though they are acting against the law.
Whether it is lawyer crooks who seek to create chaos by taking advantage of loopholes in the courts system in the U.K.
Whether it's dodgy ISPs who say they are very affordable and yet charge extra for services which most ISPs would give too you free within their standard package. Or other dodgy ISPs who disable the very mechanism which tells their customers when their bandwidth is being exceeded, thus allowing it to be exceeded so that they can present their customers with a large bill at the start of the following month.
Whether it's banks who charge you £35 for sending you an automated letter the second your account goes one penny into the red and claim it is their "costs", or whether it's the Office of "Fair" Trading who decided to take on the banks at the very time that so many claims were near the point of being rectified, thus raising the question of who whose side they were on.
Whether it's a "publisher" of a series of "freesheets" that consists of team of salesmen who will persuade you to part with hundreds or even thousands of pounds for getting your message across to "high powered business decision-makers" (when, in fact, they print a few hundred copies of their freesheet which is then dumped in bales in pub receptions and never opened) - although I have to say that these people have considerably cleaned up their act since they took me to court and lost.
Whether it's any of these pond life (and you know who you are because we've crossed paths before) or any other scamsters I've yet to discover, watch it. Because people are getting increasingly aware of things in the digital age, and there is nothing stronger than a lobby of a million or so savvy consumers banging on your corporate doors. You can pull the wool over some people's eyes for a short time. But you can't pull the wool over everyone's eyes forever, no matter how hard your PR department tries.
Okay, rant over.
Yes, I'm angry. Justifiably so. Who enjoys being burned? Now let's get on with dealing with these scumbags, shall we?
Resources You Might Find Useful:
Credit Card Balance Transfers is an automated system for ensuring that you have a 0 APR credit card for as long as possible! By transferring your balance to a fresh card before the 0 interest period ends you will effectively have 0 interest credit for as long as there are cards to transfer you balances to. This service automates this so that you don't have to remember dates, and it is completely free to use. Click this Credit Card Balance Transfers link if you are a U.K. resident and the Credit Card Balance Transfers US link if you are a U.S. resident.
The MoneySavingExpert website has been amazing at helping people recover money that the banks have stolen from them over the years. You will probably find their site useful and thought provoking. Led by distinguished journalist Martin Lewis, this site's section specific to the bank charges issue is at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/bank-charges.
Also excellent is the Consumer Action Group forum which deals in an impartial and intelligent manner with a diversity of consumer matters.
The Equalizer is our sister site. It's actually a blog, so the content is renewed more regularly than here. You might like to check it out. It is specifically aimed at problems faced by the consumer (and also small businesses) in the Internet age.
We are registered and regulated under the Data Protection Act. Reg. No. Z1620707
We are licenced by the Office of Fair Trading. Consumer Credit Licence No. 633327
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