Two events in today’s news were, in some ways, so very different from each other and in others ways appallingly similar and showed off how badly people are treated when it comes to money matters.
In the first event, police arrested over 100 people involved in so called boiler room scams. Their many thousands of victims were tricked into buying worthless shares by slick, slithery con artists with super smooth phone techniques. People have lost millions of pounds to this appalling crime.
In a totally unrelated news story, the UK energy regulator, Ofgem, told the big six energy companies to return over £400 million owed to customers who had the audacity to switch to another provider while their existing account was in credit.
Over half the money these energy companies have kept their claws on belongs to 3.5 million domestic customers. Energy companies say returning credit balances can be difficult. Yeah. Right. And they’re just as slow when it comes to getting domestic customers, who owe them money, to pay up?
When Money Fight Club looks at these two stories side by side we find it hard to choose between them. We’d sling ’em all behind bars.
