Boosting your benefits and new online shopping checks

Boosting your benefits and new online shopping checks

By BBC Radio 4

Buying things online will be more difficult from Monday. A new law means that every purchase will have to be authenticated by an extra process after you have put in your card number, expiry date, and CVV code on the back. It will mean better protection against fraud, but may exclude some people from online shopping. We hear from Rob Cameron, Chief Executive of Barclaycard Payments, and Helen Saxon, Deputy Editor at Money Saving Expert.

Two not-for-profit lenders have come up with a way to help low income families get the state help they are entitled to. Millions of people miss out of billions of pounds in means-tested benefits every year. Now these lenders have built in a benefits calculator to their loan approval process to help customers claim money they didn’t know they were eligible for. We hear from Theodora Hadjimichael, Chief Executive of Responsible Finance.

Thousands of people try to avoid paying care home fees by putting their house into a trust. They're told it's a way to avoid the local authority counting its value so they get their care free. We hear about one listener's unexpected £900 bill, and about the many pitfalls involved, from Annie Shaw, Saga Magazine’s financial agony aunt.

Why are petrol and diesel prices so high at the pump? Money Box reporter Dan Whitworth investigates.

And a Money Box podcast exclusive - Disability Rights UK has lost almost £43,000 after NatWest mistakenly cleaned out its account without notice and transferred the money to the Crown. We hear from the charity's CEO Kamran Mallick - and whether Money Box is able to get the money back.

Presenter: Paul Lewis Producer: Paul Waters Reporter: Dan Whitworth Producer: Louise Clarke-Rowbotham

(Photo Credit: Sturti/Getty images)

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