In another clever move, Martin Lewis from MoneySavingExpert is donating 50pence to everyone who signs up to his newsletter.
As noble as it is to give money to charity, the whole thing feels a little tacky. Some people have said that it’s blatant profiteering and of course he makes money from his subscribers. It also reminds me of those terrible round robin emails that you get from your mother saying that if you pass this email on to all your contacts, you will receive gifts beyond your wildest dreams. That’s just spam.
What’s more interesting about this story is that Martin’s margin on Subscribers to the Newsletter is huge. This will generate enormous PR for him but it also means that he can afford to offer 50p of his margin to charity. (MSE probably also gets some tax benefit for donating to charity).
Here’s a quick breakdown of how it’s spreading on Twitter (mainly via the US):
Capital One
Credit Made Clearer
lovemoney
Relationship with Your Money
CashQuestions
Personal Finance Problem Solver
Life Cover
Insurance Made Easy
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
All in all – just very tastless.
£0.50 is what one would expect to pay for a unique email subscription via digital marketing means. However noble the intentions might be, it just seems incredibly crass latching onto this. With 3m plus email subscribers, one would assume they are already in a fairly healthy position to make a substantial donation, should they so wish, not that I would encourage any publicity to surround such a thing even if they did. Not very British.
Any reason why you keep picking on Martin Lewis?
@Bulletproof – if he keeps taking people’s money and painting himself as the saint, we’ll keep opening peoples’ eyes to the truth.
Crass indeed, keep it coming Ernest.
Ernest, he may be making money but his advice on bank charges, savings accounts etc are very useful.
As crass as it is, he is giving money to a worthy cause. What have you done? Criticise him.
If you want to open someone’s eyes to problems, aim for MPs expenses, anything fox news publishes, the rise of the bnp. These need more attention.
@Bulletproof, you seem to have a short memory or are a little naive.
“Ernest, he may be making money but his advice on bank charges, savings accounts etc are very useful.”
Was it useful advice to tell people to put their savings into a certain Icelandic bank?
Ernie,
I do remember that, I also remember an explanation of the difference between kaupthing-edge and icesave compensation schemes if things go wrong.
Speaking of short memory, I notice that you didn’t address any of the other points. It is easy to snipe from the sidelines but what have you done for Haiti? Also are you the author of this blog post?
@Bulletproof to address each and every single one of your points so as not to upset you by pertaining that perhaps I have purposefully ignored any of them:
“Ernest, he may be making money but his advice on bank charges, savings accounts etc are very useful.”
As mentioned above, his information is not always the most accurate. I say information because obviously Martin Lewis is not regulated by the FSA so I cannot strictly say that he’s giving advice …oh, but he is!! The offers he puts forward earn him millions of pounds a year. Well done to him for achieving that, but he no Robin Hood, that’s for sure.
“As crass as it is, he is giving money to a worthy cause. What have you done? Criticise him.”
Yes, I have been critical of Martin Lewis, because he is making money out of a terrible event where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering. He stands to gain substantially out of this.
“If you want to open someone’s eyes to problems, aim for MPs expenses, anything fox news publishes, the rise of the bnp. These need more attention.”
You are correct – each of those stories are equally about people being conned and taken advantage of, just as much as Martin. But this blog is to do with insurance, personal finance and areas related to that. This is not a blog that is concerned with expressing views on political issues.
“I do remember that, I also remember an explanation of the difference between kaupthing-edge and icesave compensation schemes if things go wrong.”
Martin sat in front of millions of people on TV and said what a great idea it is to put your money into icesave. He broadcast it to million of email subscribers. No mention of compensation schemes was made during prime time slots on GMTV et al. Icesave subsequently went down. I’m sure he has covered his back (just!) and I’ve seen him squirm on TV when a journalist has challenged him on the whole scenario. He was extremely uncomfortable. It all comes back to him giving advice to millions of people, those people trusting him and then working out that his financial “advice” is not regulated and doesn’t stand up. Your come back is likely to be along the line of “people should make up their own minds and do their own research” – that’s true but it’s off the point. People will trust Martin because of his position and exposure, he has a responsibility as a result of that.
“Speaking of short memory, I notice that you didn’t address any of the other points.”
See above.
“It is easy to snipe from the sidelines but what have you done for Haiti?”
I’m certainly not going to be drawn into bragging about what I have or haven’t done to support the Haiti aid efforts or any other charities. Having said that, this misses the point that Martin Lewis is using the woes of hundreds of thousands of people and the care/guilt felt by hundreds of thousands in the UK to build up his own mailing list and profit from it in the future to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds. As @Tron points out in the first comment: “£0.50 is what one would expect to pay for a unique email subscription via digital marketing means.” If MSE are all about the greater good and are not profiting from this, why wouldn’t a company as hugely successful themselves make a substantial lump sum donation – why hinge it on email sign ups?
“Also are you the author of this blog post?”
I believe it clearly states at the top that ‘George’ is the author of this post.
Earnie, temper temper. What happened between you and martin lewis? did you go through a bad breakup?
IT may have said George wrote this, but that doesn’t really mean anything, plus your passion for this shows you have an axe to grind.
I take your point about FSA and regulation (as work for an FSA regulated company) however I don’t think the advice and literature they produce is easy to understand for your average Joe sixpack and he provides information in an easy to understand format.
Martin lewis isn’t the problem, he is the sympton of a financial system which needs to be simplified, certainly after the mess that has happened.
I also note that you own this blog with George, so you probably share the same opinion.
“I’m certainly not going to be drawn into bragging about what I have or haven’t done to support the Haiti aid efforts or any other charities.”
He is contributing to charity and he doesn’t have to. Put your money where you mouth is and state what you have done or keep quiet. I challenge you to state what you did, if you are not willing to do this in your next post don’t bother to reply.
@Bulletproof – some common sense at last up …somewhere in the middle of your post.
An axe to grind about Martin Lewis? Only uncovering the truth. We do the same thing with spammers, people making false claims in their advertising, corporate nonsense such as the Comparison Consortium and anyone else who’s painting themselves to be Robin Hood when they’re actually Jack the Ripper.
On the charity thing, seriously, what do you want me to say …I donated £4m to charity out of my own pocket last year or that I haven’t donated a penny since the day I was born? Boasting about charity support is one of the most vile things someone can do. It’s almost always driven by an unhealthy ego and it’s almost always received in the right way – in very very poor taste.
“if you are not willing to do this in your next post don’t bother to reply” – seriously, what are you like?! ;o)
Long time reader first time commenter and all that jazz.
However, We have used a certain word Mr Lewis will not use and thats “Advice” Martin Lewis states he does not give advice just mear research! But many hang on his every word and if he said jump off a cliff as you get a free coupon at the bottom or a code for another 0% card people will do it!
People advice each other on the forums, Lewis allows it I have seen many of posts stating “Oh I think you should declare bankrupt” Lewis is playing a very dangerous game. I always thought introducers had to be authorised and regulated by the FSA (I might be wrong here) but it seems Lewis is not.
As for the reclaim bank charges, Are they not just a copy and paste job from the Consumer Action Forums?
The day Lewis disappears and stops trying to tell me how to spend my money and click his affliate links the better!
There’s another word he does not use which is advertising. His site has no advertising. Try to print off information from his website and you get a pop up that says:
‘Please remember the reason this site can have an ad-free, free to use, ethical financial stance is because it’s funded by you using the ‘links that help’, so if you’re going to act, please return to the site to do so.’
Try printing his latest tip. You’ll get the message
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip/
Links that help means nothing. So companies are ‘helping’ the site? What does that mean, is the business some sort of charity that companies help.
I don’t understand how he makes money. He says his information is free but why do you have to return to his website to use it? I read he wants to take £1 billion for himself from his business without compromsiing his ethical stance. Bankers were making smaller amounts than a billion pounds for themselves selling us things we did not understand and that did not turn out well.
His advice has cost me money and when I complained to his website I got no response. He advises people to open a bank account with Alliance & Leicester and you get a 0% overdraft for twelve months. He did it on GMTV again last week. On the screen it said 0% overdraft.
I followed his advice but I did not get the overdraft because there are conditions which he does not tell you like about. You have to submit a bank statement that shows you were in credit on at least 15 days in the month and that you have not gone over your overdraft limit to qualify.
I have had £50.00 in charges from my new bank account already. All my direct debits were switched to my new account which I thought I would have a 0% overdraft on but I don’t so I am missing direct debits payment I would have been ok if they were still with my original bank acount that does have an overdraft. I now have two bank accounts for the first time in my life and that has made it more complicated to manage what money I have. I have two banks that can charge me.
If you follow his advice you should know that there is no-one to complain to. I think he does best when people take out multiple accounts that are too complciated for them to manage and they end up with more charges. It’s a scandal he gets away with it.
@daryl wilson
Very good point Daryl, he’s very very cagey about that sort of thing.
Am I the only one that if I was to use his “Advice” I would click the links that don’t help his site?
do you seriously expect him to do it for free? I take it that none of you get paid for your work then. He employs 25 people, how do you suggest their wages are paid?
You don’t seem to be able to take responsibility for your own actions. Who signs up for a bank account without checking that the facilities offered are the ones that you want? Did you not check that you qualified for the 0% overdraft? Clearly you don’t read the small print.
If you have money to invest anywhere you should always check what the protection is. If you are not happy with them, put your money elsewhere. Read the small print. All Martin did was point out the very attractive rates of interest on the accounts, which was quite true. Even those of us who take an interest in the subject didn’t know the extent of dubious investment that brought the house of cards down. My gripe is with the Government allowing such investment to underpin the Banks. They need to bring the banks and building societies into line. It is not like they weren’t forewarned – anybody remember Barings?
“Boasting about charity support is one of the most vile things someone can do” – really!! You really need to read a newspaper and get a grip.
“I don’t understand how he makes money. He says his information is free but why do you have to return to his website to use it? I read he wants to take £1 billion for himself from his business without compromsiing his ethical stance. Bankers were making smaller amounts than a billion pounds for themselves selling us things we did not understand and that did not turn out well.” How he makes money is explained quite clearly on the website. You could also get a copy of the accounts lodged at Companies House. You have misquoted him he actually wrote – “The site is a substantial part of my income; and I make a very good living. When I first set it up, little did I realise quite the mammoth beast it’d become. In the early days I funded it out of my income as a journalist. Now, while I’m most proud of some of the campaigns we’ve run and money we’ve saved people, what in hindsight I realise was entrepreneurship has paid off, especially as I’ve managed to grow the site without ever needing to raise funds from elsewhere.”
“Of course, the financial strength is also important in enabling the site to thrive and continue to help so many people without ever charging them. So I hope the site continues to make very decent money, like any business (see my social entrepreneur blog). In fact I’d be delighted if it made me a billionaire, providing it never compromises my ethics and recommendations.”
I have no connection with him or the website. I have been using the information on his website since it started and have literally saved thousands of pounds. I research the information that is offered and act on my findings – best of all it hasn’t cost me a penny. I have recommended it to many and I know of two other families who have saved thousands of pounds too. My Daughter got a refund of bank charges over a year ago. It was Martin who first looked into bank charges being unfair after someone suggested it to him. I think you will find that other sites copied the MSE information, not the other way around.
As to donating 50p per email to Haiti, what is crass about that? It gives people the opportunity to contribute without actually having to pay out themselves. To some people, even a modest donation can’t be budgeted for. The fact that they will then receive the email which may help them is a bonus. If they no longer wish to receive it, it is very easy to unsubscribe.
You seem to be either jealous, snobs or unable to take responsibility for your own financial affairs. At best you are making unwarranted criticisms, at worst some of the postings verge on the libellous.
Elvira, as Harry Hill would say (blog) fight (pleased his advice has saved you and your daughter money, my experience is different, hence I have an axe to grind and we have starkly opposing views on Martin)
On to the fight..
“You don’t seem to be able to take responsibility for your own actions. Who signs up for a bank account without checking that the facilities offered are the ones that you want? Did you not check that you qualified for the 0% overdraft? Clearly you don’t read the small print.”
If I am responsible then what are banks paying Martin for? If I have to check the terms before taking out an account, why do I need to go back to Martin’ site to take out the account, what am I clicking the links that help for?
Martin’s advice has cost me money and I have no means to complain so my view of him is negative. Just because you don’t agree does not mean I don’t have a right of free speech. It is pompous threatening people who express a view that is different to yours with libel in the hope you will shut them up.
People think that Martin is on TV and in the newspapers to tell them about the small print. Elvira, point me to where he has told the public what they would expect a consumer champion and money expert to tell them about the terms on A&L’s 0% overdraft?
I have the standard rejection letter from A&L that it sends out when you apply for the overdraft facility, so I know all the conditions now.
You apply for the overdraft to match the one you have after you have opened the account. If Martin was telling people what they needed to know, they could run their account for a month before applying for an A&L account so they had a bank statement that met A&L’s conditions.
I would not advise this account for people on low incomes, as Martin does. My advice is based on my experience and I have not been paid to share it. Martin has been paid by the bank as far as I can work out from the misleading reference to links that help. For people on low incomes consider a basic bank account, the sort of bank account that never gets promoted by Martin, a bank account which is not paying anyone to take it out because it is not a profitable account for banks.
This is what he should have told the public if he wants to be a consumer champion and a business:
1. All the terms of the overdraft, there are many
2. Why A&L is paying £100 to attract new customers
3. Why is it paying £50.00 cashback. What does it know about the profit/loss it is making from the 1 million customers it has on this account that has made it increase the incentives it is offering to sign up more accounts?
4. What the account costs customers on average in real life. Is it costing people a lot in charges because they have no overdraft facility, is this why the bank pays £100 plus £50.00 cashback, because they can see from all the information they have that it is worth paying £150 to attract people on low incomes because in practice the account is earning them £150 back in charges within months and then they are in profit. If a lot of people taking out this account are low paid, and that’s how Martin sells this account, then the bank is paying very little interest on deposits, is providing few customers with any overdraft at all and is making a lot from charges. The bank tells us why we should take out this account. The only thing Martin needs to tell us is the things we do not know like the percentage who have a 0% overdraft and what the average charges are on running this account.
4. The bank is owned by Santander, a Spanish bank. Spain is on the same list as Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
“How he makes money is explained quite clearly on the website. You could also get a copy of the accounts lodged at Companies House.”
Not true.
“I’d be delighted if it made me a billionaire, providing it never compromises my ethics and recommendations.”
Who wants to have £1 billion for themselves? I don’t understand that way of thinking. It is just alien to me when I know how many poor people there are in this country, the idea that one person thinks they should have £1 billion. Why does anyone need £1 billion?
It is individuals on Wall Street, the people who ran Iceland’s banks, anyone who desires to have £1 billion, that have brought capitalism to its knees, made Western democracies less governable through their gross inequalities and led to a shift in the balance of world power in favour of dictatorships and non-democratic countries.
Just to confirm, Lewis chose to convert to an unlimited company ‘Moneysavingexpert.com’, which meant it would no longer have to publish any financial information
I see the Lewis faithful has turned up. This man costs people money, He has bred a “Its my human right to have a credit card” and a “I demand my cashback nownownow” bunch If you read his forums, The new breed of lewis faithful has ruined alot of loopholes people enjoyed, such as coupons at tesco and others.
He is well and truly a prat..
Quick question to George, You won’t be calling me an ilk will you?
Never have I heard such an awful load of whining. If you don’t like Martin Lewis’s website, don’t use it – nobody is pointing a gun to your head and forcing you to click on his affiliate links (which, I might add, are all CLEARLY MARKED on his website)!
More to the point, this nonsense about his ‘bad advice’ on the Icelandic banks has gone on long enough. While I don’t think his website is perfect and quite frankly he gets on my nerves, people who claim he talked up the likes of Icesave or didn’t give people the warnings they needed about Icelandic economy stability are simply W-R-O-N-G.
There were warnings on MoneySavingExpert.com for many months about Iceland, and MSE was also the first website to produce a comprehensive guide to savings safety. For a long while, the only other place to get information on the Financial Services Compensation Scheme was from the government – and lord knows they hardly put the facts in laymans’ terms.
The reality is that most Martin Lewis moaners are suffering from an acute, almost pathological, case of sour grapes. If you put as much effort into actually DOING something instead of sniping at a complete stranger, maybe some of you old winge-bags would also have a few million quid in the bank.
To those defending Lewis: you’ve missed the point I think.
I’ve no axe to grind against his site and general approach, good luck to him – he’s not perfect, but he’s generally got it spot on.
However, this is crass. Why? Because he’s acting as if he’s donating to charity when in fact these sign ups are costing him no more than normal – he’s using the Haiti crisis to succeed commercially, and that’s crass in my opinion. If he wanted to donate to charity he’d donate the full value of the subscriptions £5+? (I have no idea but it’s way more than 50p).
Profiteering from disaster feels crass to me.
Many businesses could have followed his model here but surely most would have found it morally repugnant.
Martin Lewis himself said on Channel 4 News when interviewed that he was unable to tell people to avoid Icelandic savings accounts because that would have risked causing their collapse.
He had to keep recommending them because his formula was based on two things only – interest rate and compensation. He did not take into account a government’s ability to fund its share of compensation so to introduce this purely for Iceland would have been unfair and by alerting savers might have brought on the collapse that eventually happened.
He has since introduced warnings, when he recommends Irish financial services he includes a warning about the government’s ability to fund its share of compensation so he has recognised the weakness of having very narrow criteria for his tips.
Would you prefer Robert Peston who a lot of people resent for broadcasting about Northern Rock. Peston says that journalism reports what it knows and it is not his job to edit out criteria.
Both journalists but very different approach to j0urnalism. Peston has certainly come in for more criticsm and fierce examination by the Treasury Select Committee whereas the committe and the leaders of all main political parties views Lewis as something of a hero.
I’m not sure what’s worse: trying to sell credit cards on the back of unimaginable human suffering or claiming that the country’s biggest affiliate website is free of advertising as a way of luring the financially challenged into a lifetime of credit card debt and misery.
There is something peculiarly ironic that the Martin Lewis fans who were lured into impossible credit card debts by his media talk of how you could transfer your debts between plastic forever so long as you took the debt out via his website, are now having to visit his website again for voucher codes to buy food to ward off bankruptcy.
On the plus side I have noticed his newsletter is no longer described as ad free, but merely spam free, more classic Lewis meaninglessness, and that the free ad free notice at the top of the website is getting smaller. Maybe he finally realises that a site with more advertising than an earthquake appeal probably shouldn’t claim to be ad free.
Two days left to listen to an absolutely scandolous broadcast on BBC last week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qsw7q
The programme is about credit cards. First Lewis said they can ruin your life, destroy your marriage, all true. Then he went on to do his best to sell cards to BBC listeners by way of his website making big claims that when Vine asked him to be specific about were at best £30 of shopping vouchers.
So we live in a society where we all pay for public service broadcasts that say we should risk everything for a £30 shopping voucher?
He also overstated benefits over debit cards by omitting any mention of Visa Chargeback, which you would do if you were on the BBC to sell credit cards
He went on to be hopelessly biased about Tesco Rewards. His website is an affiliate marketing partner for Tesco Direct. Tesco has lost market share because it is too expensive to shop there for groceries. It has ploughed millions into marketing instead of what most consumers want in the credit crunch which is cheaper prices. Lewis used an example of beef in gravy from 2005 to justify what he told listeners to the BBC in 2010.
Vine in my opinion is far too matey with Lewis. He pretended not to understand Lewis’ dodgy voucher maths, despite being the BBC’s statistician on election nights!
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=29923477&postcount=15
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2266309
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=2264665
Looks like Lewis is data mining
he’s now making extra money by using skimlinks on the forums (auto turning links members have posted into affiliate links for mse – & no longer marked with an *) http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2640163
then there’s the mostly blind eye to attacks on forum members who are disabled &/or claiming benefits…