Tag: Which?

Missed payments at alarmingly high levels  months into 2023, Which? finds

Stuart Mitchell

Millions of households are struggling to get their finances back on track after the post-festive crunch as the number of missed payments on mortgages, utility bills and other essential spending remains stubbornly high, according to Which?’s Consumer Insight Tracker. January is usually the month where the highest number of households tend to miss or default on housing, bill, loan or credit card payments, as people face a reckoning over the cost of Christmas. Usually, this figure is lower in February and March as people get their finances under control –…

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Price hikes on basic groceries up to 30%, Which? finds, as trust in supermarket sector takes a battering

Stuart Mitchell

The price of basic groceries such as butter, milk and cheese soared by up to 30% year on year in December, according to Which?’s inflation tracker, as new research from the consumer champion shows trust in the sector plummeting during the cost of living crisis. Which?’s supermarket food and drink inflation tracker records the annual inflation of tens of thousands of food and drink products across three months at eight major supermarkets – Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Morrisons, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose – to see how inflation is impacting everyday…

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Retailers and returns services potentially breaking law on returns for disabled consumers, Which? finds

Stuart Mitchell

Some retailers and returns services are potentially breaking the law over returns for disabled consumers, a Which? investigation has found. Which?’s joint survey with the Research Institute for Disabled Consumers (RIDC) found one in two (49%) disabled consumers who needed to return an item in the last year experienced issues. One in seven (14%) said they could not return the item via the retailer’s suggested returns method, while one in five (22%) felt the retailer did not make reasonable adjustments to facilitate their return. One in two (50%) of those…

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Facebook, Google and Trustpilot fail to filter out fake reviews, Which? finds

Stuart Mitchell

Facebook, Google and Trustpilot can be easily infiltrated with fake reviews as unscrupulous brokers selling them for as little as £4 successfully exploit weaknesses in their systems, a Which? investigation suggests.   The consumer champion’s latest investigation involved setting up a fake business and approaching brokers to boost its pages on the three platforms using bogus five-star reviews – which revealed a sprawling network of fake reviewers on Facebook.  After easily finding a series of ‘fake review brokers’ through Google, Which? signed up to one called Xealme, which can create reviews…

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Which? reveals huge jump in energy-related scams as fraudsters seek to exploit cost of living crisis

Stuart Mitchell

As the cost of living crisis continues to put millions of households under increasing financial pressure, scammers are exploiting fear and confusion around soaring energy bills to ramp up their use of energy-related scams. In the first quarter of this year, figures from Action Fraud obtained by Which? show scams mentioning one of the big six energy firms had risen 10 per cent when compared to the same period last year. January alone saw a 27 per cent year on year increase. Which? believes the true figure is likely to…

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