Scam-busting, stunts and social media – the consumer champions fighting the cost-of-living crisis | Cost of living crisis

Joe Lycett, comedy avenger

The 33-year-old comic and tv presenter hosts his personal shopper comedy hybrid present for Channel 4 known as Joe Lycett’s Bought Your Again, which gained the 2021 Royal Tv Society Award for finest formatted factual. In 2020, Lycett modified his title by deed ballot to Hugo Boss as a protest towards the corporate of the identical title sending stop and desist letters to small companies. Final yr he took on oil large Shell for greenwashing, highlighting their emissions in a parody advert through which Lycett appeared as CEO Ben Van Beurden “repeatedly shitting out of his mouth”.

What began me off was seeing the way in which my mother and father have been handled by the businesses they labored for. For many of her working life, my mum labored for Cadbury. It began out as an excellent firm that basically taken care of their workers – they constructed an entire village in Bournville, with all kinds of issues for wellbeing. However steadily, as Cadbury was bought off to Kraft (now referred to as Mondelez), all of that began to be eroded. Large corp stripped away what Cadbury made nice, and it’s now not the delight of Birmingham. Frankly, we’re slightly embarrassed by it.

Rising up, I had that sense of: “Properly, that’s simply not ok!” Our native bus firm refused to provide change: in the event you solely had a fiver for a £3 journey, they’d simply preserve the £2. They mentioned it was harmful for the drivers, and slowed the buses down. So I wrote to each different bus firm within the UK, who all provided change, asking: “Why do you give change? It’s harmful to your drivers and it slows the buses down!” Each single one obtained again to me with the explanation why that was incorrect. Finally, I met the Birmingham firm and mentioned: “Right here’s each bus firm within the UK telling you why your coverage is bullshit.” It felt so good, like I used to be the Erin Brockovich of the Midlands. I known as the marketing campaign: Time for Change. I really suppose they nonetheless don’t give change, so whereas strategy, not the outcome I used to be after.

I fear an enormous a part of why I do issues is as a result of it’s addictive to be proper or to point out somebody up. It’s not altruism – although, clearly, I’m delighted to face up for the little man. One of many wins I’m most pleased with was early on Joe Lycett’s Bought Your Again: a girl named Claire had been scammed out of hundreds by somebody pretending to be from her financial institution, and NatWest have been refusing to compensate her. She had been saving as much as do a nursing course, which she now couldn’t do. We approached it in what was described as a really “Joe” method: NatWest had advised her that it couldn’t cease scammers pretending to be them, so I arrange a Twitter account, pretending to be the NatWest CEO Ross McEwan. I began off with the stuff that you just’d count on a financial institution CEO to tweet, retweeting NatWest with banal statements.

Then, steadily, it was an increasing number of complete nonsense, culminating in me tweeting after a few pints: “I’ve obtained a smelly bum bum.” I obtained a really panicked name from the Channel 4 attorneys saying “DELETE THE TWEET”, however it was too late, a journalist had already screengrabbed it. Alas, NatWest couldn’t ignore it. We obtained consideration on the case by making a joke. Typically, if folks begin to look foolish, they will’t preserve ignoring you. I cherished the panic that Ross McEwan may take authorized motion towards me. I might LOVE to be in court docket with Ross McEwan attempting to show that he doesn’t have “a smelly bum bum”.

We attempt to preserve it mild, as it’s predominantly a comedy present, which occurs to get outcomes. I may’ve gone down the panel present route, however I’m so proud that that is the present with my title on it. I like my jokes to have affect, it’s simply the way in which my mind works. If I see somebody doing one thing incorrect, I wish to expose that in a humorous method.

There are such a lot of alternative ways through which persons are being defrauded, and never simply older folks: one in 5 16- to 34-year-olds have been scammed. We’ve seen huge points with pupil letting firms. Among the darkish net stuff is actually scary. There are lengthy lists known as “sucker lists” of private information that folks put collectively and promote. Your passwords, addresses, telephone numbers, on-line procuring historical past are value about 20p on the darkish net. Generally scammers simply monitor your emails till it’s a must to make a fee to somebody, then arrange an e-mail tackle that appears very related. I do know of 1 man who was shopping for a property and misplaced greater than £1m that method. No financial institution will recuperate it, it’s simply gone. That occurs fairly usually.

It doesn’t depress me, it makes me cross – it’s a motivator, if something. I adhere to the Stoic factor: if any individual nicks your pockets, you need to pity them as a result of they’ve misplaced extra morally. It’s tougher with companies, the place the only function is revenue. I did a programme about Shell and greenwashing: even when the top of this firm mentioned, “We’re dangerous, we’re going to vary,” they’d simply be ousted by the shareholders and changed by a brand new puppet. To attempt to repair an enormous, huge factor like that’s like attempting to cease loss of life.

I strive to consider how I may also help in whichever method I can. My favorite factor is when folks message to say, “I used to be about to be scammed, however as a result of I’ve seen your present, I wasn’t.” That’s the perfect evaluate.
Joe Lycett is presently on tour – go to joelycett.com for information

Jack Monroe, kitchen revolutionary

The meals author and activist got here to prominence as “The Bootstrap Cook dinner”, sharing low-cost recipes she devised to feed herself and her younger son. Since then Monroe has given proof to parliamentary inquiries and seek the advice ofed on the Faculty Meals Plan and the Nationwide Meals Technique. In February her tweets highlighting the rising value of price range groceries have been a consider Asda reducing costs. In Could, she launched a libel motion towards Tory MP Lee Anderson for alleging that she earnings from the poor. Monroe is now engaged on a brand new value index, the Vimes Boots Index, to measure the price of primary foodstuffs and inflation because it impacts these on the bottom incomes. She can be writing a ebook on the affect of austerity cuts.

I began running a blog in 2012, about my experiences of being a single mum on advantages. Then it was an natural development to maneuver from telling my story to incorporating others’. To start with, I used to be fairly self‑acutely aware about utilizing my platform – I’m nothing like my extra brash tweets might need you consider – however because the years have gone on I’ve develop into extra comfy with being an advocate.

I write price range recipes to assist folks navigate their method by means of disaster, however I additionally use them as a automobile to poke the federal government and say: “Why do folks want these within the first place? What are you doing to assist?” I used to be suggested by somebody early in my profession to “drop the politics”, as a result of then I’d be extra more likely to get stocked in Waitrose. I used to be like, “ what? Fuck that,” and dropped that individual as an alternative. Ten years later I’m nonetheless right here writing. I’d in all probability be richer if I simply did the dinners with out the tough questions, however that by no means sat proper with me. I can’t simply churn out recipes for 9p burgers with out additionally asking: why on earth does anybody want a 9p burger in one of many richest economies on the earth?

Round 2014, supermarkets began offering food-bank donation factors. For the primary time, 1,000,000 folks acquired a food-bank parcel in a six-month interval. All of these milestone statistics have been front-page information; now, meals banks have quietly develop into woven into the on a regular basis material of our society. The reliance on the voluntary sector to patch up the tattered social safety system is totally stunning. Gas poverty, interval poverty, hygiene poverty, meals poverty all have the identical root trigger: folks don’t manage to pay for for the fundamentals of day-to-day life.

All of the proof is there, but the federal government appears to both refuse to listen to it, or refuse to behave on it. I’m undecided which is worse – however one thing has to provide. I’m a Labour member and supporter, and there are lots of nice MPs working tirelessly day by day, however I do really feel that as a celebration the message from the highest may very well be much more robustly difficult of the federal government – that’s what they’re there for.

I’ve heard from tons of of individuals through the years whose family members have died of starvation; or ended their lives as a consequence of cuts, modifications and delays to advantages; or missed chemo appointments as a consequence of unreliable public transport. These tales might be terribly tough to relay to the folks in energy, however that’s who wants to listen to them. Campaigners like me are sometimes met with the identical outdated dismissive response: “There’s no such factor as poverty in Britain, folks introduced it on themselves” – that drained and unfaithful trope that poverty is an ethical failure on the a part of the sufferer. In reality, it’s the system that’s at fault, and the designers and perpetrators of that system are complicit within the tragedies that outcome.

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I obtain a few hundred direct messages or emails per week, not counting public feedback on Twitter. It’s vital that folks really feel their expertise is validated, and I’ll strive my hardest to assist if I can. It’s not ego, or some form of God advanced; I believe it’s simply the way in which I used to be raised. My mother and father have been each foster carers and had the angle that “in the event you may also help, you get on with it”. Fairly often after college there can be one other place set on the dinner desk for a kid who was in disaster. Generally they’d keep for the night time, generally for years. As an grownup and father or mother myself, I’m solely simply beginning to perceive the enormity of the dedication they made and the values we realized alongside the way in which.

My emotional response swings fairly wildly, even all through the day. Generally I really feel as if we’re making progress – and generally I really feel as if it’s all hopeless and nothing makes a distinction. However that’s typically short-lived, as there’s at all times one thing to get caught into. Whenever you’re shouting towards a system that’s rigged towards you, each single voice counts. That’s why I preserve going – as irritating and thankless and labour-intensive and exhausting as it’s. I believe persons are beginning to get it, particularly those that at the moment are discovering themselves on the fringes of poverty for the primary time, turning off their heating, unscrewing their lightbulbs, placing clingfilm on their home windows and going: “Grasp on a minute … ” I do really feel optimistic that we may very well be on the tipping level of actual social change.

Kwajo Tweneboa, housing superhero

The 23-year-old activist and pupil from south London makes use of social media to provide a voice to social housing tenants and expose the derelict residing situations many are compelled to endure. After publicly shaming Clarion, Europe’s greatest housing affiliation, into finishing up repairs on his household’s flat after a yr of inaction, Tweneboa has travelled the nation placing stress on politicians and social housing suppliers to enhance residing requirements. One tweet, exhibiting a cockroach-infested household dwelling in Lewisham, was seen greater than 1m instances and led to the household being completely relocated inside 24 hours. Tweneboa has acquired mentoring and monetary backing from Dragons’ Den investor Steven Bartlett, and was named Younger Campaigner of the 12 months on the SMK Nationwide Campaigner Awards.

For many of my life, I’ve lived in social housing. I grew up in Mitcham, south London, with my sisters and my dad. For some time we lived in short-term lodging, most of it falling down from damp and mold. One was a transformed storage, nonetheless with the storage door on – I’m positive it was unlawful. However Eastfields property was even worse. There was damp and mold, we couldn’t use our kitchen or rest room. We had mice, cockroaches, flies. It was so dated, too. The kitchen cabinets have been historic.

Once we moved in, in early 2018, my dad was unwell with stage one oesophageal most cancers, however it quickly progressed to stage 4. He went from strolling round to counting on a strolling body on the uncommon event that he was compelled off the bed. In the meantime, there was the damp and mold, no water at some factors, damaged lights, cockroaches working round. We complained and complained to Clarion, the housing affiliation that managed the property. The previous couple of months of Dad’s life have been quite a bit tougher than they wanted to be. He handed away in October 2020.

Early in 2020, there had been a significant leak in my entrance room, inflicting the ceiling to partially collapse. Clarion Housing pulled the entire thing down. I assumed it will get replaced in a few weeks: how lengthy are you able to be with out a ceiling? However I stored phoning and phoning, and couldn’t get by means of. Finally, in October, they advised me that nobody can be coming till January. I mentioned: “I’m not going to have a ceiling for Christmas?” They mentioned: “No, we’ve obtained two folks, and one’s on vacation – nobody can come out till subsequent yr.”

I felt that individual on the telephone was so impolite. I keep in mind considering to myself: “That’s my life you’re speaking about.” I’d simply misplaced my dad, and my psychological well being was everywhere. I needed to show some extent: that they shouldn’t be capable of disrespect somebody, only for being a council tenant. I had nothing to lose, so I posted images on social media. It obtained shared hundreds of instances and obtained picked up by native media, then ITV. My housing affiliation was disgraced. They’ve since carried out greater than 700 repairs on my property, and so they’re nonetheless not carried out. [Clarion acknowledged the issues on the estate, saying: “We recognise that some repairs and pest control measures have taken too long over the last six months and apologise to all affected residents.”]

Not like the councils, the housing associations have the cash: the issue is how they’re spending it. Tenants should not the precedence. They see constructing extra properties because the precedence over the well being and security of their current tenants. Not solely that, the newbuilds are falling aside. I visited one yesterday that was put up in 2012, and it was like a scene from Titanic – pipes have been rusted, the entire flooring was flooded. It’s all too frequent with a newbuild. These folks simply don’t care. They could deny that they’re prioritising funds over tenants, however we are able to see that they’re. Individuals are struggling in consequence.

After I went viral, folks started contacting me about their points. I’d go to their homes, submit photos on social media, and get them the assistance that they wanted. MPs and councillors are simply ignoring that persons are struggling. I’ve seen emails from folks residing with damp, mould, collapsed ceilings, uncooked sewage pouring down their partitions, and replies from their native MPs telling them they don’t take care of tenants and housing. They suppose it’s acceptable to disregard the residing situations of their constituents when, not way back, they have been begging for his or her votes. It actually frustrates me. None of them can actually relate to what tenants are going by means of – that’s why it’s not seen as a precedence.

I’m decided that housing shall be made a precedence on the subsequent election, whether or not Westminster likes it or not. Michael Gove and the Conservatives have clocked on to the problem, Labour not a lot. There are lots of MPs inside the celebration who’ve carried out a tremendous job of highlighting housing, who know that there’s an issue, so why is the Labour celebration not speaking about it? I’m past dissatisfied in Keir Starmer. He must be shouting from the rooftops of parliament about this concern.

I get hundreds of messages and share them within the hope of shaming the native MPs and housing suppliers. As a rule, the problem will get resolved fairly shortly. One girl had been complaining for a yr, and after my submit she was moved inside 24 hours. Tenants can really feel ashamed about their residing situations, then they see different folks with the identical points and realise that it’s not simply them, it’s hundreds of individuals across the nation.

I’ve been travelling to completely different cities, spreading my message about poor high quality housing and talking to residents, exhibiting them that somebody is preventing for them. I’ve been to Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester. Subsequent I’m going to Yorkshire, Scotland and Brighton. Housing associations, councils and MPs are scared each time they know I’m of their space, as a result of they know that there’s just one cause why. I’m glad they’re scared – it’s about time.

I shouldn’t must be doing this – however folks shouldn’t must be residing in these situations. It’s nerve-racking at instances. I can’t reply to everybody, it will be a full-time job and I’m nonetheless in my remaining yr of college, learning enterprise. However I get quite a lot of satisfaction. It’s really been useful for my psychological well being, as a result of I’m proving you could’t simply stroll over somebody due to their race, their background, their housing standing. I believe that’s the most important mistake some folks in senior roles in councils or housing associations make: they give the impression of being down on tenants, even deal with them like scum. I’ve been capable of present that they can’t preserve getting away with it.

Holly Smith, coupon ninja

The UK’s “coupon queen”, Holly Smith reduces hundreds of kilos off her procuring and payments yearly. The Excessive Couponing and Bargains UK group she arrange on Fb in 2017 has tens of millions of members, and she’s a daily visitor on ITV’s This Morning. She lately printed her first ebook, Holly Smith’s Cash Saving Guide, promising easy financial savings hacks “to make life a bit simpler day by day”. Smith lives in Nice Yarmouth together with her husband and their 4 youngsters: Bonnie, one, Zac, two, Bella, 9, and Mollie, 11.

I’m autistic; lots of people on the spectrum concentrate on a sure space, and mine was at all times money-saving. After I was 10 or 11, my mum was unwell and he or she requested me to go right down to the native store and do the procuring – I got here again with change. She mentioned: “How’d you get it so low cost?” I mentioned I used to be taking note of the costs. When my native library obtained the web, I’d go there on my bike and spend my Saturdays searching down freebies – washing powder, issues like that. I simply completely cherished it.

After I was 23, I obtained my first bone tumour. I’ve had 4 faraway from my left leg through the years, proper as much as 2019. I even have an autoimmune dysfunction, so I’ve spent quite a lot of time in hospitals. After my surgical procedure, I couldn’t work for greater than a yr and needed to depend on advantages. That’s after I actually threw all the things at my money-saving, and began getting into competitions. I did as many as 300 per week, and gained prizes value £10,000 in that yr alone, together with one to have a web site designed. I made a decision to make use of that to make my first money-saving weblog. Inside six months the Fb web page had 100,000 followers. At this time there are 4 million folks throughout my Fb web page and group. That scares me: it reveals how many individuals are struggling. The federal government has obtained to do one thing. Individuals are getting determined.

I’m working day in, day trip to get this info out. All folks must do is give me slightly little bit of their time, and I can present them methods to save hundreds a yr. The retail value of my ebook is £12.99 – for many individuals, that’s a number of meals. I inform them to borrow it from the library. After I mentioned that on This Morning, they mentioned I used to be the primary creator who’d come on to advertise their ebook and advised listeners to not purchase it. That’s how passionate I’m. I’ll keep up till 4am if there’s deal to inform folks about. I lose sleep over it. It may be onerous, when you’re on the spectrum, to disconnect on the finish of the day. I’ve needed to take sleeping tablets at instances, simply because my mind doesn’t wish to shut off.

In December 2015, I obtained £1,200 value of procuring utterly free. That’s essentially the most I’ve saved with coupons in a single go. The file at the moment was £600 value of stuff for 1p – I needed to beat that. I went to Tesco with my husband, and we have been there till it shut. The checkouts broke twice – they’re simply not constructed to deal with scanning nonstop for six hours. The full confirmed £1,200, then went proper right down to £0. I gave the meals to the Benjamin Basis, which takes in youngsters who’ve been kicked out of dwelling, and so they have been very joyful. I’ve been desirous about attempting to beat my very own file.

Because the pandemic, couponing has gone digital – all you want is your smartphone. Apps like Shopmium, CheckoutSmart or GreenJinn present you all of the coupons. You may simply get £30 of free stuff per week, however you by no means know what you’re going to get. It may very well be Pop-Tarts one week and a bag of salad the following. Lots of people say you by no means get wholesome stuff on coupons, however GreenJinn is for vegan and vegetarian merchandise. It does help you strive new issues. When you swap out meat two days per week, it can save you on common £300-350 a yr.

You probably have a product you actually love, attain out to the model and allow them to know. Generally they arrive again with some coupons. Lots of people solely get in contact to complain, however I wish to strategy with acts of kindness, telling them how a lot you’re keen on their meals. When you write to the complaints tackle being optimistic, you’re more likely to get extra coupons than in the event you complain. Just lately my daughter drew a pack of sausages she loves. We despatched it off to the model and so they wrote again with £5 of coupons and requested to make use of her image on social media. You’re serving to the model and so they’re serving to you.