'In the News' from Plebble.com

Lloyds TSB confirms £12.2bn rescue deal for HBOS

Seeded on Thu Sep 18, 2008 7:26 AM EDT (The Times)

In an unprecedented move, Lloyds TSB has announced it will pay £12.2 billion to rescue HBOS (Halifax and the Bank of Scotland). The severe financial crisis has brought about the merger, which is being backed by the Government.

business, lloyds-tsb, hbos, halifax, bank-of-scotland, birmingham-midshires, financial-services-compensation-scheme

Tesco and Asda slash food prices to stem flow of defectors to discounters

Seeded on Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:38 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The UK's two largest supermarkets, Tesco and Asda, have announced a further round of price cuts in an attempt to stem the increasing defection of consumers to discount chains such as Aldi and Lidl.

business, tesco, asda, lidl, aldi, discount-chains, supermarkets, price-cuts

Alliance & Leicester takeover gets go ahead

Seeded on Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:28 AM EDT (The Times)

Alliance & Leicester shareholders have voted in favour of an acquisition by Santander the Spanish bank. In 2004 Santander acquired Abbey and following the acquisition of Alliance & Leicester the two will be merged.

business, alliance-leicester, abbey, santander, merger, banking

Gatwick Airport: BAA puts it up for sale

Seeded on Wed Sep 17, 2008 5:27 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Airports operator BAA has announced that it is to sell off Gatwick airport.

business, gatwick, airports, baa, competition-commission

Another tour firm goes under as Alitalia hangs on

Seeded on Mon Sep 15, 2008 5:09 AM EDT (The Times)

As the thousands of XL holiday makers try to make it back to the UK, another tour company has gone bust. K&S Holidays, which specialised in holidays to Turkey is the latest causality.

business, k-s-holidays, xl, atol, airlines, tour-operators

Post Office may go into mobiles after success of broadband

Seeded on Mon Sep 15, 2008 5:08 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The Post Office is said to be considering entering the mobile phone market, following the success of its broadband offering launched last year (reported in 'In the News' on 24 October 2007). Telecoms is an important area for the Post Office as it looks to increase revenues.

business, post-office, broadband, mobile-phones

UK could suffer economicaly and socially with 'poor broadband'

Seeded on Fri Sep 12, 2008 5:57 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Britain risks falling behind the rest of Europe as a result of poor broadband speeds, it has been claimed in a new study.

business, poor-broadband, bt, virgin-media

Producers may pass on cost of energy package to consumers

Seeded on Fri Sep 12, 2008 5:46 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The cost of government plans to reduce the impact of high energy prices could be passed on to consumers. The £1 billion energy efficiency package announced yesterday by Gordon Brown may only see 150,000 additional homes being insulated this winter.

business, energy-prices, gordon-brown, warm-front

Seguro Travel collapse hits 20,000 Britons

Seeded on Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:13 AM EDT (The Times)

Seguro Travel has gone into administration leaving nearly 2,500 British holiday makers stranded in the Mediterranean. Seguro Travel is also known as Seguro Holidays and Kent Escapes. The company operated holidays in Spain, Portugal and the Canary Islands.

business, seguro, atol, zoom, holiday

Gas boss jokes about making more money as energy prices soar

Seeded on Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:10 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Energy company E.ON is in hot water today after one of its top executives appeared to joke that high oil and gas prices did not matter because they would mean more profits.

business, british-gas, edf-energy, npower, scottish-power, scottish-and-southern-energy, e-on, energy-prices

Huge rise in complaints about water companies

Seeded on Tue Sep 9, 2008 6:01 AM EDT (Independent.co.uk)

The Consumer Council for Water has received a record high number of complaints. For the year April 2007 to April 2008 the Consumer Council for Water received 273,000 complaints which was 11% higher than the previous year.

business, severn-trent-water, yorkshire-water, northumbrian-water, portsmouth-water, southern-water, anglian-water, south-east-water, complaints

Supermarkets accused of taking advantage of food inflation to increase prices

Seeded on Tue Sep 9, 2008 6:00 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Supermarkets are raising prices over and above the amounts that their costs have increased, it emerged today.

business, tesco, asda, sainsburys, morrisons, supermarkets, price-increases, inflation

Nationwide Building Society set to merge with the Derbyshire and the Cheshire

Seeded on Mon Sep 8, 2008 6:02 AM EDT (The Times)

The UK's largest building society, Nationwide, is merging with two of it's smaller rivals the Cheshire and Derbyshire building societies. The Cheshire has 45 branches and 440,000 members, whilst the Derbyshire has 50 branches and 485,000 members.

business, nationwide, cheshire, derbyshire, building-societies

Five pubs closing every day as landlords struggle with high taxes and credit crisis

Seeded on Mon Sep 8, 2008 6:01 AM EDT (Telegraph)

According to the Beer and Pub Association for the first half of 2008 36 pubs closed every week. This equates to 5 per day and represents a large increase from 4 per day for 2007 as reported 'In the News' 10 April.

business, pubs, smoking-ban, beer-and-pub

Superfast broadband could cost the UK £29bn

Seeded on Mon Sep 8, 2008 6:00 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Plans to upgrade the UK's broadband network could cost as much as £28bn, a governmental advisory group predicted today. The main cost is likely to be digging up roads in order to lay new super-fast fibre-optic cable.

business, broadband, virgin-media, bt

Ministers urged to intervene after household fuel bills soar again

Seeded on Fri Aug 22, 2008 5:31 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The Government has been urged to intervene after two more of the 'Big Six' energy companies, Scottish and Southern Energy and E.ON yesterday announced price rises.

business, scottish-and-southern-energy, e-on, british-gas, edf-energy, gas-prices, electricity-prices

Thousands are left out of pocket and out of luck after festival ticket 'scam'

Seeded on Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:51 AM EDT (The Times)

Thousands of music fans were left out of pocket after Spanish-based ticket seller, SOS Master Tickets, failed to provide the tickets they bought for some of the Country's biggest music festivals.

business, sos-master-tickets, v-festival, reading-festival, leeds-festival

Supermarkets battle to cut mobile phone costs

Seeded on Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:44 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Yet another front in the summer supermarket price war (reported most recently in 'In the News' on 15 August 2008) has opened after Asda, the UK's second largest supermarket chain, announced plans yesterday to cut charges on its pay-as-you mobile tariffs.

business, tesco, asda, vodafone, o2, t-mobile, mobile-phones, pay-as-you-go

Borrowers must apply 'four times' to get mortgage, survey says

Seeded on Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:26 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Borrowers must on average repeat applications for loans and mortgages four times in order to secure the lending they need, it has been revealed today. In addition, as many as 400,000 would-be borrowers could not obtain loans at all.

business, mortgages, credit-crunch, loan-applications

BAA told to end UK monopoly by selling Gatwick and Stansted

Seeded on Wed Aug 20, 2008 9:42 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Airports operator BAA is likely to have to sell off at least two of its three London airports - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted. This was the finding of a Competition Commission report out today.

business, baa, gatwick, heathrow, stanstead, glasgow, edinburgh, uk-airports

Computer game pirate to pay US firm £16,000

Seeded on Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:53 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

An unamed British woman has been ordered to pay £16,000 to a US computer games company, Topware, for illegally sharing pirated copies of its game Dream Pinball 3D. The fine is part of a wider crackdown by Topware on people in the UK illegally distributing copies of its game.

business, topware, file-sharing, piracy, dream-pinball-3d

Vodafone lifts charges to recoup lost earnings

Seeded on Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:46 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

Vodafone, the UK's second largest mobile phone network operator, is to raise prices by a third next month on its pay-as-you-go tarrifs.

business, vodafone, pay-as-you-go, o2, t-mobile

Thousands of bookings cancelled as Ryanair clamps down on 'screenscraping'

Seeded on Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:40 AM EDT (Telegraph)

Budget airline Ryanair has cancelled the flights of thousands of passengers who booked through airline price comparison websites.

business, ryanair, cancelled-flights, screenscraping, price-comparison

Watchdog expected to order BAA's break-up

Seeded on Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:02 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

Airports operator BAA could be ordered to sell Gatwick airport to a rival in a move that would represent the biggest shake-up in British airport ownership since BAA was privatised more than 20 years ago.

business, baa, gatwick, heathrow, airports, competition-commission

Air travel: BA-AA alliance attracts flak from Branson

Seeded on Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:50 AM EDT (Guardian Unlimited)

The UK's largest airline, British Airways (BA), yesterday announced plans for a transatlantic tie-up between it, American Airlines (AA) and Spanish airline, Iberia.

business, british-airways, american-airlines, iberia, airline-industry

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Comments & Feedback

Thanks, Ms Cyprah. I'll definitely give that a whirl. It looks like you should know - you've got an amazing amount of Vineacity already!! Looking forward to joining the debate.

James

— Plebble on Newsvine.com

Thanks for requesting my friendship, James, and you do have some very interesting articles here. But let me pass on a tip for getting them noticed. Always write a comment with each of them, even if it is a few words. Comments then attract other readers and will get your articles to a bigger audience. If you can also comment on other people's too, that seems to be where the exposure lies. I thought I would mention it as some of these articles are very interesting.

Welcome on board and hope you enjoy the NewsVine experience!

— Ms CYPRAH

Hi there - Welcome to Plebble's official column on Newsvine!

Each weekday on this column we seed articles on consumer issues from the mainstream UK media. The idea is to highlight these issues, stimulate debate on them among Newsvine users and ultimately raise awareness of consumer issues in general.

From time to time, we will also post consumer and customer service related stories that we've written based on information/data provided on our site by our users. Again, please discuss and debate these and let us know your views.

The column is very much UK-focused at the moment, so apologies to Newsvine's international users...

We hope you enjoy the debate and find it useful!

Thanks
James

— Plebble on Newsvine.com