Icesave/Kaupthing - is Martin to blame?

wes88

Caudle wrote: »

I see that - at long last! - Kaupthing Edge is no longer Martin's top pick for instant access accounts. Better late than never I guess!

Yes we all have to take responsibility for our investment decisions, but the purpose of using a site like this is forn people without financial expertise to get some help from someone who has set himself up as an "expert"... hence the name of the site.

Has Martin said whether he himself put money into the likes of Icesave and/or Kaupthing Edge?

He has said himself he was recieving money from them as an affiliate.

Caudle

wes88 wrote: »

He has said himself he was recieving money from them as an affiliate.

Not quite the same thing as investing his own savings in Icesave/Kaupthing! :rolleyes:

MacPherson

He did - it was horrible to watch and shows how the media are inflamming things all round. I complained to Channel 4. Be interesting to see if they reply. If they do - I'll post it! But I won't hold my breath!!!!

baby_boomer

wes88 wrote: »

How many of you know that Martin Lewis was an affiliate of Icesave and effectively was paid for people signing up there?

It was news to me, and I thought I knew how the site worked.

MrsMillar wrote: »

Altho I read and understood that the compensation scheme was different, Martin's comments did not come across as a warning to me at all. It came across as a "reasssurance"

I think this puts it very well and goes a long way to explain the gap between the arguments on this and many other threads.

Martin seemed to have done the research and background checks on people's behalf, and most people don't get as far as the small print / disclaimers.

And if you wanted more reassurance, it was available in spades on the MSE forums from the thousands who had already invested in IceSave via the site.

ThrobsBlackHat

Captain_Mainwaring wrote: »

Unfortunatey he isn't qualified as a lawyer/accountant/ or even as a financial advisor - why does everyone put him on such a pedestal?

In the last 3 years I have earned over £1000 in cashback, and saved nearly £1000 in lower utilities / insurances, and received close to £2500 in tesco deals, and reduced my food bills by over £50 a month through using this site.

I spend less now, so I can save more. I have been able to take 9 years off the length of my mortgage within the last 12 months, through saving elsewhere and then overpaying with the money.

If he is on a pedestal it is because has allowed thousands of people to save or get refunded thousands of pounds of their money.

I have not made anything from endowments, bank charge reclaiming or council tax rebanding, but they are further examples.

ThrobsBlackHat

Sledgehead wrote: »

I
And therin lies his real culpability. People like Martin and his peers have been responsible for pushing the message that we could have it all: take advantage of bog-offs (or as he would put it "save") not so that you could save the money not spent, but so that you could spend the discount on other tat. Get a 0% credit card, not for the purposes of saving the interest, but as a means to buy even more tat. Get the best interest rate AT ALL COSTS so as to be able to buy even more tat again. None of his "money saving" excercises amounted to saving. They amounted having a higher standard of living. Sounds like semantics? Well, just look at the household debt figures : £1.4Tn before the 0.4Tn bailout we just forked out for today.

You might want to get down off that high horse - you'll get a nosebleed!

I am not sure you could be more wrong.

Who are you to accuse the millions of users of this site to waste their money on tat?

Thousands of people report their stories of being stuck in debt but then through encouragement, companionship, ideas and access to services have been able to pay that debt off through this site.

Have you ever seen or used the widely used budget planner? Advice to pay off mortgages early? Martin ALWAYS says pay off credit cards asap but if you can't then get 0% until you pay it off.

"None of his "money saving" excercises amounted to saving."

That is totally untrue. I pay less for my mobile phone, home phone, electricity, gas, home insurance, car insurance, car breakdown cover, life insurance and groceries because I use this site. All of those are things I need to conduct my daily life - they are not "tat", they are the building blocks of a modern household, and I have saved hundreds each year on the same or better services than I did before.

With that money I have been able to pay off mortgage and student loan debts faster.

AND if this site is not about "saving" money, as in not spending it, why is this thread all about people who have saved huge amounts of money in Icelandic banks and are worried about losing it? If they had wasted it all on tat instead, as you accuse, no-one would be affected.

st

I think this thread needs closing now -it is not Martins fault it was all our choice not his to invest so please do not balame him -I am moneysaver going back to the eary days of the forum back in 2004 and he has saved us a lot of money and also with helpful senssible information.

the point is we have all being stung with icesave and it is important that this forum concentrates on solving the problem with our shared comments and ideas to help all icesavers and also KE too.

please stop knocking Martin and look at the task in hand -getting our savings back.

deep_pockets

its ok for these smart asses to come on here and spout about you should have researched more, seen the signs-blah,blah etc.

but when you are tied into a fixed term a/c due to martin advertising it as the best buy, you are ferked because you cannot pull your money out.

at the end of the day i made the choice.( but it was nice to see martin squirming and back tracking on warnings on tv this week)

dont send him to coventry, just a one way ticket to iceland!!!!!!!!

31May2008

This from Martin's blog yesterday:

"Yet for the last seven months, every note on the site that mentions Icesave has included a large WARNING, explaining it’s not protected like other banks due to the ‘passport exemption’ system... "

Not true. The word 'warning' was never used, large or otherwise.

Ivana_B_Rich

I looked on this site for advice. Based on that I made my own decisions. I'm an adult and as such I take resposibility for the decisions I make.

No one is forced to follow the advice given