Icesave/Kaupthing - is Martin to blame?

holloholloway

I've lost a lot of money and I trusted martin, i've a right to be angry so don't you dare say this to me.

South_Bound

I trusted martin's advice and now i have lost a great deal of money.

Have you? Where has it gone? No-one has lost any money yet, so you don't have the right to be angry at someone who pointed you in the direction of an opportunity. Calm down fella.

fatpig_2

Blame everyone except yourself you muppets! If you hadn't tried to withdraw your savings en masse like the bunch of headless chickens they may not have had to put the bank into administration,.You with your continual scaremongering and hasty actions caused the run on the bank,not Martin, if I were him I'd ban the lot of you muppets! :T

jm104

Must confess I feel the same about this. I'm a total financial novice but have taken Martins advice to put money in Icesave - especially the 6 month account where to get higher interest - thanks as now in position of losing £20000 which has taken me years to save from being down on negative equity! Apart from this site I've never heard about Icesave.

discoinferno_99

holloholloway wrote: »

I've lost a lot of money and I trusted martin, i've a right to be angry so don't you dare say this to me.

You haven't lost anything yet though. Let's wait and see what happens first. I truly hope that you and everyone else effected by this will get every penny they are owed back.

Rafter

Martin is NOT to blame, but he has made money as a result of click throughs from this site.

The problem is the culture of some of this sites users who go for the very cheapest deal or the highest rate without any personal accountablilty for that decision.

So you pick the cheapest insurance, and then find when you make a claim the cover is not up to scratch.

You plump for the best savings rate, and find out the bank offering it had an unsustainable business model.

But is it Martins job to regulate the insurance and banking industry? Of course it isn't!

It is the regulators who allowed banks on a small island with a popultation the size of Bristol in the north atlantic to 'borrow' billions from UK savers at very high rates without any kind of levy, which now potentially means the financial system and tax payers picking up the bill for this binge.

It is also the greed of some savers who thought that earning a few £s more in interest was better than using lower risk large UK banks or even National Savings as a home for at least some of their savings.

It is the banks themselves that thought that growth at any cost and the merry go round of ever increasing financial engineering, house price growth and mergers and takeovers would carry on forever.

It was the naivity of the government that they thought they had forever banished boom and bust and that allowing people to borrow 5x their salaries and 125% of house values was a good thing.

It was the stupidity of housebuyers who thought that 2 bed flats in leeds were worth £200k and would command sky high rents when you could pick up a similar property for £50k 10 years earlier.

We are probably all to blame in some way and most of us end up paying for these mistakes through higher taxes and poor rates. I just hope those who have made a fast buck from their huge banking bonuses or bailing out of property at the right time will show some charity for those who will suffer financial hardship in the years ahead as a result of their gains.

R.

MrTGB

Has anyone actually lost any money yet or are they just jumping the gun and assuming they might?

I though the whole Martin Safe Savings thing has always said don't put more than £35K in one bank, so if you did, you went against Martin's advice. If you didn't you have not lost any money.

holloholloway

jm104 wrote: »

Must confess I feel the same about this. I'm a total financial novice but have taken Martins advice to put money in Icesave - especially the 6 month account where to get higher interest - thanks as now in position of losing £20000 which has taken me years to save from being down on negative equity! Apart from this site I've never heard about Icesave.

Jim, I've been upset all morning. I tried to get some of the money out of icesave last night but i don't think it will go through. I too counted on martin for good advice being a financial novice too, and i thought my money would be compensated if anything went awry but it seems this won't happen. Martin i am fuming and i will never trust your advice again. I stand to lose a lot of money, my life savings that i have worked for over the last ten years. I decided to save as opposed to going on swanky holidays etc and now i've lost what i've saved.

fusionblue

Can we all spare for a thought for the people in the contact centres asking talking to hundreds of customers who are doing their best to calm people down when they don't have a lot to go on.

It really must feel like a rock and a hard place for them right now.

moocowone

31May2008 wrote: »

From martin's blog back in April after newspaper articles raised concerns about icesave:

"Therefore, where Icesave is a best buy, it remains a best buy. If I were to arbitrarily pick accounts not to include, then articles wouldn’t be accurate, where do you draw the line? This site is about listing highest interest rates to save people money… to get in the ‘picking the dodgy bank’ game - is an impossible task."

If you can't pick out the 'dodgy bank' even after the mainstream press are onto it then you're no money saving 'expert'

Right. Icelandic banks may have offered the highest rate of interest, but they have not been an attractive option for a long time now. I think all would agree: They're not a best buy - high interest or not.

In fact, since before last week, traders have been pricing in a roughly one in 10 chance of a blow up. Even prior to that, Icelandic banks have been in the spotlight - for a long time (although it is only in the last couple of weeks that things have got really bad.)