Martin told you Icesave had a "dodgy compensation scheme"... his comment on 4 News

meester

silvercar wrote: »

Most people knew the compensation scheme was not the FSCS

Absolute b0llocks, Martin didn't even know himself.

Best savings, January 2008:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080109143121/http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest

Banks are like bridges, they almost never collapse but when they do the splash is huge. All legit UK savings institutions are registered with the Financial Services Authority (FSA), which means they're signed up to the Financial Ombudsman complaints service and more importantly the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

This means if the ridiculously unlikely even a bank went bust, you'd get every penny of the first £35,000 of your savings per institution back. Therefore, while I think it’s a touch of overkill, if you want total peace of mind don’t put more than £35,000 in any bank; spread it around for safety. Full details of the rules, how to do this, and pros and cons are in the Are my savings safe? article.

The recommendations?:

To do that and still get a top rate, first use the accounts listed above, then the next best clean products are Bradford and Bingley at 6.4%, Principality BS at 6.3%, Icesave at 6.3%.

Icesave listed there right alongside government-owned & super-safe B&B.

That safety article?

http://web.archive.org/web/20080116125121/www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings

First there was Farepak and then thousands queued to 'rescue' their savings in Northern Rock. So how safe are your savings and what can you do about it? This is a full savings safety-check up, showing you how to easily save over £300,000 in perfect safety and the major pitfalls to avoid.

Q. What are the chances that my bank will go bust?

Extraordinarily, unthinkably, ridiculously unlikely. In September 2007, Northern Rock had to secure an overdraft from the Bank of England due to a crisis in the global money markets, yet even that was nowhere near a full-scale bank collapse. I’m not foolish enough to say “no bank will ever go bust”, but I’m confident enough to give Accrington Stanley a better chance of winning the FA Cup than a UK bank going belly-up. And certainly you’ve a lot less chance of a bank going bust than you have money being stolen from under your mattress!

All UK deposits in bank or building society savings products are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). This is effectively a government fund which promises that, in the event of a bank collapsing, you're guaranteed all the first £35,000 of your savings back.

Icesave are listed:

Landsbanki (Icesave)

This table was compiled by checking the FSA registration number of each bank on their websites, and is based on the FSCS definition that each independently registered institution receives the £35,000 protection.

And this was post NR collapse, no mention of passport scheme at all.

iso_karhu

Don't blame Martin ... he was clear with his warnings.

The UK Government's financial regulators allowed icesave to trade and take our money ...

KorkyKat

The blame game serves no purpose least of all to all those whose money is somewhere in cyber space or a vault.

If anything, IceSave received kudos from the FCSC stamp of approval. Had it not the H.H. Government stamp many would have backed away - including me.

I'm interested in the fact they they are currently doing a lot of talking to the Russians. It would appear it is a favoured bank for many of the oligarchs.

Expect to hear some late night shots on the Icelandic tundra.

LucyTheDwarf

luvpump wrote: »

Sorry "Lucy" but Fxxk you !!! .you spent all last week calling posters "Doommongers" amongs't other things and now this ??? ..I wonder if you really are a "Lucy" ?

Heh, I'm definitely a Lucy, and I'm definitely a shortarse. Not sure what/who you think I am... I haven't yet resorted to posting "Fxxk you!" at anyone's comments either, so I'm still happy to live with myself, as I am. I'm a nice person, honest.

And I still think there are a lot of scaremongering going on. No-one has lost a penny yet! I feel desperately sorry for anyone who is suffering with worry about their hard earned life savings, but I am confident they will get their money back.

Now, I have never been able to believe why anyone would place their money anywhere, without research, and reading the small print. It's not the issue at hand, but I think it is related to all this "blame Martin" culture that has sprung up overnight. If you don't want advice, don't take it!

BarryPseudonym

...I mentioned the webarchive earlier...but got ignored. Smartarses don't wanna know (it undermines their holier than thou attitude to it being 'obvious'), Martin fans don't wanna know (as it looks bad on him). That rules almost everyone out...

1echidna

LucyTheDwarf wrote: »

Astounding that many ignored his warning?

I find it astounding how many fail to read t&cs, or research what they're buying, then feel the need to blame Martin Lewis - who has put an encyclopaedia of financial information at their fingertips - it couldn't be easier!

To add to another persons astonishment I find it astonishing that Lucy is not having a quite break somewhere having told us over the weekend that she had thoroughly researched the subject and Icelandic banks were absolutely safe and that anyone who said otherwise was akin to vermin.

earlgrey_3

meester wrote: »

Absolute b0llocks, Martin didn't even know himself.

...This means if the ridiculously unlikely even a bank went bust, you'd get every penny of the first £35,000 of your savings per institution back. Therefore, while I think it’s a touch of overkill, if you want total peace of mind...

I don't criticise him for getting it wrong but I was slightly taken aback at the dishonesty of pretending on TV he wasn't writing assurances like that.

StuHolmes

I have(had?) just over £6k in icesave's ISA. Been watching the news and reading these forums with a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach all day. But not for one minute have I blamed Martin (still don't), I am my own person and make my own judgements. I felt well informed about the passport scheme, partly thanks to Martin. I never expected this to actually happen and neither I am sure did Martin.

But his comments on Ch4 have upset me. As I said earlier in this thread he NEVER described the passport scheme as dodgy, just pointed out that the money would come from two sources and may take a bit longer or claiming be a bit more convoluted. Also he has not been warning against Icesave, just pointing out the difference.

Tonight it did sound like he was saying "I warned you but you didn't listen" which is clearly not true.

To be fair Jon Snow was over the top.

meester

Plasticman wrote: »

The advice on this site seems to have been clear for a long time:

Don't put more than £35K in one bank, and claiming money back if Icesave went bust would be more complex as they operated under the passport scheme.

A long time?

It wasn't there in February, or indeed when most people opened their accounts, when Icesave was best buy account here week after week.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080209223209/http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/safe-savings

Most people listened to the first point but didn't worry about the second

Because it wasn't there when they committed their money, they had no idea!!!!

I do take issue with Martin's comments about "a strange compensation scheme" and "dodgy protection". That wasn't the message being given here, but I assume was his reaction to being put under pressure by John Snow.

Dodgy? Why didn't he say that when he was recommending it??? He didn't even KNOW it seems from past versions of the 'safe savings' article.

Lavendyr

nachovx wrote: »

People may read the t&c and see there is a two-part compensation scheme, but nothing in that states that one of them may not be worth the paper (or screen) it's written on. How could you expect people to know that the bit that says €20,000 from the Icelandic fund, may not be paid to UK customers, there were no such warnings.

This is the key point, IMHO.

Personally, I'm gutted. I have a relatively small amount of savings with Icesave - not my largest sum, by any measure, but it is enough that I am really concerned. I genuinely believed them when they said their liquidity was strong. I believed them when they said that they had a loan-to-deposit ratio of 63% and would not be severely exposed to financial difficulties because of this. I believed them when they said they were safe, and I stayed with them even when they no longer offered the market leading rates, because I trusted what they said when they said they were safe in spite of the market turmoil. So much for that.

However, despite all of that, I was still feeling reasonably secure about it because, even though I knew the scheme was two-part, I thought that I could trust both compensation schemes to pay out. I worked so very hard to build up those savings (as, I am sure, did many others), I did what the government wanted us to do and saved my hard-earned cash to avoid taking from the state (in, I might add, an FSA-regulated bank which had subscribed to the Banking Code), and now it seems as though I could lose out as a result. I would not have put these savings in a place I did not think would be secure - and even though I believed Icesave to be reasonably safe, I did believe that in case of problems, both compensation schemes would be there and available to me.

And returning to the aforementioned key point, never has it been mentioned before now that there was a chance that the Icelandic scheme might not pay out to UK savers. I remain of the opinion that this is speculation based on implied meanings which may or not reside behind the words of the Icelandic premier, but had this ever been suggested before, I would not have put my money with Icesave. This is an entirely new suggestion and it is this which has me worried. I wholeheartedly hope that the UK government will not let down its 300,000 Icesave savers, should the Icelandic government refuse to pay up.

My sympathies go out to everyone caught up in this.