Martyn Lewis, the man people most want to lead them out of the recession

whitegoods_engineer

I sometimes think Martin Lewis will some day get run over by a speedboat whilst out walking the way people worship him on this site!

Tojo_Ralph

Martin_Lewis wrote:

"We’ve suggested they change the spelling to ‘Martin Lewis’ online, so that may’ve been done when you read it."

Maybe you could also suggest they include some statistical data to give the poll a degree of credibility.

For all we know the poll was conducted in MSE Towers prior to the announcement of Christmas bonuses. :rotfl:

Sparhawke

I do not believe Martin is the one to lead us out of the recession, all anyone would do then is simply shop at huge impersonal shopping centers with no soul and try to save 1p off the price of a gallon of petrol constantly.

What is needed to save an economy is confidence, confidence in buying, using money, spending it and paying it back.

Not fear

minerva_windsong

Rob_Marx wrote: »

gordon brown is second in the list? taxi please... who the hell do people think put us in recession in the first place?

What surprised me more than that was that Vince Cable didn't make the top ten!

Doc_N

Yet more self-serving publicity by the egocentric Martin Lewis - the man who took on the banks and lost, to the great relief of many of us.

The very idea of this man 'leading us out of recession' is appalling. Just shows how gullible the British public are - and how good Martin Lewis is at self publicity.

JDPower

Doc_N wrote: »

Yet more self-serving publicity by the egocentric Martin Lewis - the man who took on the banks and lost, to the great relief of many of us.

The very idea of this man 'leading us out of recession' is appalling. Just shows how gullible the British public are - and how good Martin Lewis is at self publicity.

Who let the trolls out :rolleyes:

wildthing01

i'm surpirsed to see so many people on here dissing martin - if you don't like him, why are you all using his website?????

he's probably top because people trust him, while they don't trust politicians.

that said, you can't put all the blame on gordon - he didn't create the recession - in case you hadn't noticed, most of the western world has been affected, and i don't think gordon has that much sway.....

Sparhawke

Who said anything about disrespect?

No one is that wonderful that they are above any kind of criticism, unless you really want to put him on a pedestal?

Lets not forget that this website makes an insane amount of cash and purposely kills off any kind of competition and simply promotes Martin himself ruthlessly.

For example, a campaign was started by a website against banks and their illegal charges and Martin took the idea, promoted his own website on television and never even bothered to mention that he wasn't the author.

For any free society to succeed you need people who are willing to question the status quo and make sure monopolies do not happen...

MSE_Martin

Sparhawke wrote: »

Who said anything about disrespect?

No one is that wonderful that they are above any kind of criticism, unless you really want to put him on a pedestal?

Lets not forget that this website makes an insane amount of cash and purposely kills off any kind of competition and simply promotes Martin himself ruthlessly.

For example, a campaign was started by a website against banks and their illegal charges and Martin took the idea, promoted his own website on television and never even bothered to mention that he wasn't the author.

For any free society to succeed you need people who are willing to question the status quo and make sure monopolies do not happen...

This type of comment is both grossly unfair and untrue.

I have never claimed to be the author of the bank charges campaign - in fact I have always made it very clear that people came to me and asked me to get involved which is true. I have always given credit on that and if you choose to do some research before making spurious allegations you would find that to be true.

Even in the very brief timeline on the subject we write

LATE 05. The first campaigners won bank charges reclaims
JAN 06. They contacted this site and the first MoneySavingExpert.com reclaiming guide was published
MAR 06. The first newspaper column on reclaiming was published

Also in our bank charges reclaiming history guide (which hasn't been updated in a couple of years) it says....

The history of bank charge reclaiming

The move to reclaim bank charges is a real grass roots consumer revolution. A few brave souls decided to challenge their bank and started to get settlements in 2005; by early 2006 there were reports of cases in this site's Chat Forum.

The potential was huge, so I asked Dave Smith, who had already grouped together with a few other successful claimants to start the then small website the ConsumerActionGroup, to write a summary of how to go about it, which I soon published as part of a main article on the site (the predecessor to the full article you've just read).

......

Yet the real credit for all this goes to the originators like Dave, who paved the way for this mass action. It's truly inspiring that a small group of people prepared to stand up for themselves can create such a stir.

On a very few occassions it has been incorrectly reported that I started the campaign on one or two occassions - but those are journalists who didnt speak to me - and there's little i can do about it.

If ever its said in broadcast I instantly correct it. However it also true that the vast majority of bank charges template letters that were used and consequently the vast majority of people who got money back came from this site.

We have put a huge resource into doing so - not least recently paying for top end QC advice after the loss and co-ordinating work with the other groups on that. This follows the time when we provided the majority of funding for the bank charges fighting fund.

In summary we've worked hard, never overclaimed credit and put our money where our mouth is.

Frankly Im bemused what's happening in this board - there seems to be a nasty sniping nature in response to virtually any blog I write - at times its virtually orchestrated. The problem with most of it is it is based on incorrect fact and false assumption

Moving on from this specific post - a general reminder - on this site I am not an anonymous individual who can't be defamed; and if you are planning to lie or make false allegations then beware they may be challenged.

Martin

cootambear

Good afternoon M.
Only yesterday I was forced yet again to defend you from those who chose to scapegoat you for Tescum withdrawing their liberal coupon accepting policy. As an ardent couponer myself I had frequently pointed out the confusion ineherent in their policy and implementation, which inevitably led to Pedigreechumgate.
Pathetically, many on the board chose to blame M, who was after all, only making consumers aware of what these critics were already doing themselves.
I am all for free debate, but there will always be snipers on any board, and their post count will be above average. They make a lot of noise but they are empty vessels.