Martin Lewis challenges FCA boss: Why the poor interest rate on car finance mis-selling redress?

MattMattMattUK

I would say the car finance "mis-selling", Waspi(e), trying to abolish standing charges, in-contact price rises are the biggest ones he has backed the wrong side, flogged a dead horse or even lead to objectively worse outcomes for consumers over the last few years. I think most of what he does comes from a genuine place of concern, but he seems to back things based on publicity, knee-jerk reactions or often just not thinking things through leading to unintended but obvious consequences.

Would I trust him to help me find a good cashback credit card? Yes, absolutely. Would I want him anywhere near fiscal policy, primary consumer rights or financial legislation or industry regulation? Absolutely not!

dumpster_fire2025

eskbanker said:

dumpster_fire2025 said:

Ectophile said:

I think Martin Lewis has lost touch with reality.  An ordinary bank savings account isn't going to be better than 1% above BoE base rate.

(Disclosure: I own shares in one of the large UK banks)

He's been like that for a long time.

He got famous through the bank charges reclaiming scam that he didn't even win, and since then his entire focus has been jumping on every bandwagon hoping that lightning will strike twice.

It hasn't. In 18 or so years he's backed dud after dud after dud.

I'm all for consumer rights but he isn't a consumer rights champion, he's a "whatever will get Martin Lewis richer champion."

I think that's harsh - he's undoubtedly become very wealthy over the years but I don't see any evidence that he picks and chooses his battles for personal gain, especially in the context of the eight-figure sum he's ploughed back into charities:

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2025/01/martin-lewis-charity-fund-2025-update--what-happened-to-my-p10m-/

I'm not necessarily trying to argue that he can point to a list of actual tangible achievements resulting from his relentless campaigning but wouldn't be surprised if someone could, and to me there's no doubt that he's raised awareness of many personal finance issues in a way that's broadly positive.

He doesn't pick and choose his battles, which is part of the problem.

He just relentlessly goes in favour of anything which conforms to the supposed "victim" vs "oppressor" narrative. He's sided with endless numbers of bad causes, often made in bad faith, and just walked away from them when they ended up being a dud.

He only cares about what makes him richer. That's fine, but as the saying goes, "don't pee on me and tell me it's raining." He does all this to make himself richer and ultimately doesn't care about you or me.

eskbanker

dumpster_fire2025 said:

eskbanker said:

dumpster_fire2025 said:

Ectophile said:

I think Martin Lewis has lost touch with reality.  An ordinary bank savings account isn't going to be better than 1% above BoE base rate.

(Disclosure: I own shares in one of the large UK banks)

He's been like that for a long time.

He got famous through the bank charges reclaiming scam that he didn't even win, and since then his entire focus has been jumping on every bandwagon hoping that lightning will strike twice.

It hasn't. In 18 or so years he's backed dud after dud after dud.

I'm all for consumer rights but he isn't a consumer rights champion, he's a "whatever will get Martin Lewis richer champion."

I think that's harsh - he's undoubtedly become very wealthy over the years but I don't see any evidence that he picks and chooses his battles for personal gain, especially in the context of the eight-figure sum he's ploughed back into charities:

https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2025/01/martin-lewis-charity-fund-2025-update--what-happened-to-my-p10m-/

I'm not necessarily trying to argue that he can point to a list of actual tangible achievements resulting from his relentless campaigning but wouldn't be surprised if someone could, and to me there's no doubt that he's raised awareness of many personal finance issues in a way that's broadly positive.

He doesn't pick and choose his battles, which is part of the problem.

He just relentlessly goes in favour of anything which conforms to the supposed "victim" vs "oppressor" narrative. He's sided with endless numbers of bad causes, often made in bad faith, and just walked away from them when they ended up being a dud.

He only cares about what makes him richer. That's fine, but as the saying goes, "don't pee on me and tell me it's raining." He does all this to make himself richer and ultimately doesn't care about you or me.

What evidence do you cite to support these allegations?  I'm certainly not trying to defend his choices or results, but accusations about his motivation seem unnecessary, although it's unclear to me what you're actually referring to....