MoneySavingExpert.com

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MoneySavingExpert.com
URL http://moneysavingexpert.com/
Commercial? Yes
Type of site Finance
Owner Martin Lewis and Martin S Lewis Ltd
Created by Martin Lewis and Martin S Lewis Ltd

MoneySavingExpert.com is a British consumer finance information and discussion website founded and owned by 'ultra-specialised' journalist Martin Lewis in February 2003 with the aim of providing information and journalistic articles enabling people to save money.

Contents

[edit] Overview

The motto detailed on the home page is "we spend our lives being screwed by companies for profit, this site is about how to screw them back".

The website states that it is the UK's biggest independent money site, with over 3 million unique users a month[1]. The site aspires to have an ethical stance with the principles of being free to use with no advertisements[2], independent, unbiased and journalistic in all its research and money-saving articles[3].

Martin's Free Money Tips e-mail is sent to over 2,000,000 people each week[1] and contains a mixture of editorial articles and tips from users in the site's Forums.

[edit] Petitions

The site/Martin Lewis have launched three mainstream petitions

  • The first aimed to have the secured loan adverts banned from children's television which received 43,000 signatures[4].
  • The second appealing to Carol Vorderman to stop appearing in secured loan advertising. Lewis felt that Vorderman was seen by the general public as a credible figure because of her mathematical skill demonstrated in TV programmes such as Countdown. This petition had over 80,000[5] signatures.

Both of these campaigns have been the subject of Parliamentary early day motions[6].

  • The third was in conjunction with the site's work on Bank Charges[7], and was placed on the UK Prime Minister's website, attracting over 50,000[8] signatures within the first six weeks.

[edit] Campaigns

In August 2006 the site started to develop a system to check whether people were in the correct council tax band. Over a number of months as an increasing number of people reported £1000s in backdated payouts.[9] On 26 January 2007 Martin Lewis presented a Tonight programme on this following up the successes from the site; it rated 4.5 million viewers and saw the site covered in many national newspapers including the full front pages of the Express and Metro.

During late 2005, the issue of reclaiming unfair bank charges was highlighted and a few small websites started to highlight the issue. The site has been one of the main campaigning forces on this ever since [10]. In November 2006 the original article was updated by a step-by-step guide, including template letters which speedily achieved its 1,000,000th download towards the end of February 2007 [11]. Martin Lewis has also regularly appeared across the media to champion the issue. By January 2008 over 4.4m template letters had been downloaded [12]

Other large scale campaigns for the website include reclaiming council tax [13], payment protection insurance [14], reclaiming mortgage exit fees [15] and reclaiming credit card charges [16] all of which have had over 100,000 people using template letter downloads. [17]

[edit] Charity contributions

MoneySavingExpert.com regularly contributes to charities nominated by site users. It is estimated that £100,000 may be donated in the 2006-2007 year[18]. In previous years all money has been given to nominated charities based on the percentage of the vote given by site users, but it has been announced that in the future a new registered charity, the MoneySavingExpert.com Charitable Fund, will distribute the money. It has also been announced that a proportion of the money will fund a feasibility study into setting up a "MoneySaving Kids charity" to help educate children about how to be consumers[19].

In December 2006 the book Thrifty Ways for Modern Days was launched by the site. Uniquely, the book was compiled completely from advice given on the threads of the MoneySaving Old Style section of the site. As the book was created from community knowledge and only edited by Martin Lewis, it was decided that all profits from the book would go to the MoneySavingExpert.com Charitable Fund[20].

[edit] Awards and support

  • Winner of the New Media award at the Personal Finance Media Awards, November 2005[22]
  • The Guardian newspaper wrote that the site has "a fearsome reputation for deconstructing the deals on offer from the banks and building societies to find out whether they are really good value"[23]
  • The Times listed the site as one of "ten that stun with sheer insight or inspired rich media".[24]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Money Saving Expert: Consumer Revenge. moneysavingexpert.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-25.
  2. ^ Patrick Collinson. "Proud to be a 'terrorist'", The Guardian, January 15 2005. Retrieved on 2006-08-13. 
  3. ^ Martin Lewis. Moneysavingexpert - How this site is financed. Retrieved on 2006-08-20.
  4. ^ Debt: Not In Front of the Children. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  5. ^ The "Carol Vorderman: Secured Loan Ads Don't Add Up" Appeal. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  6. ^ Early Day Motion - Debt: Not in Front of the Children Campaign. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  7. ^ Bank Charges: Reclaim your money. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  8. ^ Number 10 website petition Bank Charges Charter. Retrieved on 2007-09-24.
  9. ^ "Council Tax Cashback: Reclaim £1000s. Retrieved on 2007-01-20.
  10. ^ Bank Charges: Reclaim your money. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  11. ^ --"The Independent. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
  12. ^ Stats Section MoneySavingExpert.com home page. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.
  13. ^ "Council Tax Reclaiming. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.
  14. ^ "Loan Insurance Reclaiming. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.
  15. ^ "Mortgage Fee Reclaiming. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.
  16. ^ "Credit Card Reclaiming. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.
  17. ^ MoneySavingExpert.com Stats section. Retrieved on 2007-08-28.
  18. ^ Lewis, Martin (2006-10-08). New Site Charity Nominations Now Open. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  19. ^ Lewis, Martin. Moneysavingexpert.com - The Charity Fund. Retrieved on 2006-08-27.
  20. ^ Lewis, Martin. Moneysavingexpert.com - About the MoneySaving Books. Retrieved on 2007-02-08.
  21. ^ House of Commons. Tuesday 25 January 2005. Notices of Motions for which no days have been fixed ('Early Day Motions'). House of Commons (25 January 2005). Retrieved on 2006-08-13.
  22. ^ 2005 Bradford & Bingley Personal Finance Media Awards Winners Unveiled. Bradford & Bingley (9 November 2005). Retrieved on 2006-08-14.
  23. ^ Patrick Collinson. "Now time has come to end this mis-selling scandal", The Guardian, September 17 2005. Retrieved on 2006-08-13. 
  24. ^ Simon Kurs; Sally Kinnes. "Kings of the online jungle", The Sunday Times, January 1 2006. Retrieved on 2006-08-13. 

[edit] External links