Cashpoints

Cashpoint con
Banks and police are warning about a new type of cashpoint fraud, called the Lebanese Loop after the birthplace of the gangs that started it. Fraudsters put a card, attached to magnetic ribbon, into a machine. The next card inserted will be swallowed. The fraudster watches, approaches his target, pretending to be helpful, and says the same thing has happened to him and can be remedied if the cardholder types in his PIN number. Later the holder's card is retrieved and used with the number the fraudster has memorised.

High fees foiled
Shoppers appear to be becoming more clued-up about the high interest charged - up to 30 per cent a year - on store cards. Market researcher Mintel says that 14 per cent of store card holders use their cards only once a year and 20 per cent hardly ever. Many stores offer discounts if a card is taken out to finance a purchase but the research suggests that many shoppers are wise to this, forsaking the cards once they've used the discount.

Wheely costly
Motorists are spending an average of nearly £2,000 a year each on running their cars. They spend £827 on petrol, making this the heaviest cost followed by insurance, which costs an average of £676, up 9.6 per cent on last year. The total spend on running and maintaining cars is an average of £1,923.

Top Marks?
Consumers buying their foreign currency can pay more than £20 extra in charges than they need to, according to Marks & Spencer, which claims to charge less than rivals. M&S says €800 costs £541.40 if bought through Tesco and £519.82 from its own bureaux.

Take no notice
Savers should no longer assume that notice accounts give the best rates. According to The Research Department, the average rate on £1,000 for all accounts where the minimum invest ment is £1,000 or less is 2.21 per cent for notice accounts and 1.83 per cent for instant access or no-notice accounts. But on the top-paying accounts there are more no-notice accounts paying four per cent or more - mostly through the internet - than notice accounts.

Check that phone
The consumer magazine Which? has launched a campaign to encourage mobile phone users to shop around for better deals. Which? claims that 10 million adult mobile users with pay-as-you-go deals where they are spending £19 a month or more on calls and buy a new handset every 20 months would be better off with contracts. The B Mobile campaign offers access to a website, www.switchwithwhich.co.uk where mobile users can enter their details and find out about better deals.

Money muddle
More than one in three UK adults do not know the difference between their bank's savings and mortgage rates. A survey by internet lender Intelligent Finance reveals that one in 10 people believes, mistakenly, that their savings rate is higher than their mortgage rate.