Alliance & Leicester customers who take the bank to the Small Claims Court to recover unfair bank charges are now being asked to take their business elsewhere.

Customers are increasingly aware that the level of charges levied by banks when overdrafts are exceeded, or payments returned, are considered unfair. The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) ruled in April that any charge over £12 would automatically be classed as unfair, warning banks and credit card companies that they could face legal action if they failed to comply.

Strong warnings from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) have caused Barclaycard, HSBC and Lloyds TSB to reduce their credit card penalty charges by almost half.

On 5th April, the OFT announced that it considered the high penalty charges made by many credit card companies to be unfair and illegal. It warned companies that if they would be defending their charges in court if they didn't take swift action to bring the charges down to a maximum of £12. Penalty charges are made when a borrower misses a payment date or exceeds their credit limit, and should only be set to cover certain administrative costs.

Yesterday the BBC reported that Barclaycard, HSBC and Lloyds TSB had all reduced their penalty charges by almost half from £20 to the new £12 threshhold.

Research released today shows that men are almost twice as likely to become bankrupt than women, with average debts of £46,000.

The gap is narrowing, however, with men accounting for 61% of bankruptcies in 2005, compared to 68% in 2001. The average age of a bankrupt is now 41, down from 43 in 2001. A noticeable trend is the rise in the number of younger people declaring bankrupty, rising from just under 8% in 2001 to nearly 19% in 2005. This supports widely held opinion that younger people are viewing personal bankruptcy with less stigma and increasingly as a lifestyle choice to unburden themselves from debt.

A call from a worried customer to Consumer Direct has led to a holiday club scam being put out of business.

PR Holidays Ltd, a Liverpool company, was offering membership of a holiday club that had already gone out of business. The holiday club, Network Vacations, used to be known as Intasun Holidays, and was wound up by the High Court in Edinburgh in July 2005 after an investigation found that it was knowingly misleading customers as to what they would receive for their fee of nearly £5000.

The financial regulator the Financial Services Authority has banned a financial adviser from any work involving authorisation following his failure to treat his customers fairly in his handling of the Pensions Review.

Jonathan Townrow and his company JMT Associates of Cannock, Staffordshire (JMTA) are no longer allowed to trade despite having been in the financial services industry for over 20 years. Townrow was branded a "severe risk to customers" by a tribunal hearing an appeal against the decision.

The charity Citizens Advice is warning consumers to be wary of lottery scams that inform people they have won, then trick them into paying money for prizes they will never receive.

The charity explains that scamsters contact people through mailshots, faxes and cold calling by phone to explain that their ‘lucky numbers’ have come up and they have won an exclusive prize or exotic holiday. Many people are so excited about their win that they respond by giving their bank details to claim what they have been led to believe is theirs. But the prizes do not exist, people are conned out of their money, and are left feeling vulnerable and all too often in a difficult financial position.

A company that sells courses about the property market has been warned on five separate points for making misleading claims in a direct mailing.

In the advertisement, Inside Track Seminars failed to make clear the risks associated with property investment, used excessively emotive language, and made unsubstantiated claims about earnings and becoming debt free. The company also promised to identify prime properties that are never advertised, but were unable to back up the statement.

The national charity Citizens Advice is warning of increasing numbers of people falling for psychic products and services which are in fact scams.

The CAB is worried about false psychics who operate a scam by placing advertisements in newspapers, magazines and the internet and offer to send astrology readings for a fee. In some cases they use scare tactics and send out unsolicited mailings with an aggressive tone, suggesting that the recipient will experience some misfortune if they do not respond and send the money requested.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has revealed that younger and affluent people are just as likely as anyone else to fall for a scam.

Early results from a major research project commissioned by the OFT show that nearly half of the UK population - or 20 million consumers over the age of 15 - have been targeted by a scam. The proportion targeted is highest in the middle age ranges, with 54 per cent of those in the range 35 to 44 years and 58 per cent of those in the range 45 to 54 years having been targeted by a mass-marketed scam in the last two to three years.

Increasing numbers of people are falling victim to a con where companies charge money to arrange a loan which often never materialises. Such arrangement fees are rarely returned, even when then the loan doesn't arrive or is offered on different terms.

Evidence from Citizens Advice Bureaux shows that the loan companies target people who can’t get loans from regular sources, often people with a poor credit rating and on a low income who really cannot afford to lose the arrangement fee.