Bring back Keydata Victims Website

What has happened to the protest website for angry investors with Keydata, the failed investment firm?

The hugely popular and busy website, which attracted scores of comments on its forums every day, was pulled down - according to reports - on the morning of Saturday August 14.

Nothing has appeared since. The site's full address is: http://keydatavictims.ning.com/

As you'll see if you visit, the site currently says: 'this social network is offline'.

The web has transformed the way victims of many financial scandals can get together to lobby for redress, raise funds for publicity or legal actions, or simply to comfort each other and chat. The Keydata scandal has shown just how important these sites can be. This story has unfolded, to a large extent, online.

Standing seats & Ryanair’s dance with the media

And around we go again. Ryanair grabs more headlines with a hair-brained money saving scheme that threatens to further reduce the dignity of the customers that provide its business. 

This time it’s the news that the budget airline will start research into ‘standing’ seats – rows upon rows of Hannibal Lecter-style braces that pack yet more passengers onto planes and reduce fares to as low as £4.

Oh, and it has thrown in toilets you need to pay for too, taking Ryanair another step closer to the veal transporter model it obviously strives for.

Except neither plan will happen. Not ever.

CGT: What to expect - and lessons from history

Guest blog: With the prospect of a rise in Capital Gains Tax looming, David Kilshaw of accountants KPMG guesses what the coalition may have planned for the Budget on June 22, and examines what history can tell us about CGT changes...


Capital gains tax is less than 50 years old – an irony that won’t be lost on the many who had been holding assets such as second homes to fund their retirements.  But since its inception in the 1960s, the regime has been changed a number of times.  

It’s been at the same rate as income tax, lower than income tax, inflation allowances introduced, inflation allowances withdrawn, ‘taper’ relief given according to the time an asset is held and different rules applied for different assets.

Our team has been deluged with enquiries about what rate is likely to apply, whether there will be a preferential regime for entrepreneurial assets and whether there will be any sort of allowance for inflation.  We won’t know the answers to these questions until 22 June but we hope and expect that there will be some sort of allowance based on asset types and also for inflation and that rates may not be as high as the 50% top rate of income tax.

Will BP really be able to maintain its dividend?

Another day, another attempt to smother the Gulf of Mexico oil leak.

This time BP’s plumped for the good old ‘bathtub plug’ philosophy - placing a cap onto the leaking oil well. 

Even if it does prove effective, the US Coast Guard says the cap would only be a temporary, partial fix. And whisper it quietly, but the truth is that BP’s tried this method before. And guess what - it failed. 

Suffice to say Barack Obama is not a happy bunny. In an interview with CNN, he said BP had already ‘felt his anger’ over the spill.

The BBC's man on the ground, David Shukman, pretty much hit the nail on the head when he said BP are essentially ‘making it up as they go along’.

It’s all become rather desperate, hasn’t it? For everybody involved, from BP chief executive, Tony Hayward (pictured at the scene of the crime, above), to the company's investors, to the irrevocably damaged sea-life: the outlook has turned as abhorrently black as the leaking oil itself.

It the meanwhile, BP’s share price has plummeted from 650p in mid-April to less than 450p today (Friday morning). But of equal concern – particularly to pension funds and income investors – will be the effect on the dividend.

Cartel farce should never be repeated

What a sad, sorry episode we have witnessed with the rise and fall of the claims management company Cartel Client Review - one we should never witness again.

I feel sorry for those people who were, let's say, naive enough to part with money they could ill afford to a company promising to free them of all their debts. As the saying goes, if it’s too good to be true …

That’s lesson No.1. Do your homework before parting with large amounts of money for any service. From the moment we heard about Cartel and companies like it in 2008, we warned customers to steer clear, as did our sister title Money Mail. Many, approximately 50-70,000, didn’t listen.

Are unpaid internships fair?

The life of the graduate intern is supposedly a world of unpaid work where the academically gifted are treated like schoolchildren.

According to the Office of National Statistics there are currently 2.46m people unemployed (based on figures from October and December 2009).

Work experience or internships are nothing new but with so many people competing for jobs are graduate interns being exploited?

Don't forget to vote in our poll: Are unpaid internships fair?

We asked two of the This is Money team, news editor Ed Monk and web journalist Tara Evans to battle out their views.

Buffett warns big bosses: You're responsible for dangerous deals

When one of the world’s most successful businessmen speaks, it usually pays to listen.

So any multi-millionaire chiefs chomping at the bit for a return to pre-crisis gung-ho lending and risk-bashing investing tactics, should be interested to hear that world-renowned investor Warren Buffett has dealt them a damning critique.

Top stories of the week

1. Rate cut will see the '8p-a-month mortgage'
2. Savers can get better rates at auction site
3. Rates 'headed for zero' as Bank cuts to 1%
4. Interest rates cut to 1% as economy fails
5. Is this the death of the high rate cash Isa
6. Revealed: the worst banks in the UK
7. Bank running out of interest rate options
8. House prices in shock 1.9% January jump
9. Car makers raise prices 5% after bailout
10. Aviva gets cold feet over £1,000 windfalls

Web Week: Parents rush for tax rebate

Every penny counts. And now the recession is official our readers are keen to recoup money in any way – especially if it’s from the Government.

The most read story, by a very long way, was a deadline warning for thousands of parents to claim Children's Tax Credit Relief. It could pay as much as £1,049, but disappears for good in less than a week (January 31).

Pensioners should push for their own rebate with a 'con' on pension credits. The State assumes pensioners receive 10 per cent interest on savings when means-tested credits are calculated. With the base rate at 1.5 per cent, savers earn nothing like that. A pensioner with £16,000 tucked away could be losing £850 a year from this error. Pension credits have long been unpopular with our readers.  Danny from Essex wrote: ‘Gordon Brown can dole out hundreds of millions to his banker buddies to protect their jobs…but he is too mean to increase the state pension to a living level!’ Have your say at thisismoney.co.uk/pension-credits.

Following last week’s bank bailout II and the descent of RBS to penny status, we also explored the impact of a multiple banking failure on public finances and the UK’s £50,000 savings compensation guarantee. Despite assurances that bankrupt Britain remains an unlikely scenario, readers have learned to expect the unexpected in this crisis: our poll showed only 16 per cent still have total faith in the UK savings guarantee.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money

Most read stories of the past week...
1. Childrens Tax Credit Relief: How to claim
2. Pensions credit 'con' punishes 550,000
3. Banks shares crash on RBS £28bn loss
4. Financial crisis: The impact on UK banks
5. 'Sterling finished' claim after 6 cent slump
6. New £200bn bailout for UK banks
7. Peter Oborne: We're a nation on the brink of going bankrupt
8. How to escape the big savings trap...
9. Lloyds down 31% amid taxpayer stake threat
10. UK officially enters recession as GDP falls 1.5%

Web Week: No more bank bailouts, thank you

Most read stories published in the past week

1. Find the best savings as rates tumble
2. HSBC delivers 2.99% mortgage deal
3. Bank funding fears send shares plunging
4. Parents must act now to save £1,000 in tax
5. Stay warm without relying on the heating
6. Equitable Life victims win payout victory
7. 'Soaring gas bills' if Russia keeps tap off
8. Mortgage lenders tell borrowers to overpay
9. Estate agents' sales drop to record lows
10. Will the gold rush continue in 2009?

UK banks are running low on cash and may get more taxpayer funds, despite growing opposition. Our new poll shows nearly 68% of our readers against further bailouts.

Bankers are not alone in receiving State help. Shoppers had a VAT cut and struggling homebuyers may get mortgage holidays. Even consumer finance companies, which flourished in the boom, may get money in return for making car loans cheaper.

But all this recession-busting is costly and readers, who initially welcomed Gordon Brown's frenetic activity, are worried. Today’s 68% reader opposition compares to just 49% after the first bailout in October. Danny F of Essex wrote: ' The Government in panic is pouring public money into all banks which ask for it without properly determining the true solvency position of each candidate.'

The fear is that billions have already been spent and credit remains restricted. Fresh attempts may be as fruitless and lead to even larger future taxes.

And with many middle-ranking City workers still preciously guarding six-figure salaries, Middle England workers have no appetite to gamble their future income on more bank bailouts.

- Andrew Oxlade, Editor, This is Money