Farepak Help

[Gavin Scott]

Good food and wine and plenty of it is an essential ingredient to the perfect Christmas. However, the supermarkets are always so busy over Christmas and you can't always get what you want, or you forget a key item; having to cope with full car parks, long queues and heavy bags leaves you stressed out before you even start!

Farepak takes this hassle out of Christmas, by giving you a service where you can choose everything you want and save for it up front, giving you quality food and top brands delivered free direct to your door, saving you from all the problems above, and leaving you relaxed and stress free, so you can enjoy the perfect Christmas with your family.

That's it?? Avoid a queue at the supermarket? Some people wouldn't know "stress" if it bit them on the ass.

For the nominal 5% saving with the vouchers, I'd sooner keep a jar with £5 notes saved on the bookshelf and shop at Lidl.

I feel for anyone who has lost money, but I really fail to see what they signed up for.

[Gavin Scott]

Some people wouldn't know "stress" if it bit them on the ass.

You'd be surprised - I know a girl who's so stressed she's been signed off work for the past 18 months.

Lazy cow.

Oh I know some examples like that. Good-for-nothing sponges.

[Stuart*]

That's it?? Avoid a queue at the supermarket? Some people wouldn't know "stress" if it bit them on the ass.

For the nominal 5% saving with the vouchers, I'd sooner keep a jar with £5 notes saved on the bookshelf and shop at Lidl.

Certainly it is easy enough to open a savings account just to keep money for Christmas, at least you would know how much was in it (and nobody else could get their mitts on it).

As for avoiding queues at Christmas - most major supermarkets will deliver now and you simply order on-line. Hardly stressful!

I think the days of these schemes were probably numbered anyway, which is why HBOS pulled the plug on Farepak's overdraft!

[peterrocket]

As much as I don't want to be a scrooge, people are stupid enough to be investing in it then they maybe deserve what happened as that was the risk... "Christmas is ruined" etc. etc. Well why didn't you put the money in a bank.

What did it for me was the woman who critisised the shops coming to their aid offering vouchers for their stores rather than cash.

I mean, wise up. The shops are doing it for kindness - well more likely good PR and free publicity if they're seen to help.

[marksi]

There was a woman on the NI news who said she'd been putting £50 (fifty pounds) a week into Farepack since January.

Now, she did look the sort who may have had 9 kids by 12 fathers but even so, bloody hell, that's £2500. Or it would have been had the firm not gone tits up.

[rts]

My heart sank when I read this today.

[Dr Lobster*]

May I quickly ask why the BBC considers that to be "News"?

quite, i just love it whenever ruth kelly says *anything* it's slapped across the 'latest' ticker on the front of the news.bbc.co.uk frontpage.

[nwtv2003]

It's been winding me up, it has made me turn off Granada Reports permanently now, they just whinge and beg for E-Mails about it. I have no sympathy for people who've lost money in the Farepak thing, yes it was unfair what happened, yes Christmas is not a cheap affair. Though why don't people use their common sense and just save the money and then get everything from the High Street themselves and decide what they want to spend their hard earned cash on.

It winds me up more when they go to a Council estate in the middle of the North with a single mum of 9 kids saying: "What do I tell them?" "Tell 'em Santa's not coming...?"

Why not just Open a Savings account at the Bank, create a weekly/montly standing order to it, spend it at Christmas and also gain extra Interest that grows on it. But the Great British Public strike again and prove their brightness..

[tvmercia]

i can find a little sympathy for the people caught up in this saga, as it seems far more responsible for those who haven't got much, to put a little away for christmas in advance - rather than borrowing, at very high interest rates from the likes of provident, and then whinging that they can't afford to repay.

i am bored of hearing about it on the news though.

[Pete]

I too am bored of this.

M&S have also been kind enough to completely reimburse any staff affected by the issue in vouchers. The offer of 25% of vouchers from them and Sainsburys is also very kind, as are the donations form Tesco and the like.

I have no sympathy for those whinging. I can't understand why anyone would partake in one of these schemes. It's like when Rover went bust. Those people were bloody lucky to have a job for 30 years. If they had no pension that was their problem.

[DVB Cornwall]

I'm sorry but MP's are getting so carried away with this ....Here's the latest .......

MPs call for FTSE Farepak pledge

MPs have urged Britain's top 100 firms to donate a day's profits to the rescue fund for victims of the collapsed Farepak Christmas savings scheme.
The fund has passed the £5m mark, with a £250,000 donation from Barclays bank and £50,000 from Nationwide.

The administrators of the fund have now extended the deadline for donations until 1800 GMT on 29 November.

About 150,000 people are estimated to have lost a total of up to £50m when Farepak collapsed in October.

news.bbc.co.uk

David Buick of Cantor Index on News24 was apoplectic (yes - a long word) at the absurdity of this earlier.