Business Blog

18 April 2013 Last updated at 05:30 ET

Consumer association Which? has said that many car hire companies are confusing their customers with "sneaky charges".

Researchers examined the websites of 10 companies offering a week's car hire in Spain.

They found that some of them do not disclose additional costs, such as insurance, until after the booking has been confirmed.

Which? is asking the hire companies to disclose such charges upfront.

At the end of the online booking process, more than half of the Which? researchers were still uncertain about the total amount they were going to be charged.

There was particular confusion about charges for a full tank of fuel - charges which are compulsory.

The costs of optional excess damage waivers, to reduce the amount you would have to pay if the car was in an accident, were also unclear. The cost of such excess waivers can add £100 to the bill for a week's rental.

According to the Which? report, researchers were also uncertain as to whether such waivers covered them for damage to the windscreen or tyres.

Legal obligations

"The car hire industry is taking customers for a ride by hitting them with sneaky charges not included in the headline price," said Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which?.

"Car hire companies must be more transparent and upfront about their fees so people can make an informed choice," he said.

Which? would like car hire companies to show clearly on their websites:

• the amount of the excess
• the cost of the excess waiver, and what it covers
• the cost of compulsory fuel
• the cost of additional extras, like sat navs and additional drivers.

It says it is a principle of both European and UK law that essential information must be clearly stated at the point of purchase.

18 April 2013 Last updated at 06:37 ET

Telecoms operator TalkTalk has been fined £750,000 by the regulator Ofcom for making an excessive number of abandoned and silent calls.

In total the company made about 9,000 silent or abandoned calls to potential customers in 2011.

They were made through two call centres during a telemarketing campaign to attract new subscribers.

TalkTalk said it had terminated its relationship with those businesses as soon as the problem was discovered.

Software error

Ofcom said TalkTalk had exceeded the limit for such calls on four separate occasions in a seven week period.

Abandoned calls occur when a person answers the phone, but the caller then hangs up.

A silent call is where the phone rings, but there is only silence on the other end of the line, and no information message is played.

Ofcom said such problems were often caused by answer machine detection (AMD) technology.

Sometimes the software mistakenly identifies an answer machine or voicemail, and terminates the call, even though it has been answered by a human being.

Fines raised

"Silent and abandoned calls can cause annoyance and distress to consumers," said Claudio Pollack of Ofcom.

"Companies must abide by the law and Ofcom's policies. If they fail to do so then Ofcom will take firm action," he said.

TalkTalk said it was fair that Ofcom had imposed the fine, and blamed the two call centre operators concerned, Teleperformance Limited and McAlpine Marketing Limited.

It said it was in the process of recovering the fine from them.

"TalkTalk demands high standards from the companies it works with and as a result TalkTalk immediately stopped using these suppliers," said a spokesperson.

Last year, energy firm Npower was fined £60,000 by Ofcom for a series of abandoned calls which were made in 2011.

Two years ago the maximum fine for abandoned calls was raised to £2m.

18 April 2013 Last updated at 12:09 ET

A rare blue diamond has been unearthed at a mine in South Africa.

The 25.5-carat stone was recovered by Petra Diamonds at its Cullinan mine and is expected to bring large profits.

Experts say it could be worth more than $10m (£6m), and the find gave a boost to Petra's share price.

Similar finds in recent years from the Cullinan mine have commanded high prices and Petra, with operations in Botswana and Tanzania, is expecting a high level of interest from buyers.

"It's very unusual for a diamond of this quality and size to come to market," said company spokeswoman Cathy Malins.

The mine, north-east of Pretoria, has produced hundreds of large stones and is famed for its production of blue diamonds.

A similar 26.6-carat blue rough diamond discovered by the company in May 2009 was cut into a near perfect stone and fetched just under $10m at a Sotheby's auction.

It was named the "Star of Josephine" by its new owner.

Another deep-blue diamond from Cullinan was auctioned for $10.8m last year and set a world record for the value per carat.

In 1905, the renowned Star of Africa blue diamond - the world's second largest cut diamond - was discovered at the Cullinan mine.

The pear-shaped 530-carat stone was presented to King Edward VII and became part of the British crown jewels.

18 April 2013 Last updated at 10:00 ET

A giant mountain of maturing cheddar cheese is to be used as security for a pension fund.

Twenty million kilos of Cathedral City cheddar will now back up pension funds of workers at Dairy Crest, one of the UK's biggest cheesemakers.

Some 20,000 pallets of the cheese, nearly half the company's total stock, have been pledged to the pension fund trustees.

The cheese is made in Cornwall, but matured in a warehouse in Warwickshire.

It is kept on the shelves there for 12 months.

In the event of the pension fund running into financial trouble, the trustees will now be able to sell blocks of cheddar to make up the shortfall.

Like many companies in the dairy industry, Dairy Crest has been trying to eliminate its pension deficit.

It has not been helped by the huge numbers of retired milkmen, from the days when nearly every household had its milk delivered.

Of 3,000 members of the current scheme, most are milkman. The scheme is now closed.

And it is not the first company in the food industry to find an innovative way of plugging its deficit.

In 2010, drinks giant Diageo agreed to transfer millions of barrels of maturing whisky to a pension fund partnership, to help plug its financial shortfall.

Dairy Crest is also paying £40m in cash into the pension fund, from the proceeds of selling its St Hubert spreads business last year.

18 April 2013 Last updated at 18:15 ET By Diarmaid Fleming BBC News, Dublin

New plans to deal with personal debt have been announced by the Irish government.

A new state insolvency service has been set up to try to broker deals between debtors and lenders.

That could force those in mortgage trouble to give up their cars, private health insurance and holidays and feed themselves on 8 euros (£6.80) a day.

The period of bankruptcy will also be reduced from at least 12 years to just three.

The measures are part of an overhaul of Ireland's antiquated bankruptcy laws.

They are in response to a stalemate that has developed in Ireland between banks with rising mortgage debts and borrowers unable to meet their repayments, which the IMF says threatens Ireland's prospect for economic recovery.

Only a handful of bankruptcies take place in Ireland each year with the measure seen as a last resort under which banks have little prospect of recouping their losses.

A 2011 court ruling in Dublin effectively made it impossible for banks to repossess family homes.

Although some people have cut informal deals with lenders, the scale of the problem has forced the government action to provide new means of transparent and consistent debt resolution.

Uproar

The new Insolvency Service of Ireland will regulate "personal insolvency practitioners" - expected to be lawyers or financial services professionals - who will broker deals between banks and debtors whose finances will be run according to new guidelines.

Leaks of the draft guidelines sparked uproar in Ireland - with suggestions that some parents might be forced to quit work and look after their children instead of paying out childcare costs.

Irish Justice Minister Alan Shatter denied this at the launch.

"The guidelines on reasonable expenses provide an essential defensive shield to ensure that neither financial institutions nor other creditors attempt to deprive debtors of funds they truly need for reasonable household family expenditure, or indeed deprive debtors in employment from benefitting from continuing employment," he said.

The arrangements are designed to last for up to seven years, during which debtors must comply with the guidelines' spending limits.

These will mean serious financial and lifestyle restrictions, with an allowance for food limited to around eight euros a day in a country still one of the EU's most expensive to live in, despite the economic crash.

Cars are only allowed when there's no public transport alternative, while all socialising costs are limited to just under 29 euros a week and will not include items like cable television packages.

Those who don't enter into agreements could risk having their home repossessed, with the government expected to pass new legislation to make this easier.

Debt crisis

Ireland faces a mounting mortgage debt crisis after the collapse of the country's economy in 2008.

A property crash following years of boom has left many with high mortgages in negative equity.

House and apartment values have fallen more than 50% nationally since 2007.

Unemployment of 14% and wage cuts in a weak economy have also hit those with mortgages hard.

Almost one in eight of the country's private residential mortgages are in arrears - classed as 90 days or more behind with repayments - a figure which has been rising.

Statistics do not cover those who have negotiated reduced interest-only repayments with their banks to temporarily reduce their mortgage bills, meaning the underlying picture of those struggling with debt is worse.

The new insolvency regime has been driven by the troika - the European Commission, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

They have taken control of Ireland's finances since the country entered a bailout programme in 2010 following the crash of its banking sector.