Marks & Spencer contactless card reader charged wrong account

Reader tried to pay with a Visa card, but Marks & Spencer's contactless card reader took the payment from a Mastercard in her wallet. Photograph: Bobby Yip/Reuters

I recently visited a Marks & Spencer store in Chichester, selected some goods and went to the tills to pay. I entered my Visa debit card into the reader but it was ejected before I could enter my pin. The assistant asked me to reinsert my card and enter my pin. Before I could do that, the till showed her that payment had been received. I asked what had happened. She replied that she didn't know, but as far as M&S were concerned the payment was made.

When I left the store I checked the receipt and payment had been made via another card – my Mastercard. I did not want to make the payment from this account but it was debited anyway. The receipt said the payment was contactless.

I have since been in touch with M&S asking them to credit the account that this amount was debited for and let me know how I can make a payment from the account I wished to use. I don't know how often this has happened but I find it very disturbing that M&S can take money from a card which is in my wallet and which I had no intention of using for a transaction. I have written to M&S at its most senior level asking how it intends to stop such unauthorised debiting but they have failed to address my concerns or answer my questions properly.

Are there any other M&S stores where this has happened that I should avoid entering in case my card is accidentally debited?MG, Sheffield, South Yorkshire

You appear to have fallen victim to an apparent glitch with the new technology behind the increasingly popular option of contactless payment and which surfaced in May – again with M&S – and which has had shoppers frantically checking their credit card statements for peculiar transactions under £20. What seemed to happen is that some shoppers with cards that use near field communication (NFC) technology bring them too close to the card reader, which completes the transaction. This must have happened with your Mastercard, presumably because it was close to the reader. This has been a nationwide hiccup – admittedly not affecting large numbers of customers – rather than one affecting individual stores.

Ofgem put energy suppliers' price claims under fire

British Gas, SSE, Scottish Power and npower have all sought to blame increases in wholesale costs for their price rises. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

The "big six" energy firms are coming under increasing pressure over their recent price rises as official figures cast doubt on their claims that rising wholesale costs were to blame. Consumers are being hit by price increases of up to 11.1%. But data from the energy regulator Ofgemsuggested that wholesale prices rose by only 1.7% over the last year.

According to analysts, the price rises will hit more than 17 million customers. Real wages, in contrast, have fallen to their lowest level on record.

British Gas, SSE, Scottish Power and npower have all sought to blame increases in wholesale costs for their price rises, saying that government green schemes and rising network charges were also to blame.

"The prices that individual suppliers pay depend on their own hedging strategies, and the Ofgem methodology is, at best, an approximation of what those hedging profiles are," a British Gas spokesman told the FT. "We buy a certain amount of gas more than two years in advance, and if you look at the 24 month figure to October 2013, there has been an 18% increase in the wholesale cost."

SSE said the suggestion that wholesale costs had not risen over the last year was "simply false". "This is very much a global market and we are seeing increased international competition for supplies, which is putting up prices," a spokesman told the FT.

Representatives of all of the major energy firms are due to face MPs on Tuesday afternoon as the energy select committee investigates the latest prices rises. They will also go head-to-head with Ofgem's interim chief executive Andrew Wright.

UK economic recovery built on shaky foundations - again

The hollowing out of the UK’s industrial means a consumer-led recovery will suck in imports and crowd out exports. Photograph: EPA

Cast your mind back to the last year of Tony Blair's premiership. Growth is strong. The City is booming. House prices are rising. Boom and bust has been abolished. The shops are full to bursting.

Yet something is not right. The economy depends far too heavily on private and, to a lesser extent, public borrowing. Growth is heavily concentrated in certain sectors and in the south-east corner of the country, the manufacturing base is shrinking and the trade deficit is growing.

A book published just before Blair left Downing Street described Britain as Fantasy Island. Its thesis was that the economy was built on shaky foundations and that an almighty crash was coming. Full disclosure obliges me to record that I was a co-author of that book, for which the timing could hardly have been better as the financial crisis began within three months of its publication. My colleagues, somewhat harshly, said that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Six years on, it's worth asking what – apart from the arrival of a new government – has fundamentally changed. Is the UK in any better shape now than it was six years ago?

Here's the state of the nation. The economy grew by 0.8% in the third quarter of 2013, the fastest pace of expansion in just over three years. All four sectors, from tiny agriculture, which accounts for less than 1% of GDP, to services (77.8%), expanded, providing hope that the long-awaited recovery will be broad-based.

Scratch beneath the surface, though, and a different picture emerges. The service sector has just about regained all the ground lost during the recession of 2008-09, but the same cannot be said of industrial production and construction. After declining gently in the eight years leading up to the recession, industrial production subsequently contracted by 12% and after a double-dip downturn is now 15% below its peak. Construction has shown a similar profile. Activity flat-lined in the four years before the crash, dropped by almost 20% and is still 15% down even after the recent pickup.

As a result, the economy is even more sectorally unbalanced than it was before the financial crisis, and because the service sector is loaded towards the richer parts of the UK, more geographically skewed as well.

There are four ways in which an economy grows. Companies can decide they need new kit (investment); Britain can sell more overseas than other countries sell here (net exports); the state can play a bigger role (government spending) or households can spend more (consumption).

It has been the last of these sources of growth that has driven the rise in GDP since the turn of the year. Prices have been rising more rapidly than earnings, but that has not stopped consumers for going out on a bit of a spree. They have dipped into their savings and started to respond to the offers of unsecured lending, which, after a lull of a few years, have started to drop onto the doormat once again.

Consumer confidence has improved and the housing market has come back to life. Mortgage approvals are up, transactions are up and prices are up. The next thing to look out for is the return of equity withdrawal, borrowing against the rising value of a home.

When he was shadow chancellor, George Osborne used to express grave concern about what he considered Labour's flawed economic model. So did Vince Cable, in even more forceful terms. Accordingly, the strategy of the coalition was double-barrelled: less public and private debt, coupled with a greater reliance on investment and exports.

Things have not gone to plan. Business investment fell by 25% during the slump of 2008-09 and has flatlined ever since. Instead of splashing out on new plant and machinery, companies have employed more cheap labour to meet demand. Britain is a nation of zero-hour contracts and an ageing capital stock.

For the past three decades, UK trade has been the story of a growing deficit in manufactured trade offset by surpluses in oil, services and investment income. This picture has, however, changed in recent years. Oil can no longer be relied upon to balance the books and nor can investment income, which has declined markedly since the start of the financial crisis. A cheaper pound has made a slight dent in the deficit in goods, but weak growth in Britain's main market – the eurozone – has meant that the impact of the depreciation has been far more limited than in the past.

Britain has historically had a comparative advantage in traded services such as banking, insurance, consultancy and law, and runs a quarterly surplus of around £20bn. But this is still not enough to cover the deficit in goods, which runs at around £25bn a quarter.

Recovery begins with the nation's current account in a poor state, and the hollowing out of the UK's industrial base makes it a cast-iron certainty that a consumer-led recovery will suck in imports and crowd out exports.

Over time, these structural weaknesses in the economy will be exposed. In the short-term, however, the economy will continue to grow at a fair old lick. It is quite conceivable that a combination of easy credit, a pickup in investment and a recovery in world trade will lead to growth in excess of 3% next year.

Cheap borrowing will continue. The Bank of England has been surprised by the strength of the economy since its last inflation report in August, and Threadneedle Street is in no hurry to bang up interest rates too quickly, for fear of choking off the recovery.

Investment is the big imponderable. If businesses believe the increase in consumer demand or world trade is for real, they might decide the time is right to invest more. Parts of the corporate sector are cash-rich, so this might happen. But only if firms are sure that the brakes are not going to come on after the general election, when the Bank of England may decide to do something to rein in the housing market.

A big boost from world trade looks unlikely for the time being. Europe has a broken-backed banking system, the US a dysfunctional political system and the expansion of China and some of the other leading emerging nations is starting to slow. Ahead of the financial crisis, the global economy was growing at 5% a year. The new normal is around 3% a year, making an export-led recovery problematic.

Most likely, growth will be dependent on easy money, rising debt and a temporary fall in inflation prompted by falling food and commodity prices. It may take a couple of years before Britain again steams into the harbour on Fantasy Island, but if you look toward the horizon it's easy to see the palm trees swaying in the breeze.

Five questions that the big six energy firms must answer

Scottish Power was recently fined £8.5m for giving out inaccurate information. Photograph: Andrew Milligan/PA

The bosses of the big six energy companies will appear before the energy and climate change select committee on 29 October. The powerful group of MPs, chaired by Tim Yeo, will grill them on green levies, profit levels – and why consumers face such big increases in their bills. These are the questions they should ask:

Why have you increased household energy prices by up to 10% when inflation is almost a quarter of this?

The companies will argue that their costs have risen hugely because of wholesale power price increases and "green" levies. Don't take this at face value: companies buy a portfolio of future contracts lasting many years to ensure that their wholesale supplies will meet future retail demand. If they have underestimated their needs, that is their responsibility – and they could choose to absorb that cost. No one knows how much the power companies have bought in advance – and at what price – so independent experts have to take their arguments on trust.Green levies make up only 9% of the overall bill currently, a figure that will rise to 14% by 2020.

How can you say the retail energy market is competitive when more than 95% of households use of one of the big six firms?

The companies always argue that they are constrained from profiteering because consumers are free to switch to one of their competitors if they don't like price rises. But the dominance of the big six makes it very hard for small independents to enter the market. A consumer who consults one of the switching services will invariably be offered a change to another of the big six. Why is it that 30 years since the market began to be liberalised, a group of enormous firms still have a stranglehold over the sector? And why do they all put their prices up pretty much at exactly the same time, if they are not acting in concert in some way?

Why shouldn't the big six have their control of the wholesale power market broken up and separated, as Ed Miliband is arguing?

Companies such as Scottish Power will argue that currently they are making losses in both retail supply and wholesale power generation. But that is unusual. When companies are making massive profits in power generation they always say it is illegal for them to cross-subsidise their retail side, but the fact is they can choose where to take losses. It is also worth remembering that Centrica, the owner of British Gas, spent £500m buying back its own shares earlier this year to boost shareholder returns.

The big six claim the 5% margin they earn in retail is very low. However, this figure is in line with the big supermarkets. In Northern Ireland, where prices are capped, suppliers make just 2% profit.

Small retailers say it is hard to build market share – partly, they say, because the big six have the wholesale power market sewn up. Miliband is right to pledge an end to "vertical integration".

How much money do your trading arms make each year, and why do you not openly report those numbers to Ofgem and the public?

The big six will tell you that all their accounts are open to Ofgem scrutiny already, so they have nothing to lose from an open competitive review of the kind demanded by David Cameron. But they do not reveal their trading profits. In fact, the companies are reluctant to reveal even how many staff they employ in these operations – whose job is basically to speculate on market movements. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is a huge money-spinner. The MPs should push them to reveal everything about such departments, including whether they have given details to ongoing probes into gas trading irregularities.

Why have many of the big six been involved in mis-selling, overcharging or other abuses, and do you think – like the banks – that you are too big to fail?

There's probably no answer to the first of these, except "sorry". Days ago, the last of the big six, Scottish Power, paid an £8.5m fine after Ofgem found inadequate training and monitoring of staff had led to inaccurate information on annual charges, consumption calculations and tariffs being given out. E.ON, which was fined £1.7m in 2012 for overcharging, had to pay an additional £2.5m this summer to help its poorest customers meet their fuel bills this winter after it was found to beselling low-energy light bulbs it should have given away. SSE was fined £10.5m for "prolonged and extensive" mis-selling, while British Gas was fined £1m two years ago for misreporting how much energy it had supplied.

Too big to fail? Energy companies seem to be claiming, like the banks, that we need them more than they need us. They repeatedly warn that if they are not allowed to make profits they won't invest. Yet they've clearly not invested enough in the past, while their dominance in the market may have deterred other potential investors.

Grangemouth plant saved after Unite gives in to Ineos demands

A Grangemouth worker reacts to the news the plant will remain open, though many felt there was little to celebrate in the deal. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

Scotland's Grangemouth oil refinery and petrochemicals plant was saved along with 1,370 jobs on Friday after the Unite trade union gave in to the demands of its billionaire owner.

After two days of intense negotiation and frantic lobbying from the Scottish and Westminster governments, Jim Ratcliffe, the Swiss-based majority owner of Ineos, reversed his decision to shut the petrochemicals site. The closure would have resulted in 800 redundancies, put the adjoining refinery in jeopardy and caused severe damage to the economy of central Scotland.

Grangemouth employs 1,370 full-time staff and around 2,000 contractors, and supporting hundreds of local businesses. Workers punched the air and phoned their families as they streamed out of Friday morning's meeting, in which Grangemouth boss Calum MacLean announced Ratcliffe's about-turn. Ineos will now pump investment into a gas terminal that will receive cheap imported shale gas from the US.

Duncan Smith, an employee at the refinery, said: "It's great news for everybody in petrochemicals, but it's great news for the refinery too because we'd have had to look out for our jobs as well. We were all very worried about what the decision would be and when we heard the news there was a big cheer."

On Thursday, Unite accepted Ineos's "survival plan", which demanded an end to workers' final salary pensions, job cuts, a wage freeze and harsher redundancy terms. Only two days before, the union had declared victory over Ineos when the majority of its members voted against the company's proposals. Ratcliffe then dropped his bombshell and ordered the permanent closure of the petrochemicals plant, which was shut down along with the refinery on Wednesday as the dispute escalated.

Workers at the refinery knew that without its sister operation their jobs were also on the line and they told Unite to reverse its position.

On top of the Ineos plan, Unite agreed not to strike at Grangemouth for three years while management restores the loss-making plant to profit.

Ineos said the plant was losing £10m a month and that for the company to make £300m of required investment its workers had to forfeit their pensions, which it said cost an extra 65p for every pound paid in salary.

Despite the agreement, tensions still simmered between Ineos and the union.

Unite had rejected Ineos's claims that Grangemouth made a loss and accused Ratcliffe of using scare tactics to strip workers of their long-established working terms.

MacLean accused Unite of misleading its members. "If the union had taken the position they took in the last two days a week ago we might never have come to this and all this stress wouldn't have happened," he said.

Pat Rafferty, Unite's Scottish secretary, said: "Decent men and women are being asked to make sacrifices to hold on to their jobs, but the clear wish of our members is that we work with the company to implement its proposals.

Grangemouth's importance spreads far beyond the Forth Valley where the town's 18,000 population live. It is Scotland's biggest industrial site and supplies plastics to car plants and other manufacturers throughout the UK.

It is also a totemic symbol as Scotland prepares for next year's referendum on independence. Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, has stressed the country's economic strength as he has campaigned to split from the UK.

Salmond described the announcement as a "tremendous fillip for the workforce and the whole Grangemouth community, following what could have been a potential disaster".

There was also relief in Westminster, where there had been concerns that the loss of a huge manufacturing plant could have pushed other companies that rely on Grangemouth out of the UK.

MacLean said Ratcliffe had spoken several times to Salmond and ministers in London as he debated whether to stick by Grangemouth. Ineos also asked for assurances that its application for a £9m grant from the Scottish government and a £150m UK loan guarantee were on track.

MacLean said: "Our concern was that after recent events there would still be a commitment from the [Scottish] government. I was worried that the government needed to realise they were putting money into an asset that had a long-term future and that if there was lots of industrial action going on they might not have seen things that way."

Local traders expressed relief that the plant, with its well-paid workers and huge needs for support and maintenance, would be saved.

Ami Carson, who works at the Rumbling Tum food van, where Grangemouth workers queue for burgers and rolls, said: "It's great for us. Now we don't have to be worried about our business not being as busy. I'm really happy for the boys keeping their jobs. Everybody will be in great spirits."

Nawaz Haq, who bought the lease to the Grange Lea Hotel to cater for Grangemouth contract workers, said: "Grangemouth isn't a tourist town and there's not a lot of other business so I was extremely anxious that I had invested in a project that would leave me indebted for a number of years."

Gary Horne, who runs the local Abbotsinch pub and restaurant, said: "If they had closed, the local economy would have been devastated. We'll be full tonight."

The dispute between Unite and Ineos was complicated by the position of Stephen Deans, a union official and longstanding Grangemouth employee who was accused and cleared of working to rig the vote for the local parliamentary candidate.

Ineos has conducted its own investigation into Deans's party activity on Ineos premises and its findings were due to be released on Friday, but MacLean said Deans had "asked for a few days".

Get the most from your greens

On a knife edge: maintain ultimate freshness in your greens with our vital tips Photography: Jill Mead for the Guardian

How often do you end up culling the cabbage or ditching the dill? Here's how to get best from your shopping, and keep the compost bin a little bit hungrier.

At the shops or market
It's an obvious place to begin, but only buy what you need for the week ahead. Pre-chopped greens can spoil quickly, so try buying great value whole heads. Avoid BOGOF (buy one get one free) deals in the big supermarkets unless you have specific meal plans or can share your shopping with someone else. As Tesco revealed this week, as much of 68% of their bagged salads are wasted, with 35% ending up in the customer's own bin.

I tend to leave out the greens when shopping online, preferring to pick my own. Untrusting maybe, but worth it if you have time. Veg box folks should be receiving tip-top produce, but it can be a struggle to get through all that kale before it's past its best…

Buying the best
Leafy greens should have firm stalks and stems. Avoid anything limp or with signs of yellowing. Sometimes outer leaves look worse for wear, but the insides should be perky and have a fresh green smell. Have a good rummage for long sell-by dates or the bushiest bunch on the stall.

Shun floppy herbs or any with squidgy bits or fading colour. I use soft herbs like parsley such a lot that bunches work better for me than growing pots. However, I do avoid buying packs of hard herbs such as rosemary, as most recipes only need a sprig or two. A pot on the sill or in the garden lets you pick little and often.

Where to store
Once home, keep leafy veg in the salad drawer of the fridge. A chilly garage is a handy store for sturdier greens, but if that's not an option then washing, sorting and packing as soon as you get home is time and fridge-space saved for later in the week. Nearly all greens benefit from a rinse, a dry, and then wrapping in damp paper or cloth before bagging up for the fridge. For the full treatment, read on.

Be prepared
For loose leafy heads, snap each leaf away and discard any tough outer furls. Swoosh in cold water, soak for 5 minutes, then lift out and pat dry. Give delicate salads a turn in a spinner instead (or gather in a clean tea towel, hold tight and windmill it out of the window). Spread kitchen roll or reuseable cloth over the worktop, cover with the leaves, then roll up like a cigar. Pack into a plastic food bag, seal and chill.

For prewashed, bagged salads, once open, wrap in damp kitchen roll and you'll gain a day or two. Unwashed leaves seem to last longer than washed.

Happy herbs
Rinse and dry then gently wrap herbs in a duvet of just-damp kitchen roll. Sealed into a plastic bag or box, the herbs will stay fresh for up to a week in the fridge. Spare bay and makrut lime leaves freeze brilliantly.

Prioritise and planDespite all these tactics, it's still best to prioritise what needs eating up first. Plan to use salad leaves first, and hardier greens towards the end of the week. Make the greens the hero, in creamy pasta with simple garlic, chilli and lemon perhaps, or a steaming bowl of kale and chorizo soup.

Reviving tired leaves
Lacklustre leafy and stalky greens can be revived like cut flowers; trim the bottoms, stand in cold water and cover loosely with a plastic bag. Useful when the fridge is full, too. If herbs or bagged leaves have lost their vim, revive in a bowl of icy cold water in the fridge. A freezer pack has the advantage over ice cubes as the herbs won't stick to it.

Put into practice: Frisee and herb salade chapon

Frisee and herbe salade au chapon. Photograph: Jill Mead for the Guardian

A mix of fresh herbs, a lemony dressing and a subtly garlicky "chapon".

Serves 4
For the dressing
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1½ tbsp shallot, finely chopped
¼ tsp sugar
Salt and black pepper
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the salad
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, gently smashed and peeled
4 x 2cm slices of country bread, grilled or toasted
225g frisee (curly endive)
55g baby spinach
25g mixed herb leaves (eg mint, basil, coriander and chives)
3 radishes, very thinly sliced
Salt

1 Make the base for the dressing by stirring together the lemon juice, shallot, sugar, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Set aside.

2 For the salad; in a small saucepan, combine oil and garlic and gently heat for 5 minutes until the oil is fragrant and the garlic softened. (Tilt the pan, if necessary, to keep the cloves submerged in the oil, and take off the heat from time to time to keep from colouring.) Remove from the heat and whisk in a pinch of salt. Leave to stand for 10 minutes.

3 Put the grilled bread on a plate, drizzle with the infused oil, and spread the cloves on top. Tear the frisee into bite-size pieces; combine in a bowl with the spinach, herbs and radishes.

4 For the dressing; whisk the reserved dressing mixture and add the good-quality oil in a slow and steady stream. Vigorously whisk to emulsify, then drizzle the dressing over the salad. Toss the salad to combine. Season with several pinches of flaky coarse sea salt and toss once more. Divide the salad among 4 serving plates. Tuck the breads among the greens.

Iceland seeks UK funding for subsea cable project

The Blue lagoon at the Svarsengi geothermal plant. Iceland enjoys the cheapest electricity prices in Europe thanks to abundant geothermal energy, wind and hydropower. Photograph: Kim Hart/Robert Harding /REX/Rex Features

Iceland's president Olafur Grimsson is expected this week to call on the British government to provide financial support for the construction of a £4.3bn subsea electricity cable – which will be the longest in the world – linking his country to the UK's electricity grid.

The ambitious project, drawing on hydro geothermal and wind power generation, could deliver five terawatt-hours a year to Britain at a cost 15% lower than offshore wind, according to Iceland's state-owned electricity firm Landsvirkjun.

Grimsson's presence at a conference in London on Friday, arranged by Landsvirkjun and the British-Iceland chamber of commerce, underlines the seriousness with which the project is being taken. The two governments have been exploring proposals for a cable after signing amemorandum of understanding last May. However, before the contract can be put out to tender the huge cost will have to be underwritten by British taxpayers.

Iceland enjoys the cheapest electricity prices in Europe thanks to abundant geothermal energy, wind and especially hydropower from glacial meltwater. The industry generates more than 12 gigawatt hours of electricity, about five times the demand from Iceland's 317,000 population.

In recent decades Iceland has sought to exploit these resources by welcoming specialist power-intensive industries to its shores, particularly aluminium producers such as Rio Tinto and Alcoa. A handful of large aluminium processing plants absorb more than 70% of electricity generated in Iceland.

But as the aluminium market has suffered in recent years Iceland has sought to diversify. Bjorgvin Sigurdsson, director of business development at Landsvirkjen, said a subsea cable – which would be 10,000km long and sunk to depths of 1,000 metres – could meet 1.5% of UK electricity demand.

Unfortunately, this new source of power will not come quickly enough to alleviate the forecast squeeze on UK electricity supply which Ofgem predicts will increase the risk of blackouts by 2015. The subsea cable from Iceland would not be commissioned until 2022.

Nevertheless, the project appeals to the UK as the highly reliable potential energy in Iceland's hydro dams is seen as neatly dovetailing with Britain's expanding, but unpredictable, wind power generation.

As wind has become an increasing component of UK electricity generation, those tasked with matching UK supply with demand are increasingly facing a difficulty when usage spikes at times of when wind speeds drop. Few sources of generation, other than hydropower, can be brought on-stream at short notice to cover for lulls in wind.

A successful deal on the pipelines would do much to repair Anglo-Icelandic relations, which hit a low in the wake of the 2008 Icesave scandal, during which the Icelandic government refused to honour a promise to guarantee the deposits of hundreds of thousands of UK savers when the bank behind Icesave, Landsbanki, failed.

Grimsson played a major role in blocking two agreements between the Icelandic government and the UK to reach a financial settlement of the Icesave dispute. On both occasions he put the agreements out to a national referendum and they were overwhelmingly defeated. Ultimately the UK's efforts to force Icelandic taxpayers to honour the promise were defeated in the European courts.

In April, Iceland elected as prime minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, a nationalist figure who had campaigned fiercely against an Icesave settlement. His comments during the election campaign has left some in Iceland concerned that his perceived rough approach to foreign investors risks leaving the country starved of investment capital.