Shah Mahmood Qureshi, thank you for When we asked you to tell us about
the rip-offs that affected you, you didn't ds appoint.
Are you going to knock on the bad people's door? We will be taking
the Chief Executives to task. We surveyed over 2,000 UK
households to get your opinions and our Rip-Off Britain mailbags have
been filled with your stories. We've read every single one and now
we can reveal our round-up of the top rip-offs that are driving you
crazy. Welcome to Rip-Off Britain a new
consumer programme in which we are going to be investigating those
rip-offs that really drive you mad. This week we are taking on the
major companies on behalf of those with a small voice.
Today, it is the banks we've got in Bumper bonuses and banks in crisis.
The battle for our cash is well and truly on. With every penny counting,
we are here to make sure that you are not being ripped off and you
have given us plenty plenty to work with. You told us about the banks
that cash in after your death. She said it would be about £325 an
hour and the total was going to come to £25,000. I was horrified.
The small print clauses that come with a hefty price tag.
Banks know we don't read the small print. They rely on it.
As well as hearing the stories you told us throughout the series, each
day we will unveil the results of our exclusive Rip-Off Britain
Survey. We asked what you thought about the
banking industry and there are a few surprises.
Time to find out what really gets on your nerves.
We start with one of the biggest names on the high street, Barclays
Bank. In the first-half of this year it reported pre-tax profits of
almost £3 billion. Impressive stuff, well less impressive is the advice
it gave to customers which led to their life savings being almost
David and Sheila Morgan should be enjoying their retirmt, but they
are -- retirement, but they are not. They turned to the bank they had
been with almost half a century for financial advice, but that turned
out to be a costly mistake. In January of this year, they received
the devastating news that they lost a staggering £188,000. It gave us a
bitter feeling in our mouth to know we had been mis-sold the fund in
the first place. The Morgans had been encouraged by
Barclays to invest their saves savings in the Aviva Global scal
balance Fund. We made an appointment to see a
financial adviser in Barclays. She said they had talked to her bosses
and this was very safe and they would recommend we put it into the
one fund. So David and Sheila invested
£360,000, earning Barclays a nice fat commission.
You would never if you were a responsible adviser put all the
eggs in one basket as it were. Investment funds are grade indeed
terms of risk. The one David and Sheila went with was deemed to be
adventurous, but crucially that information was not given to them.
Richard Davis believes cases like the Morgans are the tip of the
iceberg. I saw three people in in two-days
who had the same complaint and it became apparent that this was
endemic or an epidemic of bad advice that Barclays was following
around the country from different branches.
We worked all our life to get it and we hadn't got a big pension and
we relied on this money to take us through our old age and we lost
over 50% of it. Later, we ask Barclays for answers
and reveal how the Morgans weren't It is a cause of great concern to
many of us, identity theft is said to be one of the fastest growing
crimes in Britain, but is the protection the banks are offering
us from this £1 billion rip-off It is a nightmare scenario. Someone
accesses your personal details, steels your identity and creates a
second you, running up debts you will be responsible for.
So when your bank offers insurance to cover the cost of identity fraud,
it might sound like a sensible thing to do, but at up to £80 a
year, fraud ID insurance maybe an easy way for them to profit from
our fears. For most people identity fraud
insurance is a waste of money. It is an easy sell because it is the
idea that you don't want to be a victim of identity fraud and you
don't want to be alone if you are trying to get your money back or
deal with your credit record. The liability rests with the banks,
unless you have left your card around or given your details to
fraudsters, you will get your money back, the most you might have to
pay is £50. £50 is the limit that the Banking
Code of practise sets out as the most consumers are responsible for
should they be the victim of fraud so you don't need insurance to get
your money back or set the record straight.
If you have had something stolen, an account has been opened in your
name. You need to contact one of the credit reference agencies and
they have the victims of fraud team where they will help you rebuild
your credit history. They will contact the other credit reference
agencies for you. Although ID fraud is a growing crime, it affects less
than 70,000 people a year. The best way to fight identity fraud is by
taking care of our personal details. What I recommend consumers do is
check yir credit file -- their credit file from time to time. You
can get it free if you sign up to credit monitoring services for 30
days. Check your bank statements and things like don't leave
receipts around, but just make sure you keep control of your data. It
is data about you, treat as as value bli as you would leave cash.
If you think of it in monetary terms, you might treat it more
carefully. Still to come, we asked you to tell
us how you have been ripped off and you filled our postbag and ibox
with your stories. We have a round- up of the worst of your banking
experiences including how the banks can make money from you, even when
you're dead. Back to Barclays and the investment
fund that their staff recommended leaving some customers thousands of
David and Sheila Morgan feel ripped off. They were adviced to put their
life savings into an investment fund and were assured that it was a
safe bet. But they ended up losing thousands
of pounds. Their bank, Barclays, recommended they they invest in the
Aveeia A Aviva Fund. We contacted Barclays to see why
their advice had gone wrong. They admitted they made a mistake
in classifying the fund and told us they offered redress to David and
Sheila and are reviewing their practises to ensure it doesn't
happen again. The Morgans aren't alone in feeling
misled. It is thought hundreds of people could have been affected.
91-year-old Isaac Price received a payout of £200,000 as a result of
his complaint. Investing large amounts of money
will always come with a risk and should never be taken lightly.
Financial expert, Annie Shaw thinks we wrongly rely on our banks to
keep our savings safe and to give us the answers.
The bank manager used to be a member of the community. You played
golf with him. You meet him at church. This is not how banks are
run these days. They are there to serve their shareholders. To make
money and that's quite right for a big business, but you as a consumer,
have to be aware that's what is going on.
As for the Morgans, they have rejected the compensation offered
by Barclays and are fighting on by taking their case to the Financial
Ombudsman. I'm joined by the financial expert
that we saw in the film, Annie Shaw. The lesson from that film is that
you should not put all your eggs in one basket? Definitely not, that's
the rule of investing in whatever you choose to put your money
because if anything happens to it, it is all at risk. You should
diversify and put your money in different places and in different
asset classes so that might be some savings, some stock markets.
Spread the risk? Yes, definitely. Clearly with investment rates at
0.5% people are going to be tempted to take something that's higher
risk if they want to ensure that they are going to have some kind of
income for the future? Unfortunately, that tends to be a
direct correlation between risk and reward. My add rise is to really,
really -- advice advice is to really, really assess your attitude
to risk. If you cannot bear to lose one penny, you cannot do that. You
must not take any risk at all. If you think, "I can maybe lose a
bit." That opens up a few more possiblities. You have to speculate
to accumulate. If you can risk all your money, maybe you will make
millions, but maybe you will lose your shirt. Where the problem
arises is where people don't want to take risk. They think the risks
are non-existent or minimumal, but get lured into taking what amounts
to a fair amount of risk and this is the problem that perhaps banks
have been minimising what the risks have been.
If you are mis-sold something, what recourse do you have? If they have
been genuinely mis-sold, you should be able to get compensation. If you
have got a genuine complaint and and often it is difficult to
ascertain whether you have, you should first first complain to
theperson who sold you the product and if they don't play ball, you
can go to the Financial Ombudsman to make a complaint and they will
rule, but the problem is whether it has been a mis-selling case or
whether it has been an misunderstanding. The banks should
be explaining everything fully, but the point is that they are salesmen.
They are trying to make a sale. The bottom line is, don't trust the
banks because you can't assume that they are going to have your best
financial interests at heart? No, not really because banks will
only sell you what they have got on sale and something a different
product from a different supplier might be what you need, but the
bank is not going to tell you about it because it doesn't sell it.
Don't go to a bank for financial advice? Anybody would be mad to go
to their bank for advice. That's not what you go for. You go to open
an account and buy a product you researched yourself and you
understand. You do not go to a bank for advice. You would be crazy.
Would you be inclined to trust financial advice from your bank?
It seems not. Our independent survey of consumers
across the UK revealed that just 13% of you would trust the advice
given to you by your bank. It is not something we like to
think about, but getting your affairs in order before you die
should save your loved ones time and money. The administering of
your estate or probate isn't something that should be taken
lightly because a wrong call can Francis's father died this year.
His affairs were in order, but the family were shocked when they saw
the fees being charged to settle his estate.
£600,000 is the value of his estate. 4% equates to £24,000, plus the VAT
and dispersement we might be talking about £26,000 which we felt
was extortionate. Francis's father left his estate to
his widow and was concerned his mum was being ripped-off.
Francis Francis asked for a meeting with the probate adviser.
I put it to them we would like to shop around to find alternative
solicitor to say deal with the probate. He said they are down on
the will as an executor and that was their duty and we had no choice
in the matter. We have been distressed enough with my father
passing on. Now my my mum is ill. The reason that I'm trying to
pursue this is so I can release funds from my father's estate so
that they can be used tor the care of -- for the care of my mother.
Francis's situation is far from unusual. When Adam's father died,
he found himself with a similar battle on his hands. When he
contacted his dad's solicitor about his will.
She said it would be £325 an hour and the total was going to come to
£25,000. I was horrified. I went online and did research and within
a few hours, I managed to get a quote for £6300 for the same job.
With a huge difference in cost, Adam decided to change solicitors
only to fin the law was not on his side. We will We will find out how
Now we know how keen the banks are to get their hands on our cash and
when it comes to savings, there seems to be a host of offers for us
to take advantage of. If you don't read the small print you may not be
Cliff once worked in the financial services industry, but switched
sides to become a journalist and money adviser, a poacher turned
gamekeeper. When it comes to savings, he knows the pit falls to
look out for. Savings accounts are like icebergs
because nine tenths of what is important is hidden below the
surface. Banks tend to lure you in with a headline rate, so the devil
is in the detail and it pays to look into what you've bought.
According to Cliff there are two traps to avoid.
One of the biggest trap trap introducktry bonus. This lasts six
or 12 months. The problem is, once that ends, your short-term cherry
picks a long-term lemon. It is probably best to move on when that
ends. The other thing is when banks claim to have easy access, but
penalise you. If you withdraw a fiver, you will lose a month's
interest on your balance. It is all in the small print. The
problem is, we don't always read it. Banks know we don't read the small
print. In fact, they rely it. We end up with terms and conditions
seven pages of small print. Do you have the time to read all of this?
I don't and it is my job. Even if we do bother to read the
small print, there is a chance we won't understand it.
Marie Claire says often it is imcome prehencable.
We looked at the definitions they have given for the terminology in
the leaflet. For instance, "the net Rape rate is -- the net rate is an
illustrative rate. In brackets the tax position affecting our accounts
is subject to changes in the law." What that actually means in plain
English is the rate of interest after tax has been taken off. Why
make it so difficult and long wind ad why use those words that people
are not familiar with? If D'Arcy agrees, but until we read
the small print, we will keep on It is not just the small print on
savings accounts that you have got to watch out for. It is It is
everywhere. Take credit cards. We know that they are an expensive way
of borrowing so more and more of us are swapping cards and transferring
balances to take advantage of berates. But if you don't pay
attention to the terms and With the highest number of credit
card borrowers in Europe, here in Britain we love spending on our
cards. But we don't love the charges.
You get a credit card thinking it will help you out financially and
you wrack up the development I don't think they give you long
enough to pay it off and the charges are too high.
According to the consumer association, Which?, those charges
are actually getting higher, despite a fall in the cost of
borrowing. Over the last 12 months, Bank of
England rate has fallen from 5% to 0.5%. Over the same period,
interest rates on credit cards have gone up from around 16% on average
to 17%. That's ridiculous. It is not only rate increases that
have been costing the consumer money, even those people who signed
up to a 0% balance transfer deal could find themselves paying more
than they bargained for. Leo thought he was getting a good
deal when he moved his balance of £12,000 on to a 0% credit card.
I transferred the balance to get the six month 0% interest rate.
agreed to a direct debit of £200 a month to pay off the balance.
But he didn't realise this wasn't enough to cover the minimum payment.
As a result they put my interest rate up from 0%, the reason I
joined the credit card in the first place. They put it up to 34.9%.
He now pays £250 each month in interest payments alone.
They rely on the fact that people don't scrutinise every line in
their statement and soon as that minimum fee isn't met, they hike up
the interest rate. This is the sort of way I would expect a loan shark
to operate. If you have got a credit card,
right now, it is critical that you do not miss payments. It is crit
keel that you -- critical that you don't let your credit card provider
sting you fees. Leo is determined not to fall into
the same trap again. In future, I will try and stay away
from credit cards at every turn. But if I have to have a credit card,
I will scrutinise every statement Coming up, we made a UK wide appeal
for your tales of rip-offs and this week, we are on the case of some of
Britain's biggest businesses on your behalf.
In the final part of our round-up of the top rip-offs, we will be
hearing how some pension options could put you on the road to ruin.
When putting your affairs in order after your death, it is fair to say
your priority is to benefit your Probate is big business. Generating
£1 billion a year. The prices charged can vary as Adam
Walker found out when he saw how much the executors of his father's
will intended to charge him. He was a very very frugile man all
his life. It was an appropriate amount of money for the work
involved. Adam was keen to charge solicitors,
but removing an executor isn't easy because they have no legal
obligation to stand down. Banks and solicitors refuse to do so claiming
that that they are fulfilling the requests of the deceased.
I said that if she insisted on doing the work I would be a hostile
client and I would complain to the Law Society that she was
overcharging and ask for an independent assessment of the bill.
And when I said that, with a lot of ill grace, she agreed to drop the
case. I shouldn't have had to do that at that time. It was a a
horrible, horrible experience, all I wanted three weeks after my
father died was to mourn his passing in peace and to have that
battle was just shocking at that time.
In Kent, Francis is still fighting for a better deal for his
motherment they were -- mother. They were quoted a probate fee of
£25,000 after the deft Francis -- death of Francis's father. Francis
is determined to fight on. I have been shopping around. They
have quoted me a figure of £2400 maximum for dealing with an estate
of my father's size. A test case to decide if banks and
solicitors can be prevented from taking large chunks out of people's
inheritance is due to be heard in the High Court within the next year.
But until the law is changed, Francis condition remove his
solicitor as executor of his father's will and that left him
angry. It staggers belief really what some
companies can feel they can get away with simply for being an
executor on a will. You will agree a lot of questions
to be answered there and joining us is Gary Rye-Croft.
When it comes to probate, it is big business, what advice do you have
so people can avoid the problems we have been watching? Probate fees
ought to reflect the complexity of the will and the complexity of the
estate. For instance, you may have £1 million estate, but it passes to
the widow and all the assets are come priced in one bank account.
You wouldn't expect to pay much for the probate fees.
It is confusing because there are so many charges, you have an hourly
rate, you have a letter rate, you have probate rate, where do you go
from there? There are different wayss of charging. There is the
percentage and the hourly rate and a fixed fee. That's something that
you ought to talk about with the solicitor at the outset so the key
to it all is being informed. Under our rules of conduct we have to be
clear about what we are going to charge and no one should have a
nasty surprise. What can people people do if they
think they are they are being overcharged? There is a solicitors
regulation regulation authority. There is a certain process that you
can go through in order to make a complaint.
We have been talking about solicitors, but when it comes to
the banks, are they in a similar position? The banks have been
naughty in the past because they have persuaded people to make wills
with them, perhaps they haven't charged people for making wills,
but they made sure, they, the banks are appointed as executors and the
industry average for banks is 4% or 5% for probate fees. If you have
got a bank executor, you will be paying a lot in probate fees.
Zbli didn't realise - I didn't realise how difficult it is to
remove an executor? It is difficult because the executor named in the
will has the right to extract the probate. If a family came tooz me
and -- to see me and said, "you are named as an executor, but we would
like you to stand down." I would think carefully.
Legally it is difficult to remove the bank from the will afterwards?
It is difficult and banks are reluctant to stand down because it
is a great money spinner for them. When you are alive, can you remove
them at any time? If anyone watching has appointed their
solicitor or bank as an executor, it is open to them to make a new
will. As long as they have the capacity to do so.
What's your final advice so people aren't ripped-off? To talk about
this issue with your family ads friends. To be -- and friends. To
be upfront about the fact that we are going to die and to brief them
when that happens so they can go in able to broker a deal which is fair
for everyone. Fair for the solicitor and fair for the family.
If you feel you are not getting a good deal, you can do something
about t switching credit cards, mortgage providers or banks can
leave more money in your wallet, but that's not the case with the
most important important financial product you can birex annuity --
buy,, an annuity. These baby boomer bikers are reving
up for retirement. Nearly everyone with a private
pension must buy an annuity before the age of 75.
Which means these guys will handover their hard earned cash to
an insurance company, who will provide a monthly income for the
rest of their lives. But unlike other insurance insurance policies,
their stuck with it. Getting it wrong is a costly mistake. Do they
know what they are getting into? I don't know much about annuities.
You heard about them, but I don't know enough to comment on them.
All I'm aware of, once you have got your pension pot, you have to buy
an annuity and that gives you so much per month.
They are like an insurance policy. If they get it wrong, they lose and
if you get it wrong, you lose. Annuities are a nice earner for
insurance companies. Taking the policy offered by your current
pension provider could see you robbed of a big chunk of retirement
income. The whole area of annuities and how
you convert your pension fund into a pension could become the next big
pensions misseltion scandal scandal -- mis-sellings scandal.
This woman purchased an annuity from her late husband's provider.
We were told we couldn't purchase and you can't shop around and you
have to use us and they gave me a fantastic pension of £38 a month.
It must cost more to admin straight than to give me a pension. If I
shopped around I could have doubled the amount I get.
A recent investigation by the FSA revealed that many companies failed
to tell their customers they had the option to shop around for a
better annuity. 300,000 people a year lose out by
not taking their pension pot elsewhere.
These companies are still taking a big slice in commission.
If you have a £20,000 pension fund, then the insurance company will
take away between £200 and £300 of that before you get annuity for
doing nothing. Later, our bikers will find out how
they can avoid taking a wrong turn Payment protection insurance
generates billions of pounds for the finance industry every year.
Thousands of people have been left high and dry when they come to
claim on it. Leading to accusations Payment protection insurance or PPI
is designed to cover your loans and credit card payments if you end up
ill or unemployed. Since being introduced it caused controversy.
Many people claim it is being mis- sold to them, others have received
a nasty surprise after signing on the dotted line.
Paying £18,000 for PPI on top of a loan of over £70,000, Stephen
doesn't think the cost was fully explained to him by his lenders.
I thought the PPI would be a separate payment, independent of
the payments that I was making for my loan, but it trance transpires
they added the PPI payment on to my loan which bumped the price up.
Although he was made redundant, he doesn't want to make a claim as his
policy has a cash back incentive attached. Stephen thinks if he
makes a claim, he will lose the cash back entitlement of the policy.
I was led to leave after the five year period I would get possibly
£18,000 back which is a considerable amount of the PPI that
I have been paying in. If I make a claim to have the PPI instigated
before that five year period is up, I would lose any lump sum returns.
But according to financial claims expert Karl Wright, the cash back
incentives are not worth the paper they are written on.
They are a gimmick and not the reality. If nobody actually is able
to benefit from that carrot really and truly the sales practises of
the banks and credit card companies should be called into question.
The Competition Commission has been questioning PPIs and this year they
raised the possibility of banning lenders from selling the insurance
when a loan is agreed or for seven days afterwards.
It is an initiative that the Citizens Advice Bureau would
welcome. Products can be complicated so
there are lots of exclusion clauses and small print, people selling it
may not be explaining it well to them and when they recommend it,
maybe recommending policies that aren't good for them. People have
ended up with PPI they weren't aware they were buying and we have
seen cases of people didn't say they wanted.
If you have taken out a loan, check and see if you are paying for PPII
if you are and didn't know or if you think you are overpaying, write
to your lender to explain your concerns. If you are unhappy with
the response, get in contact with the Financial Ombudsman. This year
alone they have held nearly 80% of complaints regarding PPI.
With banks desperate for our custom, we are being wooed with perks and
and extras. This is known through a packaged account. Believe it or not
eight million of us signed up to one. We want to know if they are
Packaged accounts combine a current account with certainly benefits. So
as well as looking after your hard earned cash, you also get travel
insurance, or car breakdown cover, but like always there is a fee and
often a catch. I took out a package account last
year because I needed travel insurance, but when travelling to
Africa and rang up the travel insurance company and surprise,
surprise Africa was excluded. Joanna found out the hard way that
the benefits offered are not always what they they seem when you sign
Most of the benefits offered through a package account are
uselessment take commission based currency for example, anyone can
walk into the Post Office and get that. You have identity theft cover
which we all get under the Banking Code.
A poll carried out found that 88% of respondants thought package
accounts weren't worth the money charged.
It is really, really hard to compare products on a like for like
basis. We did a little digging. We looked
at five packaged accounts and tried to buy the three. Buy shopping
around, you can get services for £11.50, while the package comes to
£17.70, but adds up to up over £20 a month.
Are you confused? Well, quite a few of you are. 40% of you told our
surveyers that you think our savings are less safe in the bank
than five years ago. Back to annuities and how to ensure
you can get the most out of pension pot. Here is what you need to know
before you sign on the dotteded line. -- dotted line.
We saw how choosing the wrong annuity could result in a poor
pension income. They gave me a fantastic pension of £38 a month.
These baby boomer bikers are on the road to retirement. If they don't
buy the best annuity they could see their finances crash and burn.
Independent financial adviser, Olivia is here to point them in the
right direction. One the mistakes people make is
taking the quote their pension provider issues and not shopping
around. It may not be the most suitable type of annuity for them
and it may not be the most competitive.
If you don't want pension providers to profit from your ignorance, here
is what you need to know. If you want to increase your
annuity in line with inflation, you can do that. At the moment
inflation is low, but there is no guarantee it will remain low.
As you may have an annuity for ten, 20, or 30 years, you need to decide
if you want it to grow with inflation.
If you do inflation-proof your income, you would look to lose 30%
initially and over time you would make that up.
Health issues can significantly boost your annuity income. If the
insurance company doesn't think you will live long, it will pay you
more each year. Because I have been overweight,
buying life insurance, it has always been against me. With having
an annuity, will that make it the opposite effect.
That could work, yes. You have to be obese though to get.
I am obese. Are you? Yes.
Many people have fallen foul of annuity providers, leaving their
families with nothing after their death. Don't Forget to mention this
if you are married. We recommend that you consider a
spouse's annuity so that if you were to predesees her, her annuity
income doesn't disappear. For Martin, Olivia has beaten the
annuity offer from his current pension provider.
I found that you could get about 13% more as an annual income by
shopping around. It is a substantial increase.
She gave me an indication that she could get me a better percentage
that I was getting at the moment. If she got that in the time she had
available and it is worth looking around to see if I can do anything
better. For a better chance of a bigger
annuity, don't take the first one By shopping around and not
accepting the first offer from your pension provider, you will get the
best deal. Well, to find out more about this, I am joined by Ben
Stafford from the Association of British Insurers.
There is a lot of confusion about annuities and I am tempted to say
that insurance insurance companies are trading on pim's ig -- people's
ignorance? We have done a lot of work in the last 18 months that's
been intended to up the game in terms of what customers can expect.
There are financial capability issues and not everybody is
familiar with the terms that you mention now. An annuity, what is it,
do I need one? Many people will. We are conscious we need to make sure
we communicate in a way that's short and gets the message across
in a way that people understand. Your members were criticised a
couple of years ago by the Financial Services Authority
because they said two out of five pension providers weren't telling
them that they could shop around? Yes, the criticism was they weren't
being clear about the open market option rather than not mentioning
it. The open market option is good news for consumers. When you retire,
you need to make sure you make the most of the pension funds you built
up and the key way to do that is use the open market option. It is
the annuity type. The open market system is an option.
You can shop around. How do you do that? What's the process, is there
a time frame? Depending on the type of pension, four to six months
prior to retirement you will get the wake-up pack. There will be a
letter which explains why you have got the pack and what you need to
do and a brochure from the provider explaining what the different
options are. After that, at around six weeks prior to pretirem, the --
pretiremt, the provider will send on a quote or remind you there are
options to move on to a different provider.
What can you say to someone who has got their annuity and thinks, "I
should have shopped around." What can they do? Well, an annuity has a
short cooling off period. An annuity is an irreversible purchase
decision. It is important you shop around. It is not like other
products where you can come out of it easily and get a refund. It is
critical you look at the right type of annuity, look at the best rate
and proceed on that basis. After all we have heard today, the
final result from our independent nationwide survey is the most
surprising. Majority Of you, 87%, told us that you are happy with the
service you are getting from your bank.
The most important thing to remember when it comes to financial
decisions is do your research. Always, always read the small print
and see what else is out there before you sign up.
Most financial products have a cooling off period so if you have
signed up to something, you can always change your mind. Don't be
afraid to say no. These it from Rip-Off Britain for
today. We will be back tomorrow at the same time for more rip-offs and
advice. We hope you can join us then.
Next time, we will be looking at the high street and your weekly
shop. I do feel cheated when I'm paying
the same amount of money, but not getting the same amount of product.
From the supermarkets who charge you overthe odds depending on where