Martyn James has become a familiar face on television, in print and online over the past two decades, delving deep into a broad array of consumer protection issues and helping to ensure companies are on their best behaviour. He hosted a plenary session on AI and emerging technologies at this year’s CTSI Conference in Blackpool, helping Trading Standards get to grips with the brave new world of online threats and opportunities facing consumers, regulators and enforcers alike.
When I spoke to Martyn in April, his enthusiasm for his work was obvious, as was his readiness to support the Trading Standards profession. So where, I ask, did that passion originate?
“I’ve had lots of interesting careers over the years,” he says. “Going back about 25 years I was the head of press for the Financial Ombudsman. For 10 years I worked in that capacity and then ended up running the communications team at a very interesting time. It started at the height of the bank charges scandal, and went through to the boom in PPI claims, and many other things. It was really fascinating to be part of that. As well as running the press team I was also a fully trained financial advisor; the Ombudsman wanted me to understand how the law works so I could provide the most well-rounded views on how things should be done. So I spent a long period looking at the Ombudsman’s decisions, learning about the various laws that applied.
“Around the same time I was contacted by the media about 40 or 50 times a week, and that was when I started being invited to go on the radio and television to talk about money matters. So then my career kind of morphed. I left the Ombudsman, I set up my own company and I worked as a consumer rights campaigner, broadening out not just from money, but into every aspect of consumer rights – everything from parking tickets to potholes and pensions – and lots of other different things, they don’t all just begin with P!
“Eventually I became more or less a full-time journalist and broadcaster. If we flash forward to the present day I currently write weekly columns for the Times; I write a column for the Mirror and I also write a syndicated column that goes to regional newspapers around the UK. It’s been quite a learning curve over the years but it’s never dull, because I’m always trying to look at new developments – like Trump’s tariffs – and what the impact will be for consumers further down the line.
“When I started appearing on the telly I worked very closely with [CTSI Lead Officer] Sylvia Rook – who of course is still a Trading Standards expert. She’s one of my good mates and we still do the occasional television thing together now.”
Taking it personally
Martyn is a regular on programmes such as Watchdog, the One Show and Rip-Off Britain, which provide a powerful platform for reaching millions of viewers. So is advising consumers about their rights – and taking businesses that aren’t behaving fairly to task – part of a personal moral mission?
“Absolutely there’s a moral and ethical dimension to what I do,” he says. “I’m very passionate about every aspect of consumer rights but there are many facets to that. For example, one of the things that I try to do is take very complicated, convoluted things like interpretations of the law, and put them into plain English. It’s my job when I’m broadcasting to help viewers and listeners understand things like the current issue with car financing and commissions – which is ludicrously complicated but I’ve usually got about three minutes to try and explain it.
“It’s also about empowering people to actually pursue complaints. From my work at the Financial Ombudsman I saw that there is a misconception that we’re a nation of complainers in the UK, but it’s actually quite the reverse. It’s very difficult to get people to pursue complaints or get things corrected that aren’t their fault. We have a tendency to blame ourselves when things go wrong, and actually a lot of the time people have been treated appallingly but simply don’t feel that they’re empowered or have the knowledge to take things further. So I try to demystify the whole process of making a complaint, seeking redress, asking a company to sort out a problem or treat someone fairly.
“This is becoming more challenging as time goes on because circumstances change, businesses change. Some have good intentions but one worrying trend that Trading Standards has reported on in recent years is how many businesses, and indeed whole sectors, are making it very difficult for people to make their voices heard, with the removal of telephone numbers and the introduction of very complicated online systems that don’t allow people to register complaints by email. You’re in the ludicrous situation that you might have to actually write a letter, buy a stamp and post it to get a complaint heard.
“Part of my campaigning work is on supporting businesses that are doing their best to listen to their customers and learn from them, and also highlighting the dangers that are coming towards us down the line if we’re not wary and allow businesses to explore practices that aren’t consumer-focused.
“I do a lot of work speaking to the Government, to policymakers, to other campaigners and indeed bodies like Trading Standards, to ensure that the consumer voice is at the forefront of everything that matters.”
Cutting through the noise
When it comes to raising awareness and informing people, we’re all up against the mishmash of disinformation online, and on social media particularly. It can sometimes feel like the internet is flooded with fake information, whether it’s deliberately false, or just misinformed, or even ChatGPT-generated waffle. To counterbalance that, does Martyn feel that there’s an increased importance to consumer education and awareness work?
“It’s about reaching the people who need the help the most,” he observes. “I’m very proud of my newspaper columns but not everybody’s going to necessarily absorb the media in that way. So I do lots of events around the country, I do about four or five radio phone-ins and consumer clinics a week; I’m constantly reaching out via different means of communication to support the people who might not be getting the correct information, and help them to identify what’s wrong.
“I’ve also started working with a lot of ‘influencers’ – Instagram finance and savings experts – there’s a new generation of young people who are coming up who don’t necessarily absorb information directly from the news but through things like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, so it’s important to reach out on those channels as well. I’m probably a bit old to appeal directly, but I can work with many of the younger influencers who are emerging at the moment and they’ve been a joy to work with.”
Harnessing technology to better support consumers one of the topics of his plenary session at the CTSI Conference. “For me this is a fascinating subject because I’m fascinated by the whole AI experience – I’m fascinated by the way that AI is used in the world and how it can help people.”
When people talk about ‘vulnerable consumers’, often there’s an image of older people who are preyed on by rogue traders and scammers. Obviously that happens, but younger people are also vulnerable – according to recent research by the UK Safer Internet Centre (UKSIC), nearly 80% of eight- to 17-year-olds come across an online scam at least once a month, with as many as 46% falling victim to a scam at some point. Does that chime with what Martyn’s seen – and how does he think those young people can be empowered to protect themselves?
“There’s quite a focus online at the moment about getting rich quick, about making money – it’s hard sometimes to be able to tell what’s legitimate and what isn’t, and younger people can be tricked by all kinds of different scams,” he says. “We also know that younger people are statistically less likely to complain or know where to go to if they do have a complaint to make.
It’s a challenging environment at the moment – young people are staying at home longer because it’s very expensive to move out of their parents’ homes, and it’s really important that we are not only helping them but communicating with them in a language that they understand. One of the things that I’m passionate about is not patronising people, which is really easy to do even with the best of intentions.
“I talk about the mistakes I’ve made – I talk about the debts that I accrued, credit card debt and things like that over the years – because it helps people if they can empathise. Nobody’s perfect, nobody wants to be lectured to by somebody who never seems to have struggled. It’s really important to talk about my own personal experiences, and the things that I’ve got wrong, so that people don’t feel too bad when, through no fault of their own, they’ve ended up in debt. It’s important that we acknowledge that people make mistakes and it’s not the end of the world.”
Scams and shame
The stigma attached to being scammed is increasingly well understood – people are often reluctant to come forward and seek help or to report their experiences, and research shows that being scammed can have a serious impact on health and quality of life. National Trading Standards (NTS) has highlighted a ‘vicious cycle of shame, underreporting and under resourcing’ which creates a climate of despondency and helplessness, with 46% of scam victims feeling angry with themselves, 40% feeling ‘stupid’ and 38% feeling embarrassed. Martyn says he has seen that for himself when speaking to victims of crime.
“It’s a weird thing – young or old, we’re quite an unusual nation, we do have this tendency to blame ourselves when we get scammed. I’ve spoken to loads of people across every single demographic category, some of whom have lost thousands upon thousands of pounds, and they often way, ‘Well it was my fault, I should have listened, I should have paid attention’.
“And I’ll say well no, you were tricked by an extremely manipulative scammer. Of course you can complain about it, you can seek help, and while we can’t get money back for absolutely everybody, with things like authorised push payment (APP) fraud where people are tricked into transferring money out of their accounts or handing over their bank details, speed is of the essence. The one message that we need to get to people is that as soon as they think something’s gone wrong, to report it. The sooner we can step in and act, the sooner we can potentially stop that money going elsewhere.
“We need to help people understand through simple messages that they’re likely to remember, and to encourage them not to feel silly or stupid for being conned – because although I don’t want to give them any credit, the scammers are horribly creative at what they do. They’re often incredibly inventive, and if there’s a story in the news they’ll find a way to adapt to it.
“Whilst I do a lot of work explaining in detail about how scams work, or about what people need to watch out for, we live in a very busy day and age, and people don’t necessarily absorb all the information that’s designed to help them. Even if there’s just a line or two that they can remember, that can empower them to get the help that they need.”
