Martin Lewis appeared on This Morning on Tuesday, May 16, for his usual ITV1 segment in which he gave out financial advice to callers in need and it seems one, who was enquiring after pension credit, got slightly under his collar as he was told 'he was wrong'.
Opening this part of the show, Holly Willoughby - who co-hosts the programme with Phillip Schofield, who has come under fire recently. Read more on that here - read out the message in question, which began: "Tenny says: 'I am under the weekly income threshold of £214.60 but when I called the helpline, I was told very abruptly that Martin Lewis was wrong...' - Oh, that's a brave person - 'and that I needed to be in receipt of attendance allowance, which I'm in the process of applying for and waiting for the forms to come through. I'm so confused'."
Holly, addressing Martin, said: "So this is about pension credit. What's the confusion here?"
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"Ah okay, pension credit. That is a very very annoying message to get. And I will explain it again. I think there is a confusion here. But I'm also very unhappy to hear what the pension credit hotline has said. So let me try and explain," Martin mused.
After explaining that Pension Credit is a "top up to your income if you are a state pensioner on a low income", he added how, for most people, it will top up the total income not just from state pension but from "other things too" to the sum of £203 a week. In some "complicated" circumstances, you can earn more than this as a single state pensioner and still get pension credit.
He went on to explain his 'rule of thumb': "If you've got total weekly income of under £220, it is worth checking whether you're entitled to pension credit." Although he specified there is no guarantee of getting it, but it's worth just phoning the Pension Credit Hotline or checking via on an online calculator to see. The same goes for a pensioner couple earning under £320.
The hotline, Martin continued, is "meant to be there, a friendly service," he specified, "to tell you whether or not you're entitled. Now I have an agreement with the pension minister that I will be pushing this message out, because I think it's very important. The one million people who are eligible to pension credit are not getting it."
Getting fiery, Martin sternly added: "So to hear that someone on the pension credit hotline is saying Martin Lewis is wrong, when I am giving an agreed message and I'm being encouraged by the minister to get that message out there under this format means that they haven't go the memo. And trust me, I will be sending a memo after this programme to make sure it goes to the whole staff."
His memo is this: working together to get some of the poorest pensioners to be unafraid to ask if they are due pension credit - which could be, he said, "a gateway benefit to many other things."
While he confirmed that the person on the phone may have been right and once checked, she was not eligible - unfortunately - many others will be as he urged them to check.
He concluded his sage advice by saying: "What the person on the hotline, if what you're telling me is true, has done that they shouldn't have done is make you feel wrong for asking. Because the whole agreement and the whole thing we're trying to do is to encourage people to enquire.
"I'm very disappointed to hear the attitude of the call handler on that. They were probably having a bad day," he said, giving the hotline worker the benefit of the doubt.
A brief overview from the website states, regarding Pension Credit: "If you're retired and have income less than £220 a week as an individual, or £320 a week as a couple, you may be due £1,000s a year in pension credit. Plus, it then entitles you to a whole raft of other benefits, including council tax discounts and free TV licences for over-75s."
For more information on pension credit, visit Martin Lewis' Money Saving Expert site here.
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