Life-changing Scams and Child Benefit

Money Box takes a special look at how victims of fraud are treated by those supposed to help them in the weeks and months afterwards. How are they helped in their fight for justice by the police, their banks and the courts? Or are they all too often left struggling to deal with both the financial and mental impact on their own? We also hear how a small regional charity in the UK has partnered with police to be there for victims when the spotlight of the original crime has faded.

Parents who lost their child benefit because HMRC wrongly believed they had left the country deserved better treatment according to a senior MP. Dame Meg Hillier, the chair of the Treasury Select Committee, made the comments after the tax office stripped payments from almost 24,000 families after it used travel data to conclude they had left the UK permanently. As we previously reported, some of those people had simply been on holiday. HMRC says it took swift action and that, where there was evidence that customers had continued UK employment, it reinstated payments automatically without any need for customer contact and those payments have been backdated.

As the Budget draws nearer how do frozen tax thresholds already impact people and how might that change on Wednesday?

Plus, if you've got significant savings in a UK bank or building society or credit union, the level of protection you’d have if one of them goes bust is to rise from £85k to £120k – how will that work?

Presenter: Felicity Hannah Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Jo Krasner Researcher: Eimear Devlin Editor: Jess Quayle Senior News Editor: Sara Wadeson

(First broadcast 12pm Saturday 22nd November 2025)