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Max Flint:

Tonight on the Money Programme: Facebook. Are you one of the 200,000 people who’ve joined the internet phenomenon today?

Katie Byrne:

I love it, because it’s great, because you can see what’s going on and you get to know about people’s lives and what they’re doing.

Max:

It’s transforming lives, and changing the face of ‘big business’.

Tanya Goodin:

Facebook is the biggest brand launched online in the last five year. It has the potential to be as big and important as Google.

Max:

Facebook’s been valued at seven billion pounds, but critics say that’s far too much.

Andrew Keen:

People are hyping these absurd business scenarios. The idea that Facebook can become the internet, it’s cloud-cuckoo-land.

Max:

So what’s behind the hype, and how did we get so hooked on Facebook?

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Max Flint:

Tonight on the Money Programme, remember Airfix, all those happy hours spent gluing bits of Spitfires and Lancasters together? Well the most famous name in model making went bust, not now it’s back.

Pete Waterman:

I do remember every model I ever made. I remember when I built it.

Max:

But will today’s Playstation generation notice or care?

Jon Baulch:

I think there is an incredible danger that an awful lot of children will say, “that’s not what I want to spend my leisure time, there are far more exciting things open to me”.

Max:

The new boss wants to bring Airfix up-to-date starting with a Dr Who kit, but will it be out in time for the Christmas market?

Frank Martin:

Well, I have to say it’s incredibly tight. You will see at least one, hopefully the first of a line of Dr Who products on the shelf and in time for Christmas 2007.

Max:

We’ve been following the relaunch for the last 12 months, but can Airfix really appeal to today’s kids to become Britain’s next top model?

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Max Flint:

Tonight, on the Money Programme: have you ever wondered why there are so many rich people around these days? Rich enough to buy toys like this [he taps the side of an aeroplane].

Half a million people, the top 1% of earners, now own nearly a quarter of the UK’s entire wealth.

Peter Charrington:

[We’re] seeing a lot of our clients with 20 million to three, four hundred million.

Max:

Over the past ten years, the super-rich have doubled their money. The earnings of the super-rich just keep on accelerating away from the rest of us.

Vanessa-Mae:

When I was about seven, I said to my mother “How much money do I have to make, to be able to eat caviar everyday?”

Max:

Tonight, how across a range of professions there’s a new breed of superstar earner and spender

Alistair Paton:

Someone just recently spent 85,000 pounds on champagne in one night.

Max:

So, who are these wealthy individuals? How do they make their money, and how do they spend it? We investigate the rise of the super-rich, superstar.

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Max Flint:

Tonight on The Money Programme: Guinness.

I have to admit, I am partial to the occasional pint, and I'm sure you know somebody who likes a drop too. But there's a big problem - it seems we're loosing our taste for the black stuff.

Sales have been falling, year-on-year, as other, trendier drinks have come to dominate the market.

Man 1:

They'll be working hard to say, "No, decline is not inevitable, there are things that we can do." But my guess is that, deep down, they know that, really, they're fighting a bit of a losing battle.

Max:

But now the brand is fighting back. It's just unveiled a new beer and has spent millions of pounds on an ad campaign.

Man 2:

Looking forward, we see, with further improving our great marketing programmes with innovation, we think that we can turn this into growth, and that's our ambition.

Max:

But will it be enough? We examine the famous brand's fight back. So, is it doubles all round or last orders for Guinness.

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Libby Potter:

Tonight on The Money Programme: are you one of the millions who've claimed back your bank charges, or are you wondering if you should?

In the last three years, there's been an unprecedented revolt against penalty fees. Campaigners say they're illegal and claim we're being robbed of billions.

Man 1:

At the moment consumers pay for banking through surprises and through stealth. They don't see what they pay and very often they pay when an unexpected event happens, like an unauthorised, unexpected overdraft.

Libby:

The banks are accused of intimidating customers who've complained.

Woman:

I felt threatened by the closure. When the letter arrived, after the first settlement, it really, really made me very anxious and upset.

Libby:

And now the row is heading for a showdown at the High Court. In the meantime, cases have been suspended leaving thousands of disgruntled customers.

Man 2:

They procrastinate. They kept us waiting nine months - December last year we started this - nine months, and now they want to stay it. Come on.

Libby:

In the second part of our series on the high street banks, we investigate their battle with their customers and ask whether victory for the campaigners will spell the end of the penalty charge pain.

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Libby Potter:

Tonight on the Money Programme: the rise and fall of Northern Rock. Once a rising star of British banking, now a stretcher case.

Michael Fallon:

It’s quite extraordinary that the board of a British bank has been allowed to just destroy four or five billion pounds worth of value.

Libby:

For a bank the unthinkable happened: the world learned that Northern Rock was skint. Fearing they could lose their savings, customers started a run on the bank to get out their money. ‘The Rock’ was the first casualty of a crisis which is still shaking the global banking industry.

Pam Hilleard:

We’re not a banana republic here. I mean for goodness sake, if this can happen to Northern Rock, it can happen to any of them.

Libby:

In the first part of our series on the high street banks, we investigate how this high-flying institution was brought down by a series of catastrophic blunders. This is the story of how Northern Rock became ‘Northern Crock’.

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Libby Potter:

Have you ever had a brilliant idea, which you're sure will make you millons?

Woman 1:

It was a eureka moment, and that does happen.

Woman 2:

It was really in an instant. I just thought, “Right, I need to do something about this, cause there isn't a problem out there which is going to solve the problem I have.”

Man:

In terms of where this could go, literally it's potentially a world changer.

Libby:

Today, more and more of us are trying to turn our eureka moments into real businesses, inspired by the likes of James Dyson.

James Dyson:

It's the invention that drives me on, and working with my engineers and seeing their ideas. That's my passion.

Libby:

And programmes like Dragon's Den make us all dream of cashing in on our brainwaves. But how hard is it? We find out as we investigate 'Britain's Brilliant Ideas Boom'.

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Max Flint:

It happens to all of us. You sit down, you’re about to tuck into your food and… [phone rings] …the phone goes. Somebody somewhere is trying to sell you something.

Vox pop lady 1:

You get home from work, people will call you up for something you don’t want, you haven’t asked for.

Voice on phone:

Hello, my name is Siobhan, I’m calling from…

Second voice of phone:

… half price line rental…

Vox pop lady 2:

And they’re very persistent as well. They’re quite rude.

Max:

Often these cold callers are trying to sell you a new gas, electricity or phone deal.

[burbling at the end of the phone]

Okay it’s annoying, but if you fall for the patter you could be letting yourself in for a nightmare.

Steve Game:

I’ve been blackmailed into paying a large sum of money, which I was very cross about.

Max:

Millions of us have been chivvied and cheated by these callers. And the regulators, the people who’re supposed to look after our interests, are accused of letting them get away with it.

Tonight we investigate the great phone swindle.

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Libby Potter:

Tonight on the Money Programme – is it still possible to make your fortune from the buy to let property market?

Raj Shastri:

It’s given me my Bentley, it’s given me a house on the Thames, its given me a fantastic income.

Libby:

Over the last ten years, buy to let has created a bricks and mortar bonanza that’s now worth over 100 billion pounds.

Lee Berridge:

My aim now is to become a full time property investor, so am going to need to be able to use this to generate a business, where I can generate cash to live on.

Libby:

But - as the cost of borrowing rises, and lenders are shaken by the meltdown at Northern Rock, many believe buy to let investors are in for a shock.

Jamie Dannhauser:

If you want to be a buy to let investor over the next 12 months, probably think again.

Libby:

With some now predicting a housing slump, we ask if Britain’s buy to let investors should be preparing for a new phenomenon – buy to debt?