The Office of Fair Trading has told 16 ’sale-and-rent-back’ firms that they must substantiate their advertising claims or face prosecution, amid suspicions that such firms may be misleading struggling homeowners desperate to avoid repossession.

The companies in question offer to buy houses, often at well below the market value, from people struggling to pay their mortgages, promising that the owners can carry on living there as tenants .

The OFT said that advertisements under investigation typically suggested that clients could stay in properties once they were sold for as long as they wished, paying rent at fait market rates. Customers were also told they could buy back the house at an agreed point in the futureif they came up with the requisite funds.

However, last year an OFT report found that these promises were not always met, and a number of tenants had been evicted from their houses very quickly.

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The limit on tax-free ISA savings accounts should be boosted, top accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has said.

According to employee John Whiting, tax partner at PwC, the expanded threshold would help to offset losses caused to savers by falling interest rates following recent cuts in the Bank Rate by the Bank of England. Last month the institution cut savings rates to 1.5%, the lowest rate since its foundation in 1694.

The reduction in the Bank Rate has been passed on to savings accounts including the ISA, meaning that in spite of its tax-free status, the account is unlikely to earn savers much money.

Commenting on the return drop of ISAs, Mr Whiting said: “It would undoubtedly help if you increase the ISA limit because if you look at it another way the value of the ISA and the tax exemptions has dropped simply because the sort of returns you are getting on your ISA have dropped.

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Strikes have been breaking out at oil refineries throughout the UK this morning with more than 1,000 workers walking out in sympathy with a mass protest against the use of foreign workers.

Hundreds gathered on the third day of the original strike at Lindsay oil refinery in Immingham, North Lincolnshire, after owner Total negotiated a £200 million contract with an Italian firm.

Around 700 workers staged an unofficial strike at the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland, and another 400 walked out of a refinery in Wilton, Teeside. The strike is also expected to spread to Wales, where police were called to Aberthaw power station near Barry after a demonstration broke out.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said the angry British workers were “entitled to an answer” as regarding the decision to contract work out to a foreign company.

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More and more debt-laden Britons are turning to debt charities to help them through personal financial crises, one organisation claimed yesterday.

The Money Advice Trust, an organisation that provides free debt counselling, said that telephone calls from the public regarding debt issues have nearly doubled over the course of a year. The National Debtline experienced even greater demand, with a 70% increase in debt-related queries compared to this time last year.

Accoding to Credit Action, another debt charity, the total level of personal debt in Britain, including mortgages, now exceeds £1.4 trillion.

Commenting on the findings, Beccy Boden Wilks, a spokesperson at the Money Advice Trust said “The indication is that there are definitely a lot of people in difficulty, absolutely.

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The number of people losing their homes after failing to keep up with mortgage repayments has almost doubled from a year ago, according to figures from the Financial Services Authority.

The number of possession orders granted by courts in the third quarter of 2008 was 13,161 - a 92% rise on a year ago. A possession order involves the court handing over legal control of a property to the lender, although this does not always result in eviction.

The FSA said that a further 340,000 were about three months behind on their mortgage repayments, up 24% from last year and a “significant” 10% jump from the previous quarter. The watchdog added that 2.9% of mortgage holders were now in arrears on repayments, and that this group managed to pay an average of 42% of their normal repayments each month.

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The consumer watchdog Which? has called for an outright ban on single-premium payment protection insurance (PPI).

Five of the country’s leading banks, including the Lloyds Group, have already agreed to stop selling the single-premium PPIs with unsecured personal loans by the end of the month. However, Lucy Widenka, a personal finance campaigner at Which? has appealed to the Competition Commission to instigate a total ban on the loans.

Payment Protection Insurance will pay out a sum of money to help you cover your monthly repayments on mortgages, loans, credit/store cards or catalogue payments if you are unable to work due to an accident, sickness or redundancy. However, the single-premium option requires you to pay the total cost up front when you take out the cover.

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Dubbed ‘Black Monday’, yesterday saw an unprecedented number of redundancies made by large corporations - over 71,000 globally.

This adds to last week’s 40,000 redundancies, and brings the total number of redundancies made in 2009 to well over 200,000 globally. In Britain 39,340 workers have lost their jobs this year.

Last week the UK saw 4,000 redundancies being made, with cuts in Corus steel production accounting for 2,500 of these - a tenth of its UK workforce.

Corus chief executive Phillippe Varin blamed the economic downturn, saying “I’ve spent 30 years in the steel industry and it’s never been this bad.”

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A tour company which advertised “chav-free” adventure holidays, sparking a great deal of controversy, has defended its marketing strategy.

Adventures Abroad searched the internet for names associated with ‘chavs’ on the basis that certain names are more closely associated with particular demographic groups, and claimed in an email that no-one with these names had been on its holidays.

The tongue-in-cheek email advertising the company’s holidays was sent to 24,000 people and said that an examination of the company’s database of past customers revealed that no Britneys, Dazzas, Biancas, Chardonnays or Candices had ever been on one of their trips. Rather, customers were most commonly called John, Sarah, James, Charlotte or Lucy.

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UK-based loan sharks are offering dodgy high-interest “pay-day” loans, according to a leading debt charity.

The Consumer Credit Counselling Service said that lenders were targeting the unsecured loans, which often carry far higher annual rates than high-street personal loans, at young debtors through social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo.

A recent Conservative Party report revealed that some borrowers are paying as much as 10,000% interest on “pay-day” loans. Whilst this was an extreme case, lenders would commonly charge around £250 for lending £200 for just one month - equivalent to an interest rate of almost 1290%.

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Business Secretary Peter Mandelson is to unveil a package of government support for the UK’s ailing car industry this afternoon.

Lord Mandelson will outline the measures in the House of Lords shortly after 3pm today, which are expected to include a scheme to guarantee loans for car manufacturers and provide funding to give extra training to workers.

Downing Street said the measures included long and short term support but were not a bail-out. The funding would be directed towards investment in low-carbon technologies, in line with EU rulings on state support for certain industries.

The car industry has experienced massive losses in recent months as sales have dropped due to the deepening recession. Earlier this month Jaguar Land Rover announced 450 job cuts, and several other car manufacturers have put their employees on three or four-day weeks to cut costs.

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