Simpler, fairer and safer: how Which? tackled consumer harm last year

Last year, through our work at Which?, we estimate that we saved consumers the equivalent of £400m.

Our annual Impact Report helps us tell the story of what we achieved in the past year, from July 2023 to July 2024, and how we've made a difference for consumers.

Whether we're campaigning to end insurance rip-offs, filing a £3bn legal claim against Apple, delivering free advice and tools to help you exercise your rights about faulty goods, exposing dangerous Don't Buy child car seats or investigating global scam networks, everything we do aims to make your life simpler, fairer and safer. 

Here, we look back at what we did that drove change for consumers and what we're doing now to help fight your corner.

Making change happen

Some of our highlights from last year include:

• 33,000 redress claims, worth £16m, through our free online tools
• 60 unsafe goods and age-restricted items removed from online marketplaces
• 50 instances of influencing big businesses to play fair and respect your consumer rights
• 454,000 consumers signed up for our Scam Alert email service and 81% took action to reduce their own risk or that of others
• 6m purchases made easier through our advice and endorsements.

In addition to these highlights, thanks to our campaigning, supermarkets will be legally required to show clearer unit pricing, insurance firms have begun to lower inflated interest rates for pay-monthly customers, broadband providers are being banned from making unpredictable mid-contract price hikes, banks will have to reimburse more scam victims, and 'drip pricing' will be banned. 

All of this will save consumers hundreds of millions as new regulations come into force. For example, new bank scam reimbursement rules could see consumers refunded around £270million a year, and the banning of fake reviews and drip pricing could reduce consumer losses by as much as £1bn a year.

Read the full report here [PDF 71KB].

What's next for our campaigns

We'll continue to campaign and advocate for consumers in four priority areas.

Which?'s four priorities

1. Fighting rip-offs

We continue to focus on pricing practices and on driving improvements in customer services. We will also seek a government commitment to review Trading Standards and its role in holding businesses to account if they don’t play fair with their customers.

2. Ensuring fairer financial services

We continue to tackle problems in insurance – from unfair terms and conditions to poor claims handling and low payout rates. We will also work on influencing a new Pensions Bill in the consumer interest.

3. Ensuring fairer, safer digital services

We continue to seek more decisive action from online marketplaces to prevent the sale of unsafe products. We will campaign for more decisive government action on fraud. We will also explore the impact of AI in consumer markets.

4. Making sustainable choices easier

We will advocate for better advice and mandatory trader certification in the sustainable home-heating market. We will continue to tackle greenwashing and other sustainability ‘rip-offs’.

Get involved

Covering everything from lead-free paint in children's toys in the 60s to seatbelts in cars in the 80s, our campaigning has been leading the fight for consumer protection for 60 years.

You can support and follow our work by joining our campaigns or signing up to one of our newsletters.