It is not just in Beijing that Britons have struck gold. In what has been a bleak couple of years for investors, the most precious of precious metals has been a runaway success.

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The clock is ticking for those people who have money sitting in dormant bank accounts. Next year, the Government plans to siphon off an estimated £400m held in accounts that have seen no customer activity for the past 15 years and use it to fund youth projects and other good causes.

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It's a music lover's worst nightmare. You have paid out hundreds of pounds to a third party for your spot at a sell-out event. But your tickets never arrive, or you arrive at the venue only to be told your tickets are fake and are turned away.

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In a little over a week's time, thousands of Britons will become the proud owners of a brand new 58-registration car. But in these days of the credit crunch and record-high oil prices, the decision to buy a new car is made as much with the head as with the heart.

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Q. On 18 July at 6.50am, easyJet emailed me to say its winter schedule for London had been issued. I went to its Holidays page to try to book for Christmas but there was nothing later than 1 November. Yet when I checked the airline's Flights page a few hours later, I found flights had been available for some time – and my chosen dates had already shot up from £50 return to more than £335. How can this be fair practice? JR,London

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From the value of our homes to the price of a pint at the local pub, we all know that where we live affects our living costs. But your postcode can also affect your pocket in less obvious ways. Companies are increasingly using precisely where you live in the country to pigeonhole you and your lifestyle, using the information to determine how much you will pay for everything from your car insurance to your pension.

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To what extent should consumers be held responsible for their actions? If a bank lends me more money than I can afford – and I blow it all and end up bankrupt – is it their fault for being an irresponsible lender, or mine for asking for it in the first place?

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The market price of natural gas leapt by 15 per cent on Wednesday, after the news broke that a leak had been found in a key Norwegian pipeline which supplies the UK. It could mean yet more bad news for British consumers, many of whom have already seen energy prices hiked twice since the start of 2008, and who may now be facing a third rise before the end of the year.

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Benjamin Francis, 23, from Brighton is a recent graduate with significant debts and no savings. He is worried because he has no financial buffer, but struggles to save anything. "I am concerned that I have no savings set aside for a rainy day," he says. "Especially in the current economic climate.

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Q. I bought eight rail tickets from the First Great Western ticket office at Stroud station in March to be used for a holiday with friends a month later. I didn't notice at the time that the clerk only gave me six tickets – I was on my way to a funeral and was upset. I contacted First Great Western about this when I realised and it told me to buy the extra two tickets and it would make a refund. But when I made the claim it would not refund these extra two tickets, because these had been used and it says it can only refund unused tickets. The cost of the two replacement tickets was £106.60, because it was now too late to purchase advance tickets. Instead, First Great Western has sent me £43 of vouchers for the unused tickets. PK, Gloucestershire.

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A few weeks ago, the Chelsea and England midfielder Frank Lampard signed a deal that will make him the highest paid football player in British history. The £150,000 salary that he will command every week is more than the average UK citizen will earn in five years – an indication of how much money now swills around in the world of football.

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For my sins, I once held a few shares in a retailer called Upton & Southern. It was transmogrified into a headhunter with the rather more impressive title of Constellation Corporation, and then, following an extensive capital reorganisation, re-emerged under the name Garner.

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Conflict between nations often puts a dent in investor sentiment. This was in evidence recently when the Russian market reacted very negatively to the conflict in South Ossetia.

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Looking over my bank statements, I couldn't quite figure out what had happened. Where had my money gone? I'd been so well behaved, what with limiting my cash withdrawals, taking my own lunch in to work and buying things second-hand. But still I was broke. Again.

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Two of the UK's "big six" energy firms hiked gas and electricity prices today - adding to the misery for millions of hard-pressed households.

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Britain's growing number of financial comparison websites are misleading consumers, often failing to provide users with the cheapest insurance quotes or best value financial products, in spite of claims that they can save their customers thousands of pounds.

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There are more signs that the credit crunch may be loosening its grip on mortgage rates, at least for the time being.

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For most of us, our investments are simply a series of numbers. We're happy if they go up and unhappy if they go down, and we don't have much regard for the underlying activities that produce these effects. But when it comes to one investment vehicle, dubbed the "holy grail" due to its gold-star performance, exactly how your cash is generated is hard to ignore. "Death futures", more palatably known as life settlements, in effect make or lose money by betting on how long a person will live.

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The Independent on Sunday's sheer brass neck award must go this week to the scammers found posing online as the UK's Trading Standards Institute (TSI). They have been emailing consumers telling them that the TSI has £1m to give away in grants to 100 "lucky" recipients and all they need do to claim is log on to their bogus website or call a horrendously expensive premium rate phone line and – oh, yes – hand over their banking details and pay a "handling" fee.

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