麻豆社

There are around 18,000 care homes in England and today many of them will be celebrating Care Home Open Day. It's all about recognising care at its best but with almost 40 per cent of homes failing new tougher inspections - how much is there really to celebrate? Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, Care Quality Commission (CQC) says things are improving slowly.

What is it really like to cope with the current cost of living? We're told that things are on the up, the economy is getting better, oil prices are down and that's having an impact on the cost of food. But some people are still struggling to feel the benefit.
In January Samantha Fenwick visited one family from Oxford whose priorities had to change because their income didn't match their growing outgoings - six months later she's been back to see if their fortunes have changed.

You & Yours listener John Grant discovered his dying mother was paying nearly 拢1000 a month to the company, but his bank wouldn't stop the payments because it wasn't on their list of scam companies. European Lottery Guild have a flash website and operates lotteries in Spain, Australia and Ireland. But the Australian and US government have warned their consumers that the website is phony and operating illegally.

In February our listener Catherine Nendick came on the programme to tell us she couldn't make sense of her Npower bill. She's been trying to switch since November 2014 and cancelled her Direct Debit, but Npower keep sending her final bills of various amounts. Catherine's recently received five bills in a week. As well as writing off a year's worth of charges, and sending lots of bills, Npower also restarted her Direct Debit payments without her permission - which as you've guessed it have made her bills even more confusing.

The European Commission has opened a formal investigation into how Amazon distributes ebooks. The investigation will focus on two clauses in Amazon's contracts that require publishers to tell the distribution giant when they offer cheaper deals or alternative terms to Amazon's competitors. Those investigating Amazon say that these agreements with publishers could make it more difficult for other e-book distributors to compete.

Many of us put our trust in online reviews or blogs. They can help us decide if a business is worth its salt. But what if that glowing review was only posted online because the company it endorsed had paid for it to be there? The Competition and Markets Authority is now investigating companies which it thinks may have paid for products to be promoted but without making that clear to the public. Jon Douglas reports.

And the Cornish beer not brewed in Cornwall but made nearly 300 miles away in the Midlands. Despite its Cornish branding, bottles of Sharp's Doom Bar have been made in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, for the last two years. Only the cask version of the popular ale, which takes its name from the treacherous sandbank at the mouth of the Camel Estuary, is made at the mainbrewery site in Rock, near Wadebridge, Cornwall. We'll hear why some people are up in arms.