Beware the ISA rip-off

The ‘financial advisor’ at my bank tried to convince me to put some money into ISAs last week.�He made great play of the 20% tax savings I would make from an ISA. So I asked why the interest rates on ISAs are at least 30% lower than the interest paid on normal one- or two-year savings, resulting in the supposed ‘tax savings’�being more than wiped out by the low ISA interest rates giving the banks an obscenely healthy profit at�savers’ expense.

The financial advisor laughed and admitted that ISAs were a complete rip-off, but that most of the bank’s customers were too stupid to�realise this.