What can be done about the latest online scam? Could discarded gadgets solve the copper shortage? And will employers hire more over-50s? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Harriet Marsden, Gary Caffell and Catriona Stewart
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The Week Unwrapped - with Olly Mann
401. Pig-butchering, copper and mature recruitment
It's the weekending Friday the 11th of October and this is the weekend wrap. In the past 7 days we've seen Hurricane Milton battering Florida with deadly tornadoes, floods and storm surges, the UK government introducing new legislation on workers' rights and mixed reviews accompanying the release of Boris Johnson's memoirs Unleashed. You can read all you need to know about everything that matters in the week magazine, but we're here to bring you some stories that passed under the radar this week. Big news not making headlines right now, but with repercussions for all our lives. I'm Oli Mann and that's Unwrapped the Week. And joining me today from the week's digital team is Harriet Marsden from Money-Saving Experts Deputy Editor Gary Kaifel and we welcome a new addition to our panel freelance journalist and broadcaster, Katriona Stewart. Hey Kat. Hi. Welcome. As you may know, it is traditional here for me to ask all new guests to introduce themselves to us by telling us a fact about themselves that we would not be able to deduce from a Google search alone. What have you got for us? Well, this is a bit difficult for me because for 13 years I had a twice weekly column, so I feel like I have completely laid myself bare on the internet. But I can offer you two things, I can tell you either the weird thing I can do with my eyes, which you won't be able to find on Google, or I can tell you what happened to my hair. Oh, that's, I mean, they're both tantalizing. Let's go with hair because I feel the eye thing is more visual and that's not fair for our audio only listeners. Well, I was in New Orleans. I actually was in Florida just over a week ago, I'm very glad that I'm not there now. I did a little road trip from Florida to New Orleans. And when I got to New Orleans, I went out on the town and I ended up in a 24-hour dive bar come laundromat, which you could go up to the bar and get a cup of quarters from the bar maids. And do you laundry while you had your paint? I just think, it just seems very civilized to me, but I was having a very nice time. I was exceptionally well refreshed and there was a hairdresser's chair in the bar. Oh, yeah, yeah, like a barber's chair. And it was a legitimate barber's chair, I'm not sure it was a legitimate barber, but there was a gentleman with scissors and he let him cut off all my hair. And it's now, well, obviously, again, this is like a visual thing, but it's two different lengths. So I see slightly down on one side than the other and that's what happens when you go to a bar in New Orleans for your haircut. Well, indeed. I mean, Bob Dylan said something like nothing in New Orleans is a bad idea, but I think I'm going to have to argue with Bob Dylan in that one. And I've been too ashamed and embarrassed to put anything about that on the internet. But now you have, but at length like a column, so we can tell that you used to be a columnist. I feel like the eye fact would have been shorter, but the hair fact was fascinating. So thank you. Harriet, you're up first. What do you think this week should be remembered for? Are we all pigs to the slaughter? In my mind, this is something we've never seen before in terms of like combining like decimation of victims with a national security issue with human trafficking of victims. Like the crime at this whole setup that was concocted by organized crime is genius. Erin West, Deputy District Attorney of Santa Clara, talking to a recent edition of the Easy Pray podcast. Harriet, what was she talking about? She's talking generally about pig butchering scams, which is this massive, this is sort of an industrial scale scam that's really emerged onto the world over the last five years. And the reason that we're talking about it this week is because this guy in Massachusetts, he got a really big check in the post. He got a check for about $140,000, but it's actually not as much as he'd lost. So he was the victim of a pig butchering scam. And he only got a percentage of the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency that was seized from this scam. So this is what I want to talk about this week is this new, relatively new and increasingly a massive global problem is these pig butchering scams. Okay. I mean, I'm the grandson of a kosher butcher. I'd like to think I couldn't be taken in by a pig butchering scam, but you're going to have to explain to me what it is. Well, it's basically a combination of kind of typical romance or friendship scam and then combined that develops into a cryptocurrency investment scam. So the phrase comes from fattening up the pig before the butchering, essentially. No actual pigs are harmed in this scam. No, just the pigs being the victims. So the scammer builds this relationship with a victim over a dating app or a social media or some kind of online friendship or romance scam develops. They build trust. They present themselves as successful. And then eventually the scammer suggests that the victim should invest in cryptocurrency. Then the victim buys into this scam and they are sort of shown these false trading platforms, these fake dashboards showing like these massive, massive gains. They think they're making, you know, a huge amount of money, but when they try and make a withdrawal, they can't or they get these forged bank documents demanding a withdrawal fee or a tax or as a security. So they're completely betrayed by the person that they trusted or potentially loved, but they're also completely destroyed financially. So there's a kind of double whammy and there's actually a third whammy of the scam that we're going to talk about a lot as well, which is that it seems as though what's emerging is that the scammers themselves are also victims in this situation. Okay. Well, let's park that little twist for a minute and just return to the scam itself, Gary. Obviously, you do a lot of work at money saving expert trying to protect your readers from fraud. Is pig butchering one of the things you're aware of? Yeah. I mean, I have heard of that, but I think what's key for this week in terms of, you know, for a UK consumer is we now have rules in place that says banks must refund you in most cases. Yeah. Before it was down to each individual bank, now there are rules in place that says if you are a victim of a bank transfer scam, so this is also known as authorized push payment fraud. This is essentially where you get tricked into sending money from your account onto the fraudsters. That means now you will be covered up to 85,000 pounds. So, essentially, these scams cover things like the purchase scams. So you're tricked into paying for something that doesn't actually exist. Romance scams, you know, we spoke about it just then, but you know, you're duped into thinking you're in a relationship with this swindler impersonation scams where fraudsters pretend to be from your bank or the police and to pressure you into making a transaction. Investment scams, you know, lots of crypto scams out there and spoofing scams as well, where scammers in almost hijacks your communication maybe with a solicitor or a family member and sort of dupe you into transferring money across to them. So the good news is that is now covered under these rules, covered under this, you know, 85,000 pounds limit. Which is a lot of money, but also, you know, there are people involved in this story that have lost millions. Yeah, you know, some individual banks can choose to reimburse more than that, but the rule is 85,000 pounds limit. It was originally going to be more than that, but you know, the final rules have put it at 85,000 pounds, which is better than nothing. But as you say, you know, some people will lose a little bit more than that. You still do have to, you know, be careful, you know, there is a high bar for what they won't pay out for and regulate it as a small minority of cases they won't if it shows that you've acted with significant degree of carelessness. So caution is still the word of the day, but do know that there is protection in there for these bank transfer scams now at least. So some protection for the victims, but Kat, what about the perpetrators? Because I know you've been involved in exposing some catfishing scams in Scotland, haven't you, through your journalism and essentially seem to be telling your readers that law enforcement don't take it as seriously as they could. Yeah, so online romance fraud is something that I've been writing about for the past few years. And I know that this is a story with vast global reach, international implications, enormous sums of money involved. But for me, it's just such a really heartbreaking tangle of individual human stories because what these people do is that, you know, the scams play into our deepest most human needs to be loved, to be desired, to be seen. And then the victims go to the police and the police aren't interested. And I would say that that is changing, but I have victims who've fallen prey to online scams, to the perpetrators of these scams over the past 10 years, who have gone to the police who've said exactly what's happened to them. And the police have either said that, you know, no crime has been committed. It's a civil matter, or they've just not taken them seriously. And over the past six years, I've been covering one specific case, which was an online fraud store called Christopher Harkins. And again, victims started going to the police about him as early as 2012, and nothing was done. Eventually, after some of my reporting, the police decided to investigate and actually what police Scotland did in response was set up a specific unit to deal with this, which they hadn't done in the past. So they had fraud experts and domestic abuse experts come together to try and sort of deal with this issue because it is quite a new crime. There are different elements to it. And it's just so hard to recover from as well because you think you have a relationship with someone. It stops you trusting real people, doesn't it, as well? That's the thing. That's the fact you're in interaction with other fraudsters, but other partners. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I've maintained relationships with quite a few of Christopher Harkins' victims over the past few years. And they still talk about now having problems when one woman in particular was speaking to me recently and talking about when she goes out on dates. It's really difficult not to have this be the main topic of conversation. It's really difficult to trust. And she's still single years later because she's just not really being able to move on from the shame and the embarrassment involved. So, you know, it's very much not just about money. It's about other things. But then, of course, with pig-bittering, that's an entirely different issue and different sort of setup and the really fascinating element of that is the fact that the people perpetrating it are also victims. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about that then, Harriet. So the people perpetrating it, how are they duped into duping people? Yes. I think this is what's really unique about the scam. I think what I want to get across is that this is a scam on an industrial, massive, massive global scale. We're talking about more than 200,000 people in Southeast Asia are involved in these scams. And it's often enslaved people, as human traffic people, as people who have been lured into these compounds or over the borders into Myanmar, into Laos and Cambodia, you know, with the promise of employment, with the promise of legitimate work, are lured over into these kind of effectively like these massive scam compounds, these scam factories, like these huge, huge, huge warehouses. And they are victims of human trafficking, they're effectively their slaves, their abuse, their controls, they have, you know, their passports taken away. It seems as though what the FBI thinks anyway is that these scams originated in China and most of the big industrial pig butchering compounds seem to have links to Chinese organized groups. The FBI thinks that crypto scammers stole more than $5.6 billion from Americans just last year. And about $4 billion of that was pig butchering, I think 12% of Americans who have used a dating app have experienced pig butchering. So that's just a huge increase, huge, huge, huge increase in the past couple of years. But also all of these people that are being trafficked, it's also kind of proliferated all over Africa, Latin America, now Eastern Europe as well, because there's so much money to be made. They are also victims and they are also suffering massive losses. But that business of sort of building up a relationship with people is where this scam is similar to the other scams we were talking about, the cat mentioned. Because I mean, Gary, you know, we're calling it pig butchering, which is kind of sexy, fun, dynamic name for this horrible process. But actually it's just grooming, isn't it? It's the same. Buturing is building up a relationship with someone, which is grooming over a number of weeks or months until they trust you enough to do something stupid. And that's not new. That's something that you can be alert to, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And I've seen a slightly different sort of nuanced switch to this, which is obviously working at Money Saving Expert with Martin Lewis. He's obviously one of the most trusted men in Britain. Scammers are playing on that. They're using his face in scam ads to actually draw people in, so you know, play on that trust and build them in, you know. And we're looking at, well, why, but actually in the UK, some of the scale of the fraud is absolutely devastating, that 40% of all crime is fraud and 1.2 billion pounds was stolen from consumers through fraud in 2023. You know, we get a lot of messages in that, when I say that it's from our users and our readers, telling us who they have been scaring and they've fell for these tricks. And some of the messages are absolutely heartbreaking. You know, people have lost their life savings, particularly looking around now on social media as well. That seems to be the sort of vehicle of choice for a lot of scammers at the moment. You know, they're really using people like Marty and other sort of celebrities to sort of draw people in, you know, things like, you know, to watch out for things like mentions of cryptocurrency, investing, you know, all these promises to get rich, quick, you know, claims that there's been a scandal involving celebrity, getting you to click through and ultimately part with your money and also ticket self as sort of sold out events. That's another one that they try and draw you in on, you know, you missed out on the latest Taylor Swift tickets, all of a sudden you see some pop up online, no, it's probably not legit. You know, I think, you know, it just goes to generally a bit like that, I would add his really, you know, if something seems too good to be true, unfortunately, it probably is in many cases. We had to kind of push back on that idea that people have done something stupid because these scams are really sophisticated. And I think we all think, well, I would never fall for that. That wouldn't happen to me. But actually, you know, again, if I go back to Christopher Harkin's victims, these are all really intelligent, upwardly mobile professional women who I'm sure individually all thought I would never ever fall for something like this. But the people who do the grooming are really, really clever. And the idea that people have done something idiotic or stupid is exactly what contributes to the kind of human embarrassment that stops them coming forward and stops your screams being investigated. It's really, really brave to come forward. But also though, Harriet, that the cryptocurrency bit does surprise me because I've never paid anyone in crypto. And I'm in my 40s. Some of these victims will be in their 60s and 70s. Perhaps they've been chosen even because people think as a mark, oh, maybe they've got early dementia. Maybe I can get in there. Maybe I can confuse them. Maybe maybe they're a widow. And yet they're paying in cryptocurrency. How does that happen? Like, how do they manage to persuade people to pay a crypto account? This is what makes this scam so unique. And this is what I really want to get across here is that since the pandemic, cryptocurrency scams have just erupted. COVID was the best thing for any kind of digital scammers, basically. People were stuck at home. They were lonely. They were on their screens. They also, like a lot of cases, lost their livelihoods. So COVID is the best thing for scammers, but also so is cryptocurrency. It's the best vehicle for scammers because it's not easily traceable. Money moves from one digital wallet to the other. There's no names. Like, it's hard to trace. It's kind of a legal gray area. You can bypass red tape. There's no formal oversight. Unlike the banks, for example, the US government doesn't cover crypto with insurance. So it's this perfect storm, basically. But that's what's in it for them. How do they persuade people to pay? Well, actually, so you mentioned that you thought it was just kind of old people that were being victims. Not just, but I've met quite a few people in their 70s who have been duped by this sort of thing. So actually, if you look at the FBI age breakdown, more people in their 30s were victims of crypto scams last year than people in their 50s and people in their 60s, not that much more. So actually, there is this assumption that they're targeting older people or very vulnerable people. But actually, it's anyone with money. I mean, one quote that really stuck out is that investigators are calling it a mass transfer of wealth from the middle class to criminal gangs, but in terms of why people would invest in crypto, I think that there's something quite seductive about it. There's something quite unknown. People don't really understand it. There are massive gains to be made, but there are also massive losses to be made. It's like gambling. It's very, very seductive and poorly understood. But I mean, for example, Katrin was talking about how people are kind of duped into trusting these companies. Like the one we were discussing at the start, that company, that scam company, it took out ads on Facebook and Instagram promising these massive investment returns. But those ads also falsely portrayed friend of the show Elon Musk as endorsing the company. So it's kind of this big murky, gray, poorly legally regulated, poorly understood world of crypto and then also a very typical romance or friendship scam. And as Katrin was saying, there is an enormous amount of shame and stigma attached to being a victim of this kind of crime. I mean, there's been people who have taken their own lives so embarrassed and they shouldn't be because actually anybody can fall victim to this kind of scam. Maybe anybody, these are these scammers are trained in psychological tools and techniques and it's it's very thorough and professional. And it's often the loneliest people that are targeted. Okay. Is 57 the right age to be on the scrap heap? Find out after this. All right, Katrin, your turn. What do you think this week should be remembered for? This age really just a number. I just felt that projects and things that I've been doing quite happily and capably for years were gradually sort of taken away from me. It was very subtle the way that I was treated, but it was definitely something that I felt was ageist and to do with with me getting older. And then there was one campaign in particular that they were doing in my workplace about being older and it was 50 plus and they were making campaigns that they were going to do aimed at people who were in their late 50s. And the type of people they were talking about didn't reflect how I was living, how my friends were living. And I kept sort of giving my suggestions the same, but this isn't the reality. You've got preconceived ideas of what you think people in their late 50s and 60s are like. Daniel's there, the author of Retirement Rebel, One Woman, One Motor Home, One Great Big Adventure, speaking to Kay Adams on BBC Radio Scotland. On Tuesday, Kat, what's the story? Well, what I really want for this week is for it to be the week that we meaningfully start talking about and tackling ageism. So you kind of stole my punchline at the start, Ollie, but the question is how old is thought to be tooled to be in the workplace? And the answer to that comes from new research that's found that nearly half of recruiters think that applicants become too old to be considered for a job at the age of 57, which is nuts, right? 57. So the survey looked at 758 HR departments and spoke to 4,000 workers and they find that ageism is completely entrenched in recruitment. Recruiters reported being under pressure from their bosses to hire younger candidates. The two-thirds said that they make assumptions about candidates based on their age, and quite a few would-be employees said that they'd been explicitly rejected from a job due to their age. I'm nowhere near 57, but I find that terrifying as a prospect. Because your freelance and your constantly going to be have to apply for gigs and jobs. Well, it's my generation who aren't going to get our steep pensions until we're 70, possibly even older. So what are we supposed to do if we can't get work? And, you know, that's a sort of personal gripe, but also the economic implications are really significant because you're ruling out a vast tranche of the workforce and also all that knowledge, all that experience that comes with age. Apparently there are 800,000 people, age 50 to 64, who are currently out of work, but who would like to be in work, but are struggling to find jobs. And I think also more broadly, age and aging has really morphed and shifted so, so much over the past few decades, but society hasn't really caught up with that. What do you mean? I mean, I think about the people in their 70s that I know, you know, my uncle is in his 70s and he's still working, my other uncle is doing triathlons at the age of 78. I have a couple of friends here in their 70s as well, you know, cross-generational friendships and I get so much out of them, but they're really, really active and really lively. And I find it sort of cuts into all the discourse that we've been having over the past few weeks about the winter fuel payment. I found that really frustrating. I'm not saying it should or shouldn't be means tested, but aside from that, as a journalist, for years and years and years, charities like Age Concern, Age UK have been really lobbying the media to shift our reporting on old age, so there's a big push to get newspapers not to illustrate stories about older age with these kind of classic pictures of a plaid blanket with a pair of whizzened old hands sitting on the top of it. You know, they want us to use pictures of older people at mountains or scuba diving or whatever it is. But then as soon as there's a threat to a benefit for older people, suddenly we're being told that old folk are the most vulnerable in society and they have to be looked after. And I think there's a real kind of hypocrisy around the winter fuel debate and I was speaking to a broadcaster who is in her 60s recently and she was sort of saying like, I'm having to go on here and kind of repeat this narrative about these vulnerable old people, but these folk are the same age as me. I'm not vulnerable. I'm still working. I'm still, you know, contributing to society and I don't feel that this reflects me. So, you know, women are having babies in their 40s now. Everything is shifted apart from the narrative that we use to talk about it. Does that match your experience, Gary, in the workplace, people still talk about older people like they might have done 10 or 20 years ago, but that's not how older people are. Yeah, I think, you know, we internally are very mindful now, you know, and I think that as journalists, you know, the pictures is a very good example because you say, you know, yeah, you go to that stock picture and I can actually picture in my mind exactly the type of image you're, you're, you're discussing there and I think it isn't, it isn't right. And I think, yeah, it's just open in the conversation as well, isn't it, you know, we've spoken a lot about vulnerable. Well, I'm not sure when we talk about vulnerable, I necessarily mean an age perspective. It's more of a case of somebody's circumstance rather than age. But I think, you know, opening the conversation up is always positive on these things. I mean, Harriet, you and journalism work with people of all different ages, don't you? Do you recognise this picture of there being a really strong push for younger and younger people all the time? I mean, I think journalism is a really interesting one because on the one hand, obviously the assumption is that it needs younger and younger people because, frankly, they're cheaper and cheaper and like late stage capitalism, going to late stage capitalists, like older people in the workplace are more expensive and they're probably going to work fewer hours, particularly on the weekends or evenings. And also there's this idea that journalists now need to be very cognizant of social media, analytics, digital skills, technical stuff that maybe older journalists might not have ever had to use. But if you actually look at the data, when I started looking into this, I was really, really surprised at this. I found one report that said that most people employed as journalists in the UK were actually aged 50 or above, it's 35%, compared with 16 to 24-year-olds or people in their 30s, for example, was like 23%, it's similar in their 40s. So I was really surprised at that, but yeah, in my experience, I definitely see that journalism becomes, it's a very fast-paced environment, it's a very digitally focused now environment and it does become, I think, more and more difficult to stay on the treadmill even for people of my age, even people in their 30s, you know, we're all struggling with being expected to now effectively be social media creators in our own time as well as professional journalists on the clock. So yeah, absolutely, I definitely see it's an interesting one in my industry, for sure. Yeah, that stat is really interesting, had it yet, because it doesn't speak to my experience at all. And obviously, my experience is in Scottish newsrooms, but I think, yeah, I've been working in newsrooms for about 20 years now, you'd never think it to look at me, but the newspaper experience is just constant range of redundancies and I can remember my first experience of redundancies and learning that people age 41 and over got more redundancy money and I must have only been like, I don't know, 20, 21, just thinking, "Oh, well, you know, those people are ancient." Imagine still being working at that great grand old age. Yeah, I should say, in my experience of these journalists over 50, I will say that this is just my personal experience. Most of them are men. Like, I don't know any female journalists in that age group anymore. I'm just, that's just my experience, but that's not data backed, but that's my experience. I mean, in an industry like that, where it's really competitive, I mean, Gary, I don't know if you've ever been involved in recruiting people directly, but a choice has to be made, right, by the employer. You know, people come for the interview and one candidate is 32 and one candidate is 58. And I understand that there's a push to see it as discrimination to say, "Well, maybe the younger candidate is more dynamic. Maybe they have more energy and we want that." But nonetheless, you can understand how an employer making a choice between two otherwise very similar CVs might be thinking that and it's very difficult to imagine how you remove that thought process from the equation. Yeah, absolutely, you know, and that is a tricky bit. You know, I have recruited myself, I've recruited old people, I've recruited younger people, I think, you know, you try and see through that, you know, same as you try and see through any other sort of things, you know, be that sex, be that race, you know, and look at what the actual experience they have and what they are going to be into the table. Actually, you know, the experience that people have built up over many years, you know, we have to put a value on that as well. So, yeah, I mean, I've had success stories from recruiting older people and success stories from recruiting younger people, but I think it's important just, you know, try and put that to the back of you by unless you focus on what they are bringing to the table. There are also some jobs, Kat, that just require energy because they're physical. I mean, as well, that's the thing, we're talking about jobs where you're doing brainwork, but I mean, actually, if you're walking up down supermarket aisles all day, someone might put themselves forward for that job, but actually, you might be thinking as the employer, this is going to be hard for them. But I think that's exactly what I'm saying, and that we have to reassess how we think about old age. Again, being older doesn't necessarily mean that you're decrepit, or certainly if your physical strength is declining, it's happening much later on. And I think that has to be taken into account, but just to go back to the sort of point about redundancies is that it's always the older people who are earning more money, who are being made redundant. And I think in newsrooms, we really suffer from the lack of experience and the kind of passing down of lore and traditions and working with older people gave me a real sort of understanding and experience of the culture of the title that I was working for. And I think that's a real shame that that's lost. Yeah. I suppose that's the risk, Kerry, isn't it? As an older person, you think you can't win because, you know, if you get the salary that you deserve based on your experience, then you're going to be pushed out the door because you're too expensive. But if you actually lower your salary and go for an entry level job, then you're pushing a younger person out from getting their foot on the career ladder. Yeah. It's really difficult. It is really difficult. And I don't think that there is a right answer. You know, I mean, I also think that there must be situations in which candidates in their 20s are turned down for roles that they may be very good or qualified for because they're not considered to be experienced enough. That's particularly true of young women, the data shows. So there's a definite sweet spot for recruiters and employers, I think, and it's probably somewhere in the 30s and 40s. But then obviously, if you're a woman in your 30s and 40s, you then suffer. If you're going to be taking maternity leave or if they assume you're going to be taking maternity leave. So yeah, it's really difficult, but I would definitely echo Katrona's experience when I say I massively benefited from the experience of older journalists in my workplaces, like particularly over 40 and 50, like particularly former print journalists that knew everything about media law, they knew everything about ethics, regulations, interview tactics. The kind of thing that is just absolutely necessary on the job training. I would say I also had the opposite experience in one workplace. I did have an experience where certain older journalists were incredibly resistant to learning new digital skills that they didn't think that they should have to. They had never had to put anything on a CMS. They'd never had to hyperlink anything. They'd never had to edit their own picture. They'd never had to do any of these extra things that are now expected. And so younger journalists like myself were absolutely expected to pick up the slack. That is also really difficult and that creates a lot of unnecessary intergenerational resentment on both sides. And I think, yeah, it's incredibly difficult. I just don't think that there are any simple answers to any of it. No, I'm going to do a really, really shameless, shameless name drop here, but I was in the pub a couple of weeks ago with Ruth Davidson and Kirsty Work and Beth Rigby. That's three shameless name drops. It was three shameless name drops in what? And Harriet Harman as well. What is this pub? It's quite the night out. And Kirsty Work was talking about stepping back from news night and she was saying that one of her motivating factors for doing that was to create space for younger women coming up. About 40 years. That's quite a unique example. Is she going to ring fence that job for a young woman or is she just going to go to young mad? But it is, I mean, that is something that I've been giving a lot of thought to over the last couple of weeks. She, her direct court was, you have to free up the pipeline for young talent coming up. And it's interesting that as women, we think about that and we talk about that. I'm faced here with women in journalism Scotland and it's something that we talk about quite a lot. But is Kirsty Work stepping aside for a young man to come in and get that job instead? But do men have these conversations? Do men think about the Jewish prospect? Well, Gary, you're a man. Let's have the conversation. If we do change things or if I guess things evolve so that there are more over 50s in the workplace, what do workplaces need to do to accommodate that change? I mean, I think the key is flexible working. There was a report recently from the flexible after 50 report that says actually three quarters of the over 50 workforce would like to have more flexibility and found that 72% of over 50s were seeking flexible work. It's only to achieve a better work, life balance, and a further those citing caregiving responsibilities and just that desire for a more personal time. So I think it's workplace is being flexible to those. I think coming out of COVID, I think we've seen a bit more of that generally. I think this is quite important to everybody now. I don't think we're in a world now where office space work has to be done five days a week in the office. I think most businesses now are more flexible. I think we went through that period of COVID and realised that actually it's a little bit more to life than tropping in on the train every day, inevitable delays, then walking to the office and then having inevitable delays on the way home, not seeing the children, not seeing the wife, and not having any time for yourself. So I think generally flexible working is the way forward for all of the workforce, but particularly as over 50s, who have maybe more responsibilities than the younger. Yeah, but that's definitely not as good for the younger workforce though. I mean, that's the thing that I think gets lost in these conversations about work from home is it's all well and good to say that you want to work from home if you have a spare room or an office or you've got a nice comfortable setup at home. It's not so good if you're in a flat share in a city or if you're a young person in your 20s, let's say, and you're trying to learn your career and you're trying to learn your trade on the job, it's absolutely devastating for those age groups. And I mean, just even on a personal level, I often go into the office and I'm the only person there from my team. I don't understand what the point of that is, but I just, I think that that, I think the nuance of how different workplaces and different hiring strategies are impacted by different age groups is often lost in these debates. And I don't think, especially after the pandemic, I don't think it's easy for any age group. All right, well, I suppose if you're the only one in the office, then you're simultaneously the youngest and the oldest person there. So I suppose it's quite hard to measure whether you're being discriminated against. We're going to talk electricity with Gary after this. Okay, Gary, it's your turn. What do you think this week should be remembered for? Could your bag of old cables save the environment? Now then people, all the copper granules, I go in. All these bags, I go in. I've got a decent price for them, so I'm going to get them under wagon and get them gone. Now, the wagon is loaded up to its limit, what it can cover, so let's get it gone. Yeah, boss. The sound of Halifax Metals Limited there, everyone's favourite TikTok account, showing off their copper granules that are off to market on Tuesday. And they did probably get a decent price for them this week, Gary. I dare say they would have done, yeah. So this week, scientists were called for people to go urban mining, and that's because a study found that old cables, phone charges and other unused electrical goods thrown away or stored in your cupboard or your drawers could help stop a looming copper shortage. Now, we're probably all very guilty of having a draw pack for the cables. I've broken electrical items up in the loft, you know, I certainly know that I'm guilty of that. So we've all been asked now to route around our homes, take out these cables and unused electrical goods and take them to recycling centre. So why will this campaign by Recycle Your Electricals found that the UK has 1.3 billion unused or broken electricals in homes, including 627 million cables? So this could hopefully mitigate the problem we're facing where growing demand for copper far outweighs supply. So this survey says that actually 30% of the copper needed for the UK's planned transition to net zero could be accounted for if people just recycled what they already have. Okay, and just to spell that out for us, why do we need more copper for the transition to net zero? So essentially, we use copper so much in helping with our renewable. So the things like, you know, copper's vital for stuff like electric vehicles, wind power, solar panels, also mixing at the moment with the shortage, because the easy to extract copper deposits have actually already been mined out. So you go couple that with the increased demand, you know, it's clear that we've got a bit of a shortage there and the critical minerals association tell us 20% of copper is found in cables contained 20% of copper, you know, when we're all thrown away, an average of 23 cables according to this survey, which seems crazy. I mean, I've not dug around in my drawers yet, but I will do and perhaps I'll report back to you. But, you know, that's a staggering amount that could make a big difference. I mean, this is very relevant to me, this story, Harriet, because I didn't have so much a drawer full of cables as I would call it a shrine, like an enormous cupboard full of cables. And actually, as it happens about three weeks ago, because I've recently relocated to my home studio, so I'm now actually in my house. I didn't used to be. I used to rent a room. I mean, the process of doing that, I thought, right, I cannot look at these cables anymore. I'm never going to use them. I'm going to take them to the dump. I wasn't really thinking about recycling, but as it turns out, my local dump is a recycling centre. And I think they are going to recycle them and strip the copper, but there was nothing there to make me feel good about it. There wasn't a big sign saying, put your plugs here and we're going to turn it into the copper that's going to help Britain through the net zero target. There was nothing. I mean, it was, I was just standing in the rain with a man in the yellow high vis pointing going over there. Well, you don't have to see every good environmental deed through the myopic lens of your own self fulfillment, Ollie. Like, come on. You're saying revelatory things. I'm afraid. That is how I'm hardwired. Do you know what? You're actually, I'm really embarrassed about this story. I'm really, really embarrassed because I did not know that you could recycle cables. I didn't know that you could recycle batteries, light bulbs. I've been chucking them all away. Do they just go in the bin? This is what I'm saying. All the time. I'm sorry. No, I know. I'm so embarrassed. I'm so sorry. And I thought that I was like, fairly clued up about this stuff. I had no idea, so that's like down one for me this week. Yeah, you're supposed to recycle them, but you're specifically not supposed to put them in the bin because they can leak chemicals into the ground. Yeah. See, now I, so I'm going back to my drawer of doom and also, this is the thing that I thought was really funny about the study though, actually, like telling people to recycle what's in their kind of draws of doom. The reason that they're in those shrines or draws of doom is because we are absolutely convinced that there will come a moment where we need that cable, that specific charger that we sometimes do. I was just saying, like, it's very difficult to get people to think in terms of recycling, but sometimes up in my eight-year-old has just discovered my iPod touch from 2007, I'm glad I didn't throw it away. I used that cable. I'm absolutely devastated about the loss of my iPod, honestly, I guess, one of the biggest losses of my life, seriously, but. But the point I'm making, Kat, is that there is a lack of effort, perhaps, from the government to tell us this stuff. Do you think this story this week will make a difference because we need educating clearly as Harriet is demonstrating? Oh, Harriet. Honestly. You can manage it. Sorry. I'm sorry. And Ollie, honestly, if I told you that I couped two microwaves the other day with that Scottish drink of grease and anything to you, where would I get? How would I get to the dump from here? Well. In what vehicle? In what car would I go to the dump? Exactly. I'm showing my regional privilege here in that I live quite near to a dump or a kite. Okay. As we call it, it's got a lot of time. So that's the cap. So Kout is taking it to the dump. Kite. Throw out, really, just couped it through the drink to go to the couch, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's go with that. I mean, I don't really write. So I don't really have a drawer of doom because I think I have some kind of terrible attachment, like quite a unique attachment disorder in that I upgraded my phone last year from an iPhone 3. I got an iPhone 3 in 2008 and I kept it until last year because it worked, right? So why would I get rid of it? I had the same car for 18 years, just Stella, the Micra, just sent her to the farm quite recently and finally got a new car. But I love recycling things. I think it's really important. And I mean, obviously, there is that sort of very kind of individual tension about personal responsibility as with all environmental things. You know, we get upset about using plastic straws, but actually we need political change and societal change at mass levels. But I think it is really important to disseminate these messages because this is something that I know inside out backwards and had just assumed everybody else knew inside out backwards. But Harriet has proven me wrong. Well, look, even if you don't want to live under the halo that Katriona clearly does carry from your position of money saving, expertness or expertise, as I should say, the cost of all electricity will go up otherwise, won't it, or electrical goods, I guess, if there isn't enough copper in the supply chain. So you're saving money for everyone by recycling the old stuff too. Yeah, you know, making more renewable energy in the UK is the solution to the high energy prices that we're all facing at the moment. So you know, yes, do use that as the incentive that you need to dig into that cupboard. I would say the local tip, yes, for the beer item, but actually, so a lot of like the local boot branches of B&Q, weight rows and boots take the cables. So you don't sometimes, you know, don't use the not being local to local recycling centre as a barrier. There's lots of options there, and yeah, you know, this is, you know, feeding into longer term energy prices, but if I just sort of, with my money saving hat on like I like to do, tell you about what's happening to energy prices at the moment, you know, the vast majority of the country at the moment will understand the variable tariffs, prices of that is dictated by the off-gen energy price cap. That went up by 10% on the 1st of October, so that means for every 100 pounds you have been paying, you'll be paying 110 pounds now. So just as we come into this high use winter period, you know, that's going to cause many people difficulties. Now, the big question I get asked is, is now time to fix your energy? And I'm glad to say I have an answer for you. And actually, for most people, now is the time to ditch the price cap and get onto a cheap fix. That's because when we look at what's expected to happen to the price cap over the next year, this changes every three months. And it changes again in January, and the analysts are expecting a slight rise then. And then it changes in April, a slight drop, only goes slightly, and then a very slight drop in the next time it changes in July with then going up again in October. So over the course of the year at the moment, the cheapest fixed deals on the market would offer you a saving against the current price cap and look like they'll give you a saving over the course of the year. So pop on a comparison site and do that hold a market comparison. So that's your reward for listening this far in this episode of The Week on Wrapped is that you get the Easter egg of Gary's advice telling you to switch to a fix. Do it now. Do it now. But in copper, again, Harriet, the major producers of copper, there's been trouble brewing there at that end as well. Yeah. And you remember how excited I got talking about lithium and Argentina. So this is going to be like that all over again. Yes, please. All right. So, yeah, just a quick summary, Chile is the world's biggest copper producer. So about 25% of all our global production of copper is out of Chile. And so it's actually nearly half the US's refined copper comes from Chile. But over the past few years, their stay-owned copper mining, which accounts for about a quarter of their output, it's just been having an absolute nightmare a few years, all four of its mega projects delayed, overruns, totaling billions, construction issues, accident, operational issues. And because their production slowed and their output hit the lowest level in 25 years, that's why copper prices hit their record high that they did this year. So the difference between the amount of copper they churned out six years ago versus now is like about five million Teslas worth. So this is a huge, huge problem in the supply of copper to the world. It's a massive problem in Chile. I don't think we've really nailed down how important copper actually is to the world. I think, yeah, it's crucial for solar and wind projects and electric cars and clean energy transition, but we also use it in infrastructure, transport, defense. It's a conductor and everything. And this is me reaching back to GCSE physics here, but it's because it's like super malleable and really, really, really conductive and it's really resistant to corrosion. And it's one of the few metals that's antibacterial as well, so you can use it for medical stuff. One bit that really jumped out at me reading about the stat is one ton of copper, just one ton can power 40 cars, 100,000 mobile phones, enable operations in 400 computers and distribute electricity to 30 homes. That's just one ton, but it's also the classic bit of green capitalism where countries, particularly in the northern hemisphere, need these incredibly useful minerals like lithium, like copper, to power their green energy transition to power their grids. And so they mine it from mostly countries in the southern hemisphere, regardless of the environmental cost, regardless of the political impact and regardless of the human impact. Yeah, catch on it, despite appearances, you're actually Australian, I understand. So just tell us a bit about that, because obviously that's in the southern hemisphere. They're affected by this battle for control of minerals too. Yes, I am bilingual. I'll not lapse into my Australian accent for this segment, because it might be a little bit weird. But it is sort of interesting, because, you know, on one hand, we're being told to scrabble about and our drawers of doom for old plugs, while at the same time you have Australia over remaining minerals to try and compete economically with China. This also has an impact on communities. So in Australia Glencore, which is a commodity trading and mining company, they announced last year that they're going to shut their mine in the Outback City of Glen Isa. But the mine's been operating there for a hundred years. The company is saying that the mines reach the end of its life. They've now drilled down two kilometers underground, and the corporal now is too low-grade to be used. But this is an Outback City of 18,000 people. The mine Isa mine employs 1,200 direct jobs, and around 3,000 in the local community. So it's basically the lifeblood of the area, and copper mining is going to end next year. So there is a smelter in the area, and Glencore has said that if the government supports it, they'll keep that running until 2030. But it's all these questions around just transition. It's sort of the same in Scotland when we talk about the oil industry and moving to renewables. What to do about the communities that are going to be massively affected. The future is just really, really uncertain for the community. So we're talking about taking our plugs to boots, but actually there is this whole sort of international element to this as well as Harriet's also reflected on. In the meantime though, if copper is so valuable, would we be best off sort of channeling our inner step toe and sun, and taking out our old plugs onto the street and trying to flog them ourselves? You can definitely flog copper pipes on the sly, not that I would know anything about that. But apparently the cables in our houses could contribute 3,251 tonnes of metal. So I think there should be a black market for this. I'd be out in the street flogging my cables. If there was ever a reason to end the show, it would be advocating for a new black market. I feel like that's probably the place to end things. My thanks to Harriet, Katriona and Gary. You can follow this show for free. You can get every episode as soon as it's released. Just search for the week unwrapped, wherever you get your podcasts. And then tap follow. You can also get 6 free issues of the week magazine with the trial subscription. Just go to theweek.com/subscriptions. In the meantime, I've been Oli Man. Our music is by Tom Morby, the producer, Oli Piat, at Rethink Audio. And until we meet again, to unwrap next week. Bye-bye. [MUSIC]