The quiet tactics businesses USE to take more from your account

During the first lockdown of 2020 we placed an order with one of those online beer companies to deliver a case of ale to our front door once a month.

- with Mike Hill

It was a treat to receive a regular box of booze at a time when socialising was on hold and get-togethers were reduced to a weekly wall of faces on Zoom.

Five years on, a courier still brings a delivery to the doorstep although each time it arrives a little earlier in the month so the crafty craft beer merchants can squeeze 13 orders into a year instead of the Gregorian calendar's traditional 12.

Then last month they came up with a new moneymaking ruse by getting in touch to say they were increasing the amount of beer in the order.