Huge spike in Citizens Advice calls following Thomas Cook collapse
Citizens Advice have told us that they have seen a significant rise in the amount of calls to their service after the airline collapsed last week.
In the last 10 days, Greater Manchester's Citizens Advice service say that they've had a 25% increase in calls asking for financial help, as a result of the Thomas Cook collapse.
Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Manchester Andy Brown said: "People are coming to us in a state of devastation. They go to bed on a Sunday night and wake up on Monday morning without a job.
"That hits their whole life. Their housing rights, their money, their employment status, the benefits they can claim.
"One of the things that we can do is to help people budget. I think it's critical that people talk to us early on in the process and therefore we can help them and support them as practically as we can, and let them know what their rights are.
"Some of our enquiries went up by 20-25% as a result of people wanting to know what their entitlement was for things like job seekers allowance and universal credit."
Citizens Advice is the largest advice organisation in Greater Manchester and has seen a dramatic increase of calls since the worlds oldest travel agent collapsed last week.
The collapse of the company left 9,000 people in the UK without a job, with 3,000 of those people living in Greater Manchester.
A Universal Credit Help to Claim advice line has also been launched specifically for Thomas Cook colleagues.