I tried to phone tax credit help line last week (0345 300 3900) on behalf of a tenant, it was a general enquiry line but it was automated, to speak to a human you had to press various numbers or say brief what your enquiry was about. After going round in circles many times I gave up and decided to try and speak to customer service as I was getting no where on the web or the automated side, after 25 minutes of waiting no one answered so I gave up and still none the wiser apart from know how rubbish the tax credit help line is...... it is not helpful at all, I think it is only there to frustrate users.

I was notified a while back that John Lewis were changing their underwriters from AXA to Royal and Sun but there would be no significant changes to the policies. As I recently moved house I contacted JL to inform them about my change of address and was informed that pet insurance was based on post code and on top of that the renewal which is due soon will increase by over 30%. I asked how this can be when my older dog is cheaper to insure than my younger dog (who by now was the same age as the older dog as he had just had a birthday). I was fobbed of with the excuse that it is all to do with statistics and that one of the reasons could be, 5 year old dogs were more prone to illness .... yeah likely story. I have just looked up AXA insurance and note that in July 2013, AXA announced they will no longer be offering pet insurance.

I thought Royal Mail had started this ages ago as I keep getting neighbours mail delivered to my address, of course I post them back to Royal Mail

I wondered why just recently I was having a problem all of a sudden with my TV signal, I put it down to the strong winds we had as most of the channels were pixelating and driving me crazy. I initially blamed the digital TV switchover as I never suffered from pixelation on the old analogue signal. I only had a new aerial and cable put up a year ago so I called out the aerial man who tested it and informed me it was not the aerial but I needed a filter which he installed and cost me another £70, my TV has worked ok ever since. I wonder if I can sue anyone for the inconvenience and cost ....... ?

A direct debit means that you have no control over how much they take from your bank, it can vary although the creditor should give you advanced warning how much they are taking and when but this does not always happen as 'notification letters get lost in the post' whereas a standing order states how much and when payments are to be made, you are in control. In regards to HP agreements if you have paid over 1/3 then the HP company cannot just come along and remove the goods unless you explicity give them permission to do so, they have to take you to court in the first instance to recover the goods especially if the goods are kept indoors (sofa, white goods etc thinking of Brighthouse here), if they do issue you with a claims form then part of your defence could be to apply for a 'Time Order' if you wanted to keep the goods/vehicle. If the HP company recovers the vehicle and you have paid over a third without your explicit permisson or a court order then you can sue the HP company for recovery of all the monies you have paid. If you have paid over 50% and not received a default notice then you can hand the vehicle back, infact you can hand the vehicle before you have paid 50% but you would be liable up to 50% plus any damage to the vehicle. National Debtline do a good factsheet on HP agreements.

This is a warning to check your bill statement from EDF from November last year. In March of this year I received a guestimated bill from EDF for £100, I thought this was low but as there was no actual reading to base this bill on I thought I would wait to received the red bill hoping it would give more information. When I received the red letter it just stated that I had not paid £100, so I read my meter and posted the figures on line, when I got my actual bill it stated that I owed £320.40 which was a bit of a shock but when I went over the figures it also included non-payment for the previous quarter. I know that I have a bad memory but I was certain that I had paid so I checked on line with my bank and sure enough I had paid it so I contacted EDF and explained that they had charged me again for a bill I had already paid. The operator who I spoke to at EDF informed me that they had gone on to a new computer system and it was not showing up any payment for the previous quarter when their systems changed over, he asked me to send in proof from my bank to show that this payment had been made, this I duly did and at the same time I made a formal complaint, within a few days I received a phone call from EDF saying they had received my complaint and would action it straight away, in the mean time a hold would be placed on my account to stop any further action or letters. I asked how many thousands of other customers this has happed to but no response. Over time I still received numerous letters from EDF when I received my next statement this also including previous bill which had not been paid, I therefore paid my current bill but omitted previous outstanding bill. I have now received a letter from EDF stating that as it has taken over 8 weeks to resolve my complaint I can now ask the Energy Ombudsman to carry out a review, which is what I will do today. In the mean time I have received a threatening letter from EDF to commence legal action as the previous bill is now so overdue, lookin forward to it.