Whoopee! I would have got a better return if I had put the money in an interest-bearing cheque account. This was supposed to be a managed fund, and I expect the fund managers received a very nice salary for managing to get me a 1% return. These companies use the excuse of "smoothing" to hold back returns from investors in good years, supposedly to balance up the lean years, but as per my original post it seems this money is not always being used for that purpose, so they are effectively trading under false pretences, and the FSA does nothing about it. The stock market has performed much much better than 1% over the last 10 years, so even if they had stuck a pin in the pages of the FT to pick their stocks they should have done better than that for me. Also it's been over a week since the expiry of the policy and still no sign of the money in my account. I thought they were supposed to have "fast payments" now! They won't be paying me any interest for late payment, I'm sure.

I have a business account with HSBC and their call centre kept ringing me. I refused to take any of the calls because of the risk of identity theft and because I don't want to be bothered at work by people making marketing calls. I wrote to my branch to complain and asked them to stop these calls. I had a letter in reply from some customer relations person in Scotland basically saying that if I refused to take the call for an "account review" they would just keep phoning until I did! My account is always in credit and I don't require anything other than a very basic banking facility. I sent her another letter saying that I did not like being threatened, it was clear why they had stopped using the slogan "The Listening Bank" as they clearly weren't listening to their customers any more, and that if I got any more such calls I would move my account elsewhere. So far I have been call-free. We'll see.

LONDON (Reuters) - "The Financial Services Authority has failed to develop clear principles to regulate the uses of surplus assets held in insurers' with-profits funds and is not protecting policyholder interests, MPs said on Thursday. " See link for rest of article. uk.reuters.com/article/personalFinanceNews/idUKNOA92311420080619 10 years ago I took out a regular savings plan with Scottish Widows in a with-profits scheme which was due to run for 20 years, with the option to encash at the 10 year anniversary. My total investments at the end of 10 years have amounted to £9,000 and Scottish Widows have sent me a letter acknowledging my withdrawal request and estimating that they will pay me £9,500 back. I make that a compound interest rate of 1% per month over 10 years! I wonder how much of my investment is now part of the "inherited estate" this article is talking about?

My mum worked for the Motor Tax department (as it was then called) in the 1950s. In those days the money they got was supposed to go towards maintaining the highways. Now it goes towards maintaining highwayMEN on nice fat government inflationproof salaries.

There's nothing at all to stop me buying a tax disc at the Post Office. My beef is that the DVLA do not say anywhere on their website that this is what you have to do. I also don't see why they can't let you send off for one online but only send it out a few days before. If tax discs had a start date on them as well as an expiry you could order them for whatever period you liked. Or is that too logical?

I am sure that nobody on these boards would suggest I should do something ILLEGAL like drive an untaxed vehicle.... I wouldn't risk invalidating my insurance, and in any case, with HM Revenue now married to Mr Excise it would not surprise me if the guys looking for contraband at the ports are not also doing a spot of tax disc checking in their spare time. Since the limits on tobacco and alcohol were raised it is wise not to give them any other excuse to spoil your day, such as an overladen or unroadworthy vehicle.

We have a camper van which sits on our drive for much of the year. When we do drive it in the UK we make one journey down to the Tunnel at Folkestone and another from Folkestone home! I have no problem with taxing the vehicle for these 2 trips but the DVLA make it unnecessarily difficult for me to do so. The current SORN expires in October and our train is in the wee small hours of the 1st July so I want to buy a 6 month disc effective on the 1st July. I have tried to apply online but the website will only give me one starting on 1st June. I phoned the DVLA and they said that the soonest I can apply is 2 working days before, which is the 28th at a Post Office or the 27th at a DVLA office. The website will only issue one when you are in the month itself, so that's no good to us. I asked the woman why they don't say all this on the website, and her answer was that it's a pilot system and still has teething troubles! Aargh!