don't think its a case of anyone being right, just different views would be pretty boring if everyone agreed with everyone else all the time

Must say I'm not sure about that. If someone nicked a tin of baby milk from Tesco 20 years ago because they were skint and the baby was starving, should you not be able to trust her now 20 years later? Also remember, everyone who has a conviction wouldn't have shown up on any check the day before they got caught, you could have 10 staff in a place, one with a record and 9 without, doesn't mean the 9 are honest, just that they haven't been caught. A lot of people pinch stuff because they class it as 'nothing' and if they ever got caught it wouldn't get near a court, doesn't mean they are honest. Little things like taking a pen from work, using your employers envelope as you have a letter to post without asking, daft things like that are all theft. FWIW I have employed people in the past including a few with old convictions, in general I found most with convictions were harder working as they were happy to get a chance from someone and didn't want to lose the job, and 100% honest as they thought they would be getting watched closer than the other people in the office. Obviously that probably won't apply to everyone, but in the cases I know of it certainly did.

thanks DX any pointers as to where to look and what to do next? i've looked about and can't find much recent. I did notice this Does that mean there must be 2 payments short before a default notice can be issued? He rang them earlier to pay the installment but they refused unless he paid the £12 fee at the same time, so he hasn't yet but the insurance will be cancelled tonight if he doesn't pay so trying to sort it out asap for him thanks for your help

ok, just got a copy of the letter from them, and a bit more information. He rang them on the day the DD was due, now they wouldn't actually take payment as they said the system hadn't updated and it wasn't showing a missed payment. They did however change the direct debit details. He was told to ring back the following week to make the payment which he did do and was then informed about the charges, so he refused to pay there and then while he checked them out. If they had taken payment the day he rang it wouldn't have been late. Obviously all calls to insurance companies are recorded so there will be proof of this, especially as it was in the same call as the DD details were changed, so they can't say he didn't ring. He hasn't paid yet. The letter he got was a letter and default notice in one. Now unless things have changed, I don't think the default notice is valid. It is dated the 30th December and he got it the day I posted, 4th Jan. The default notice tells him to remedy the breach he must pay the outstanding sum with a £12 missed direct debit administration fee by the 13th Jan. When he rang last week he did offer to pay the outstanding payment but pay the admin fee later, but was refused. Now if the DN was posted on the day it was written, would that mean it was served on 4th Jan? 2 working days after posting first class? So 14 days after that to remedy the breach should be the 18th Jan, not 13th. The other £24 was a default fee that has been added onto the rest of his payments for the duration of the rest of the policy life. This was a 'default sum under your Credit Agreement as we were unable to collect your monthly payment of £xx.xx which was due on the 29.12' Now to me, he rang and offered payment on that date, so although not by direct debit, they were able to collect the sum due, but they declined, so should he have been changed a £24 default fee?

I have never came across a company charging £36 for taking a payment by card rather than direct debit. Not that it makes any difference but he was changing bank accounts and rang them on the day payment was due to make a debit card payment and give new dd details, so he didn't actually 'bounce a payment' and it wouldn't have been late, but they insist he had to pay the extra £36, £12 up front and £24 added to monthly payments. Considering he had to speak to them to change details, and taking the payment over the phone would have added an extra say 2 minutes onto the call, I think £36 is a little steep. Bet hey thanks for your first post input.

I'll find out later on if it was the first charge or if there have been more, I'm guessing more as the monthly payments seem higher than when they started from what he said. I've searched but can't find other threads regarding this, only regarding cancellation fees. Thanks for your reply

Just a quick question, are the fees swinton charge legal £12 for processing a non direct debit payment and £24 for a bounced direct debit, so £36 in total?

thanks guys will get that sent off this week. In the short term, whats the best way to reduce the amount paid back weekly, is it best to just ring debt management and request a lower payment? Do the DWP make mistakes, what is the plan of action once he gets the SAR back?

is there a thread on how to SAR DWP or is it just teh same as any other company? Thanks for the quick response

A friend of mine was getting income support up until around July last year when his wife hit pension age. She now gets state pension and they get no IS. He claims carers allowance for her, around £60 a week. He has an outstanding overpayment debt with them of around £9000 which he was repaying at £10 a week from his IS, which was around £150 a week. He got a letter about 3 weeks ago stating they are taking £20 a week for the debt from his CA starting third week of December. Firstly, he's not 100% sure what the overpayment was for, he says it was at least 10 years ago and he's been paying £10 a week since then, but insists it started at around £9k, so I'm unsure how it can still be the same 10 years later. Is there any way of getting a statement of the debt, what it was for and payments since the start? Secondly, is there any way to reduce the repayments, even if its just back to the £10 a week he was paying when he was getting £100 more a week? Thanks for any help

I agree and I always start with the comparison sites, usually use at least 3, but I always tend to find a pattern emerging, 4 or 5 companies usually give the best 3 quotes across them all. I then use those 4 or 5 to get direct quotes on a clean browser, and re-run them using Topcashback. Last year there wasn't much of a difference but Liverpool Victoria came out about £40 cheaper direct, through topcashback it was only £30 and coppers cheaper, but they were offering £35 cashback do did it that was instead, as the cashback meant an extra £25 over going direct Its a bit of a hassle and takes maybe an hour, but even last year saved £65, way I look at it, if someone offered me £65 for an hours work typing on a computer then I would do it no problem, so this is the same

I think clearing cookies is quite important too, especially if you clicked on a quote from a comparison site. I've always had cheaper quotes by not going through comparison sites tbh, well certainly over the past 5 years or so. Even using topcashback and going to the insurer direct gets better quotes, obviously thats just me amd others are likely to be different.

It was done online, then I checked over the phone it was recorded correctly

No I haven't read any of the threads, but they were massively cheaper than other companies, I had a non fault accident last year which put my premiums up massively, they were so much lower I actually double checked they had took note of the accident, the next cheapest was about £750 by some company I'd never heard of, then most were about £900, so £250 inc chequeback was massively cheaper. Direct Line were £1900 but they have always been way over the top for me, so have never used them. Lets hope I never have o use hem apart from paying them

FWIW, I recently renewed my car insurance I used Confused, GoCompare and Topcashback Compare. Swinton were the lowest with all 3, each over £500. I went direct to Swinton (after clearing cookies) got a quote for £324 and £75 chequeback. Massively cheaper going direct in my case.