Hi Gbarbm, thanks very much for that, I do like a good bit of letter writing:) I'll definitely give it a go and see if it gets me anywhere - at the very least it'll allow me to get my point across which is impossible on PayPal's site. Just thinking about it, if they have that UK address, why on earth do I have to send it back to the US??? Hey CB, no, it's Halifax (lloyds were my dodgy defaults which I've come up against a brick wall with:(). I'm not holding my breath as it's to do with hubby being a director at the time and it not being suitable, but it's a bit complicated by what he's put on the form. It's for about 10k though so worth a try!

room for one more?...

Hey there CB:) How's it going? I meant to message you as I've finally got around to pursuing OH's PPI! It does doesn't it? I'm really gutted as I've not only lost the original money paid, but even if I get a full refund without having to send it back I'm still out of pocket as I don't have a working item to sell anymore:( And yes, I can leave feedback, but true to ebay and PayPals 'give the buyer all the power' mantra, I can only leave positive feedback (because clearly all buyers are perfectly above board).

Hi all, I'm after some advice about a problem I'm having with PayPal after a horrible ebay sell. I do sum up at the bottom so if you don't want to read the whole thing just scroll down:) On the 22nd November I sold a cd player on ebay for £60 which was to be sent to France. The total cost including postage came to just under £81. The player was fully working when I sent it. On the 4th December I had a message saying the player wasn't working. This was poppycock as I'd sold all my separates and hooked them up before selling to test them, but knowing how buyers have all the power with feedback and whatnot I said as long as he covered the return postage I'd refund the rest. On the 13th I got a message from him asking where the refund was. I told him I'd not had the player back and asked him for tracking details. No reply. On the 19th I logged onto PayPal and found that the £81 had been removed from my account and he'd started a dispute against me, telling paypal that the item had been returned but I'd not refunded him. I immediately replied to this stating that he'd not replied to my message, hadn't provided any proof that the item had been sent, and in any case was returning a fully working item which he was claiming now didn't work. I escalated the dispute to a claim (I know I know) as I figured he wasn't going to communicate with me. I received the item back on the 22nd December, and the dispatch label clearly showed he'd only sent it on the 20th, so not only had he not sent it when he'd demanded a refund, he'd lied to me and Paypal about having sent it. On opening the parcel I found that he had cut off the moulded and sealed plug from the player, replacing it with a French one, the player that was in full working order when sent to him now doesn't even switch on, and the remote has loose parts in it when it was fine when sent out. I emailed PayPal to explain this. No reply. I emailed again with a link to photos showing the damage. No reply. Eventually after Christmas when I'd still had no answer, I phoned their customer services. To be fair the chap I spoke to was very understanding, but I was told as I'd confirmed receipt of the item, regardless of the fact it was screwed by the buyer, I'd still have to refund him. After that, I could either ask PayPal to make me an offer to repair, or refuse that and send the whole thing back to them for a full refund. As he's completely buggered it, I opted to send it back. The email I was told would be with me shortly didn't arrive, and I phoned again today to get it resent. When it arrived I find that I have to send the player to the US (because they are a US company - I hate that excuse, it's the one MBNA always try and fob you off with!) which is going to cost me £40, and which I have confirmed I don't get refunded! So, I send a perfect condition item out and it's returned very damaged by a man who lied twice about having sent it (My suspicion is that the buyer was trying it on and wanted the refund and to keep the item, but when I escalated to a claim he realised he'd have to send it back and so wrecked it). I still have to refund him even though I can no longer sell the item, so I'm down £81. Now, even though none of this was my fault, and Paypal forced me to refund simply because the item was returned, I have to fork out another £40 to send it to them which will leave me £41 down overall - assuming of course that they do honour their offer to refund the original £81. Does anyone know if there is anything I can do about this? It seems very wrong that Paypal first make me refund a buyer who has ruined my item, then insist the item must be returned to them in America for a refund (even though I have uploaded proof of the damage), but will not cover that return cost. Is this something that Consumer Direct or any other Body could help me with? Any thoughts, or even better concrete knowledge;) would be very much appreciated. Lexis

Hi all Apex bought the c/c debt from Egg a couple of years ago and are now saying Egg will no longer transfer payments, so I'm guessing it's been bought lock stock and Egg want nothing more to do with it. As Apex now have the debt along with all the rights and duties, do I claim the PPI from them rather than Egg? Thanks for any help:) Lexis

I agree with that. Plus, if Waitrose have a 342 offer or similar but then reduce the item, the original offer is still valid so you get a double discount. Our best one was when we just popped in for milk but luckily must have got there just as they did final reductions on the meats and other bits and pieces. We ended up with £140 worth of shopping which we paid just over £30 for:D You do have to work out the times for your stores reductions though as their normal ones throughout the day are pretty pants, especially when you consider the price is higher in the first place.

Just dropped off cakes to the school for Children in Need and seen two of the cupcake boxes I bought but which were 'lost' after the Christmas Fair, with someone else's name on them! They were only a few quid but it's the principle. I spend a lot of time and money doing cakes for various occasions for the school (it's what I do anyway so I always do special ones for them to make a bit of money), and it's really irked me that some sod decided they'd find my stuff useful so pinched it. Bloody chavs.

lmao, love it:D

Doh!

Hi guys Thanks for all the advice on this. My husband spent a couple of hours talking to HR about this, and essentially his choices are to speak to his boss on the quiet and ask him to give the days back, or (and this was pushed heavily) file a grievance against him. I phoned the CAB and ACAS to confirm this, and found out that as it was lieu days rather than holiday it is a breach of contract that he removed them without consulting hubby rather than a legal issue. Trouble is, he was also told by HR that if he did file a grievance that it was highly unlikely that anything devastating would happen to his boss, so he'd be in the situation of having put in a complaint and still being directly under him. When he pointed out he would likely then get vindictive HR said he's not allowed to. Well seeing as he's also not allowed to remove days, try and stop them having lunches and dozens (no exaggeration) of other things that's not really comforting! They (the company) really just want people to start making formal complaints/filing grievances so that they can get more serious with the boss, but obviously no-one wants to be that first person! We'll be having a think about what to do now... Thanks again for the help all:)

I've just found a copy of the most recent contract, and there is nothing regarding holidays or sick pay aside from the usual. There's certainly nothing that even comes close to 'if he feels like it, your manager can at will remove holiday giving no reason, then leave it a year to tell you'. Admittedly that would be a little specific but you get the gist:) The holiday bit just states that the company has the right to require the employee to take holiday at a certain time, and if you don't use it in a year it you lose it unless agreed otherwise. Clearly if he's taken it away he had agreed it, so neither of those count. The only bit in the sickness absence part that also mentions holiday states that if you are sick during a holiday you can't then claim back those leave days. It does also state the company will pay the full salary for a period of their discretion, but will notify the employee in writing when that time is to end. My husband did not receive any such message in writing or otherwise, so my assumption based on their own contract is that they were not about to reduce his payment to SSP, which further makes a mockery of the boss' reason for taking his days. He's a bad bad man:(

I hope you are getting somewhere with this. You say that they have ignored letters from your solicitor offering repayments? I've been out of the loop for a while but I'm pretty sure that is directly against OFT guidelines on debt collection. Physical/psychological harassment 2.5 Putting pressure on debtors or third parties is considered to be oppressive. 2.6 Examples of unfair practices are as follows: a. contacting debtors at unreasonable times and at unreasonable intervals b. pressurising debtors to sell property, to raise funds by further borrowing or to extend their borrowing Deceptive and/or unfair methods 2.7 Dealings with debtors are not to be deceitful and/or unfair. 2.8 Examples of unfair practices are as follows: c. refusing to deal with appointed or authorised third parties, such as Citizens Advice Bureaux, independent advice centres or money advisers d. contacting debtors directly and bypassing their appointed representatives e. operating a policy, without reason, of refusing to negotiate with debt management companies I would think this would apply to refusing to negotiate with solicitors? We have a mortgage with Platform, and whilst we've not had any problems with them, the fact that they are part of the Co-op really worried me. Co-op are monumentally sh**e at customer service. My CC with them had major issues and I logged somewhere in the region of 60 letters to and from them in the space of about 18 months. When I eventually got so mad with their behaviour I wrote to the CEO detailing every law and OFT guideline that they'd broken/ignored/manipulated. Their response was to tell me that the CEO doesn't deal with complaints from customers. Personally I think 'Ethical my Bum' is better suited to them than 'The Ethical Bank' Have you put in a formal complaint to them yet? If not, get one done, and send it Recorded delivery (otherwise it will be 'lost'). At the very least this will put on file that you have attempted over and over to rectify this and that they have ignored you every step of the way. Be polite, don't get ranty as this won't help you, but do make sure they know you are aware that they have breached guidelines and behaved dreadfully.

Yeah he's not silly in that respect. Trouble is his whole argument of 'I don't talk about things like this in an open office' falls down on two counts - 1) He's been asked about it in the office yes, but there was more than one occasion when no-one was around, and 2) hubby suddenly remembered yesterday that he emailed him about the days months ago; of course there was no reply to that. He's going to have a word with HR and see what happens there. I suspect they will not be impressed with this course of action (again, not the first time this sort of thing has happened - he tried to stop his whole dept. playing an inter-dept game a while ago because they were 'too busy' to do frivolous things like that. The games were being played in their lunch hour.), but if nothing comes of it I'm going to trot down to the CAB and see what they think. Pretty much every contact he has had with him since the major issue a year or so ago has been detailed in full. There is no doubt this is personal, and without going into details about them, there are many instances where he could quite easily prove unfair treatment. His one and only reason for not creating the mother of all fights with this man is that we need him to be employed. I do know that it's not likely he'd be sacked for speaking up, but on the other hand it's also highly unlikely his boss would either, and that would create one (even more) awful working situation. It's a bit of a Catch22, and at the moment he's not wanting to start a big fight... but he does want those lieu days!

I've kept quiet for ages and sneaked back in - have I won yet? lexis xx

Hi CB:) It's lovely to see you again too! I can't believe it's so long since I've been on - time slips away very quickly when you keep thinking 'I'll do that tomorrow' I hope you're ok and everything is ticking along as it should be?... L xx ps - login stuff is being looked into for me by the lovely cerberusalert; really hoping I can get my old id back as I have all the threads on there. And my lime cat:D