Hi all, I bought an electric blanket from price-drop-tv (freeview ch 37) (Cost £19.99 plus £5.99 postage) I specifically bought the item in Black, yet the item I received was red. So I sent this item back stating the wrong colour was received and to replace the item with the correct colour. I was expecting to receive my returned postage cost as it was their fault.. but they just refunded me £19.99 and sent out another RED blanket and then re- charged my credit card £19.99. The invoice specifically says BLACK yet they've sent out the colour red twice now. Now i'm left £8.96 out of pocket for the initial returned item and i'm expected to spend another £8.96 to return this item again. I have decided enough is enough and I dont want the item now so I intend to package it up and ask for a full refund this time. Can someone please point me in the right direction as to where I stand as I would like all my postage costs and the initial £25.98 reimbursed. I have tried contacting customer services but I gave up holding after 20 minutes @ 0844 rates. Email replies are automated and simple include a RMA number. Any letter suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

I got a letter from my gym today stating that from 1st Sept my membership will be increasing to £38 per month (previously £37) As I have been a member for 9 months (6 month min term) I had already gave notice to terminate my membership on 9th August but as I had missed the cut off that my DD comes out (1st Aug) I have to pay for September also. I was fine with this until I got this letter. As I don't use the gym anymore, should I just cancel my DD and send them a letter that I don't agree with the increased membership fee and that 12 days notice is not sufficient enough.

I got caught inadvertently speeding (36mph in a 30) and so received 2 Notice of Intended Prosection (NIPS) orders. I got snapped by the same fixed camera on the same dual carriage-way, (4 days apart) call me unlucky!.. and yes its 30mph on a dual carriage way in this town! I'm happy to accept the fixed penalties and the points but I noticed the calibration certificates published for all the cameras in our borough only show outdated / expired certificates on the website: http://www.no-excuses.org.uk/Pages/Article.aspx?id=156 There is also a letter from the home office on that page saying that cameras no longer require 12month calibration? I wondered if it would be worth requesting a valid certificate before paying up or would I forfeit the £60 fixed penalty and end up going to court if I did this?

I defaulted on a bank account with a high street bank back in 2001. Subsequently the account was closed then passsed to DCA for which I cudnt afford to pay so ignored them - luckily for me they did (and the debt) went away. There is no longer a record of this default on my credit file and my credit status is back to being very good, if I returned to the same bank to open an account again would it open a can of worms? I have learnt my lesson! but wil they remember me from when I opened the account back in 1998?

Thanks for your replies. At least I now know it must be an issue with my account. I'll try again in a few weeks and if they havent sorted it by then I will try opening an account with someone else. I didn't like the brown visa debit card anyway!

Hello, Ive had a current account with the Co-Op for the past 3 months after a 6 year long battle with bad debt - finally mananged to clear my credit file and coop where the first bank that let me have a debit card after all this time My problem is I cannot pay cash nor get a balance on the account at any Post Office, even though Co-Op state it can be used here as they are linked someway. The first time I called CS they issued me with a new card saying there might be a problem with the chip, but the problem still remains with the new card. I can pay for goods, use it in a cash machine etc but whenever I go to pay cash into the account at the PO counter, it seems to go through ok, although the Chip/PIN terminal asks me to hand the card to cashier to swipe, they then enter the amount to pay in and take the cash off me, its only when they confirm the amount that a receipt is printed with "*Declined* / Unable to complete transaction" on it and £0.00 as the amount. The last 4 digits of my card number are printed on it with *'s concealing the rest of the numbers but no authorisation number or anything like that. The system asks them to try 1 more time, which results in the same error. Ive tried more than one post office and they all say the same and are not aware of anyone else having the problem. It's a bit of a problem as I live over 30 miles from my nearest Co-Op branch and as it's my only account now. I have no other way of paying in cheques or cash, I even asked the cashier if she could request my balance, this was also declined after I entered my PIN. (my pin is correct as it works in shops etc) After calling CS again they said there is nothing wrong with the account, the card should work in the post office and asked me to try another post office, ive tried 3 now and its getting embarrasing and time consuming. TBH I thought this was too good to be true, but the account is useless to me if I cannot deposit cheques etc. Has anyone else got a Co-Op account or had similar problems or is it just me? I would be greatful if someone could maybe try to pay cash in to their coop account at the post office. Thanks for reading

Hello, I have just received my postal credit file from Equifax after sending the £2 statutory fee. I have noticed it doesnt contain half the information that it did when I applied online a year ago to take advantage of the 30day trial, which was a whopping 13 pages long! Ok so some of the pages where information boxes but the statutory file doesnt contain headers such as Court Information, Notice of Correction, CIFAS and GAIN headers like my original report did. Although most of these had "No data Present" under them, is it normal for them to omit a header if no information exists? A similar thing happened in 2005 when I applied for my postal file from Experian, it had no defaults and a nice record of up-to-date payments, so I decided to apply for a CC only to be turned down. Like a fool I rang the CC company to ask why, I was told to look at the key "C1" on my report... on my report it showed a string of 0's relating to a current mobile phone contract, I was told that is not the information they can see. 6 months later I applied for the online report only to find a default sitting at C1 dated 2001. From what I have discovered I feel there is a big difference in Statutory reports and Online reports. (Experian and Equifax only seem to allow 1 free 30 day trial per person - ever). Has anyone else discovered this or am I just a very unlucky and bad timing person?!

Hello, My partner booked a holiday a few months ago, against my will with expedia.co.uk It was a package deal for the pair of us to Disneyland Florida for 2 weeks. The holiday isnt until February 2008 but I do not want to go! I am too afraid to fly, especially for 8+ hours. He paid £1,050 in total for the flights and hotel stay. After reading about the route of cancellation being a no go without losing all the money apart from a refund of airline taxes, I was wondering if the fact he paid by credit card have any advantage on obtaining a refund from the card company? (i.e initiate a chargeback if the holiday was to be cancelled = no services received..) Nothing has been signed, it was all done online. When he emailed Expedia about cancelling they said the only refund would be approx £300 taxes. We even considered changing the name so someone else could go in my place, but expedia continued to say not possible unless you want to lose your money. Please help!

Hello all, This post is not really a question, more information for anyone who is repaying back any sort of Tax Credits. Having been awarded working tax credits back in 2004 I was pleased to have the little extra income to top up my wages. All along I was on the minimum wage, but the government slowly pushed the min wage up and it wasnt until the end of the year that I realised in 2006 (like many others) that I had gone over the threshold for Tax Credits. Considering i was still working the same hours in the same job, I found it stupid that they did not realise the increase could possibly affect these type of claims. I was lucky enough not to have been over paid too much, (£150) and they did not hesitate to ask for it all back, along with a stern warning of prison if I failed to repay! I opted to pay it back over 12 months. They sent me the relevant form and a month later and each month after £12.XX was debited from my account. That was October 2006. Having checked my account this month I noted another repayment on 5th November. I decided to give them a call asking if I owed anything, I was basically told to work it out for myself and that the system was showing nothing was owed from October 2007. I asked so why was another payment taken in November, the operator then worked it out for me and said I had paid back £160.XX And that I needed to cancel my Direct Debit and ask my bank for an Indemnity Refund of the last payment, as for them to do it it would take too long.... Luckily enough I was able to get the indenity refund of the last DD. (not sure if it can be done for previous months DD's) But it just goes to show that these daylight thieves would not have stopped debiting my account had I not have cancelled it or informed them. So I hope this post helps anyone who is currently paying back an overpayment in Tax Credits to the Inland Revenue, PLEASE CHECK your repayment dates so they don't take more than they asked for and cancel the DD once its paid back as they will continue to take your money! They are quick enough to take money from you but won't go out their way to give you it back!

Thanks K65, I will do that, I have a feeling they would want to confirm the information with the DCA before doing anything though. Any ideas how I should word the letter and should I send it to all 3 CRA's. Thanks again.

Hello, A default from my credit file fell off after 6 years in september this year, however, a special instruction was added in 2006 saying "Gone Away". The company who bought the debt was Aktiv Kapital, they sent the odd letter but I was out of work and could not pay so ignored them. As the special instruction is still there, what I wanted to know is would it be worth while asking AK for a copy of the original agreement (which I doubt they would have as the debt was from a bank account opened in 1996) and if they can't produce it, ask them to remove the Special instruction? Im a bit worried as to what to do, I don't want to open up a can of worms by contacting them about the original agreement incase they reset the 6 year clock. Please advise on what is best to do to remove this dent on my file.. .thanks.

No no, use the original tenancy agreement to standardise the wording/layout of the landlords terms are. Then present it to him to sign and Ok it. I do not intend to alter the original agreement of the property. Just draw up another agreement WITH the landlords consent for myself this would then be a private agreement between me, the landlord and my friend. To indicate that I will also be living at the property and liable for rent also. Surely that is not illegal???

Thanks for all your input. I appreciate it. My friend has now moved into the property and the landlord is very friendly and has said that if he wanted to rent out the room then thats fine, and if we wanted to avoid the rip off £120 fee to the agency to do a credit check on me (which is free anyway), some service charge! Although he said he would like to see it on paper and get an agreement that says I pay half the rent. Would the act of copying the original Tenancy Agreement and rewording it so that my name is on it to pay half the rent and become joint tenant be classed as a legal document alongside the agreement my friend signed? I think he knows we are genuine people and have no intention of screwing him. Afterall, as he said: as long as I get the rent I don't care what you do. (except open a brothel!)

Hi, My friend has been accepted for a tenancy on a house, its a 2 bed house and its £500pcm. He got it in his name due to the fact that it was £100 processing fee per application from the letting agency as they do a credit check and I know my credit history has a default. Although everything has gone through he is just waiting for the house to be cleaned before he can sign the credit agreement, pay deposit and move in. Although he can afford to live there he wants me to share the house as I am looking for a place to live. I am on job seekers allowance at the moment and wanted to know what are the rules on claiming housing benefit if I was to move into this property and become a lodger or similar. I would then be responsible for half the rent & bills etc. The listing did not state "no DSS" but my friend would be working full time but the extra help from me would help alot. I have read the Housing Benefit forms and notice they require agreement from the landlord before any claim can be considered. My questions are: 1) Can the landlord refuse point blank to accept another tenant at the property especially if a HB claim is about to be made. (if this is the case what if my friend got married and/or took in a partner?) 2)If the landlord agrees, would the HB people deem £250pcm rent for a share of a 2 bed house acceptable? (i'm over 25) 3)Are there strict rules on private tenants sub-letting? Or how could we persuade the landlord to accept? In understand the landlord can easily evict us both if I moved in or claimed without his consent. Any advice especially from landlords would be appreciated!

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