Hi, we've had a few issues with a local credit union recently. Having gone over paperwork for a loan for a family member, it appears that the credit union refused to off-set savings to allow a defaulted debt to be paid off, and instead insisted on refinancing. If the savings had been used to off-set, the debt outstanding would have been approx. £300 and could have been repaid easily in a couple of months, at the time. The person asked to do this (in writing). The credit union refused. As it is, the person now cannot repay the repayments at all as they have only PIP as income, and now the credit union are claiming the debt is closer to £3000 AFTER taking off the savings. The credit union won't provide a breakdown of amount paid or any justification of why they felt making them take out thousands to cover what boils down to £300 is acceptable. Run by one person, so complaints are never upheld. Family member is disabled and at the time they agreed to the refinancing, was not only unwell themselves, but also had family members quite unwell too. Credit Union are very aware of this, but basically don't care and have said as much. It just looks like the credit union took a massive advantage to make interest off him. While big banks may well do it, it feels nastier from a credit union who's customers are more likely to be vulnerable, and actually I'm not sure a big bank would insist a customer took out a loan of approx. £4000 to cover £300. I think they'd take the savings and go after the £300 separately, not allow refinancing beyond affordability and sense. No 'extra' funds were made available due to refinancing either, it was all to avoid taking even a penny out the savings. Of course it would be nicer to keep savings intact, but if they couldn't afford the repayments, and wanted to decrease their debt, it seems ridiculous to make them pay so much more on top just to keep the money there. They now owe so much more, and are in a worse position. This credit union have in the past also been known to move money around accounts to make new accounts to put part of their savings in for people without their knowledge and also take money out people's savings for use of their business. Only small amounts- an extra £10 going missing at Christmas out a income-related benefit, for example. Statements were never sent too. Also rather than add charges to a debt or incurred cost, they were taken directly out of savings. The credit union have recently been told in court they are NOT allowed to refuse to off-set savings, in order to create a larger debt to sue for. Owner claimed ignorance about off-setting, despite approx. 20 years owning the business. Is there anything we can do about this? Complaining to the credit union is useless. It feels like they took advantage and scammed him- I'm quite angry about it, angry at myself too for not seeing it at the time but with no statements, we had nothing to compare it to. Also, how do we calculate interest on a refinanced loan? As there seems to be something amiss on the figures too. Thanks

He was parked over two spaces because the WAV (wheelchair accessible vehicle) is large because of the fact it has a ramp in the back and he needs space for two powerchairs (the nhs one weighs a mere 27 stone empty, the all-terrain one is much heavier), as well as fold up seats and anything else for work etc. It's heavy because of the adaptations as well, so it has to be a cartain size or something, I don't know, but he didn't get a choice with motability (and no choice not to use motability, because of how expensive the adaptations are!). Independence comes with a big vehicle. Before that he couldn't go out alone in our previous vehicle because the ramp wasn't automatic and he had to transfer, now he drives in and goes. He wasn't over the hatched areas at all, he was parked 'through' two, so perfectly within the lines, but over the middle divider. If he'd parked up how he does in other BB spaces, he wouldn't have been able to get out because he needs a 3m gap behind, and the row of parking spaces behind would mean if someone parked there they would be causing an obstruction to him getting in and our- which can get you a police caution for obstruction (we've had to call the police to get people who've parked their car behind blocking us before, once outside our house!). If only life was as simple as being able to park in any space because he gets out the back, it would make our lives a lot easier! But it isn't quite like that in reality! He still has to get the side door open if he's got one of the kids with him, or if he needs to get equipment out the side as well. He can't squeeze through a gap of cars in a powerchair to the side door. Wish there was actual WAV parking in more car parks. There have been more than a couple of times he's nearly been taken out by a vehicle driving behind when he's been on the ramp, you'd be amazed by the amount of people who walk directly behind the automatic doors when they're opening too, and then look so surprised, he's had to stop the ramp half way sometimes because some fool walked out behind. I sometimes stand at the back, but I'm not always there with him. Parking a WAV is a massive pain and really you'd think it wouldn't be, you would think it would be the standard. I think it should be a two-tier system for BB parking. We know all the best places to park in our local area, typical going back to where we used to live causes a problem! It was the traffic warden that said he wouldn't have got a ticket if he wasn't a wheelchair user. I've spent the last few months going over the Equality Act for a separate issue related to disability, and indirect discrimination (wheelchair user means bigger vehicle, get a ticket for parking because of that etc) is something we generally ignore but it's everywhere The council have said the emails we've given them are being considered as an appeal, and that they're still looking into it, it's am unusual situation apparently. If we haven't heard by day 13, going to put in an appeal on their appeal form anyway.

This is the PCN. RBC PCN.pdf

Hi, hoping someone has some advice. While visiting family last week, my husband parked up in a disabled bay in a council car park while we took the children to the park. Parking was free for up to three hours. Blue badge and time clock displayed clearly. he drives a WAV, he has to be careful about how to park, very few car parks have spaces that are ok for WAVs. This particular car park layout meant for safely and to not cause an obstruction, he was within two BB spaces, ie making a 'through' space. We've parked there before with our previous WAV. He got out the van from the back, two of our children were with him and they noticed a traffic warden nearby, he checked the sign, and went off to meet me in the park. He came back to the WAV alone just over two hours later, got in the back, got into driving position and realised he'd been given a ticket! He called over another traffic warden, who said the first one had told him she'd ticketed him for occupying two spaces and she'd called her supervisor to ask if she could do it. My husband asked to speak to the supervisor himself. 2nd traffic warden refused. My husband asked him if he were not a power wheelchair user, and could park up without alighting from the rear, if he would have got a ticket. The 2nd warden said no. 2nd warden also said if he'd purchased a ticket from the machine as well, he wouldn't have got a ticket. The sign says disabled parking free for up to three hours, nothing about parking a WAV and alighting safely, or having to buy a ticket for having a WAV. He told him he couldn't cancel it, so to appeal, gave him a number to ring for the supervisor as well. My husband asked how he was supposed to get the ticket off the windscreen, he couldn't reach from his chair. Bearing in mind he was alone, the vehicle is obviously a WAV with no drivers seat, and the blue badge is directly in front of the drivers seat anyone checking that could see it clearly, the 1st warden would have looked directly into the space to place the ticket. The 2nd traffic warden had to hand him the ticket. The time on the ticket is 15 minutes after he got there, and is for parking over a line. He told my husband he should have parked in one space and caused an obstruction. There wasn't actually room for him to deploy the ramp to alight from the rear of the vehicle if he'd done that. By this time, my husband was really stressed and upset, getting chest pains, and called me, the traffic warden left before I'd got there. We waited about 15 minutes till he'd calmed down and felt better but the warden didn't come back. My husband didn't get a choice with motability about the size of the WAV, it's because of the equipment, ramp etc, in the back and adaptations. He's had it for almost two years, we park in car parks every day. On the advice of our local police, we also carry cones to place behind because we've had a couple of incidences of people blocking the rear doors so he can't get in. My husband parks in the safest way possible so not to get run over when getting out, to avoid causing an obstruction etc. He's never had a parking ticket before, especially not for being a wheelchair user with a WAV, can't believe he said that! The children confirmed they'd seen the first traffic warden as they'd parked up with their dad. She could have come across then and spoken to him, the car park wasn't busy, but instead she decided to ticket him. I bet she told her supervisor it was just a van with a BB, not a WAV with no drivers seat. I messaged the local council that evening, and they're supposed to be looking into it. He has 14 days to appeal, it's now day 7. The council say it's an unusual situation and apologised but they haven't yet cancelled the ticket, apparently the team who'd look into it were away last week, no excuse yet for this week. I checked their 'other rules' for car parks online later on, and it mentions nothing about parking WAV's safely, without causing obstruction. If he'd parked like they wanted him to park, he wouldn't have been able to get out at all. We took photos of how he was parked, of the sign and how the 2nd warden thought he should have parked. Their sign said people 'may' get a ticket, suggesting they should use some common sense :-/ Not sure how ticketing a BB holder parked in a BB space is common sense at all, or to anyone's benefit really. Seems like a massive waste of time for them and us. I'm emailing the council again today, to find out if they want him to go through appealing or what. It's 200 miles away, so we can't just go in, or we would! Very much feels like he's been ticketed for needing a power wheelchair and adapted vehicle though. He's never got a ticket where we live, or anywhere else actually, and he parks up for work every day in a BB space. Any advice on how to handle this?

Basically, help! We have a small business, opened one year. Our business banking is with barclays- as are my personal accounts. Didn't have much choice with that, for lots of reasons. Barclays are awful. They refused us an overdraft or any funding whatsoever - the account was in credit by considerably more than the overdraft we'd asked for, but we needed the ability to have credit in the future because we need to buy stock. Refused when we had contracts worth thousands, almost lost one because of it. Told us to use 'payday loan' type companies for credit for stock. We actually had to, to ensure we got stock for an order. When the money hit our account, they took a hefty chunk- even though our free banking wasn't to end yet and at that time, we weren't overdrawn. More recently they took our money earmarked for rent, out our business savings account. We told them we didn't give permission for them to do this- so they did it again. This left us overdrawn on the main account - they'd agreed a temporary overdraft, which we pay off monthly - we didn't really have a choice at that. Today they cancelled that - because they've taken us over limit - in response to me contacting them to tell them not to empty the savings account! Money goes in - on paper, we're fine, until Barclays take hundreds out every month. Since September, almost £2000 has gone to them. They won't actually provide us with where it's gone, or what our monthly fees are meant to be. We can't speak to our bank manager directly - and when we did - she actually said that the computer says no. And apparently no human could look at it sensibly, and make a decision on actual income or our business plan, or anything. Just- no. Our business is everything, we put absolutely everything into it. Then Barclays take it. We can't pay the rent because they've taken it, they've shut down our account. I've got a personal barclaycard - this morning checked it and that's inexplicably overdrawn. To add insult, barclaycard put up my credit limit on the account and dropped the interest rates the SAME month they turned down the business for a barclaycard - and sent us awful wine to say 'sorry' after the application apparently was turned down on their system before we'd applied. I just don't know what to do anymore. We put in a complaint in October and got back £200 of the charges, we told them we accepted the part payment but we were not considering the matter closed and would take it further for the rest of the charges/fees/random amounts they swiped. We've applied for other banks, but the more we're turned down, the worse we look. We've applied for a no-credit check business account today. That takes five days- won't be surprised if they turn us down too. How do we stop Barclays ruining our business? How do we get another business account that we can have card payments paid into? We can't swap to a personal account for business merchant services. They're meant to be ringing back in half an hour. I am not very happy with them Don't think I can speak to them, had a massive rant at them earlier, which wasn't helpful and didn't make me feel any better either. But just at the end of my tether with them. Barclays are just destroying us. Logged onto the online banking- and they're offering ways of funding small businesses as an advert, ffs!