By that i mean are you obliged to give your details to someone in an iffy uniform, do they have the right to detain you etc??

Why has no one answered kregrs's question, i would also like to know what powers these council employees have?

I live in oldham and i would be glad to ask for anything you like from the court. I am off work for two days next week so please let me know what i need to ask for. I have recently rejected a request for some of my hard earned by one of these [edited] and would love to think i could contribute to everyone doing likewise.

Are we still allowed to offer them reasonable payment terms at the start of the year, i was once told to say its £1 a month for the first 9 months and the balance on the last month. I would be interested to hear if we are allowed to do that.. anyone??

They have offered £52 which is only for the jetting i shouldnt have paid for... i await the final offer.....

they claimed an annual contract, i made the same mistake about paying for the hatton fight last year. When i phoned they couldnt find out why i had got a text from them!! If they text me again i can see me going mad at them...............

Just when you thought it was safe, setanta have started texting me again regarding my "account". Are they having a laugh??

Update, a meeting took place yesterday with the complaints officer and the the directors of the two departments of the council carrying the most guilt for all of this and i have been promised an update asap. Not confident but heres hoping. My local MP is expecting a repsonse tomorrow anyway as that is what he has stated in his letter to me so either way i dont mind. It may be a little early to say thanks to everyone who has helped but i will risk it. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO HAS HELPED ME!!

I had a letter this morning threatening debt collection from a dentist!! I had a broken tooth about 12 months ago and got an appointment to see the dentist next door but one to where i work and they gave me a prescription for some anit bios and a further appointment. I paid for the appointment (£35) and booked the further treatment to remove or repair the tooth when the anit bios had done their thing (a further £85). The dentist called me to rearrange as he was ill and the appointment has not taken place ever since. As i needed my knashers sorting out i went elsewhere and got it done and now these idiots want to charge me £85 for work that never took place. Do i ask them to prove the debt? Do i ignore it and let them sell it to a DCA? Any advice gratefully appreciated..

Update for everyone, a period of fiscal turbulence has not allowed me to save all i could have done to get these idiots paid off in full. I do have some money that i could pay off as a chunk but i have been advised this would not do me any favours as they would ask alsorts of questions as to how i came by the extra cash etc.. My concern now is that by the time i have the money to clear the debt six years may have passed since the charges and i will be left without any way back to reclaim them. Can i send them a letter demanding they take the charges off my account now?

Thanks i will keep on his case to see where he gets to. I only posted this on here as i couldnt come up with a place to put it in the first instance. Its a proper mess by the council and they know it so hopefully it will be sorted this week. I will nevertheless keep everyone updated.

I see, i was still planning to pay it as it will be next years bill. As you know they send out the bill in april and set out installments, if you miss the first two installments they summons you to court which is where i was thinking of hatching my dastardly plan. I will leave that alone following your advice and issue proceedings myself through the courts. I am concerned that they may try the "that was last years budget" trick when it comes to refunding me the £50 for the initial jetting at the moment though.. I am also tempted to attend the MP's surgery to ask him publicly why the council dont care what he says (hence the late answer) and see if i can wind him up enough to go in there blasting on my behalf. Its 3 years since the incident now and i have been messed about like you wouldnt believe. Two of the directors at the council has seen fit to not even answer emails in the last few months, surely that is the least courtesy one can expect from a local authority?

Had a letter from a legal idiot saying court in may!!! i am happy to argue that it wasnt my fault and let it go 50/50 now as my car is good as new and any no claims i lost has been restored (3 years and 4 months since the accident). I suspect they are one of those no win no fee accident lot who were trying it on as it right on the 3 year limit when they contacted the courts. I will keep you all updated on any further developments.

Update for all to see, I have had a letter from my MP stating he has written on my behalf to the council, they are now two weeks late responding to him so he has hit the roof and i have now been promised a response by friday... I can only wait. I have also had a call from the council asking what it is i want from them to sort this out so i explained how much money i have actually spent trying to sort this out and how much of my time they have wasted in the process. The man from the council promised to come back to me also. If anyone can advise me on whether i can not pay my council tax, let them take me to court for it and then produce all of the emails/letters/bills etc as a defence on why i dont owe them a penny. Basically use their day in court to get a judgement of my own against them and let them pay for the pleasure. Is it something i could do?

Morning All, the council finally sent someone round to sort out the open sewer so all things at chez threeamp are on an even keel. I still havent heard from them about what went wrong and could do with some help about how to word my letter regarding compensation for all of the messing about etc. I realise i need to state the facts and then justify the expense but i am not sure how exactly, any ideas?

i ended up with some new home phones aswell...bless them.. Dont forget BT vision and anything else you see in the bt shop.. push them, i did

Keep in mind they will be looking to renew this contract shortly, feel free to point that out to them in any future contact..

I am at the end of my contract with BT and i have had a couple of minor blips with them. I found that by telling them it was fine for them to send an engineer out to check my equipment at a charge but if he found it be nothing to do with my equipment then no fee would be paid, i also informed them my masters is in computer science so the wool would not be pulled and that i have more than on laptop/pc in the house aswell as other routers/modems so all the tests that an engineer would do have already been done. They gave me two months free and a load of waffle about upgrades to the line but free is free.... good luck to all

On another note i am not paid the earth and i have used my holidays and the patience of my employers to run round for these fools so whilst i have been paid for my holidays by my employer i have still used my much valued annual leave entitlement to sort out someone elses mess. The costs for the work needed is under £150 plus the £52 it cost for the jetting clear of the pipe and my time i will be lucky to breach 4 figures in actual costs never mind £5000. I basically want the local authority to come and sort out the mess they have made to a proper standard and apologise for the inconvenience to me by way of a goodwill gesture to cover my time and expenses. At one point last year my rear yard was full of bricks making it unusable as an exit or entry and them some star from the council decided i needed a street light outside my house so they blocked my front door too without telling me, if there was a fire i had no exit.......gotta love em

Thanks to all for the info so far, The council have confirmed to me in writing (email) that the contractor was responsible for the damage to the wall and the work was carried out by the contractor to remove the old outhouse and put up the new fence. It has only come to light about the waste pipe issues last month, it seems i dont use the loo as often as i might think!! I posted this in landlord/tenants thing as i wasnt sure where else i could post it and everything else related to councils that wasnt a tax issue was in here so sorry for the confusion. After almost three years of being messed around by OMBC and Groundwork (the contractor) i have had enough, i have every email back and forth regarding my house including the one from my MP saying he had instructed them to attend immediately. My main concern now is the fact i currently have an open sewer in my back yard as the waste pipe has no lid or cap on it.. FYI the council and the contractor have both agreed that it was the fault of the workmen who did the original job in writing. I am still seriously peeved about having no loo for three days aswell and the fact that they answered my complaint 8 days later than they state they will in their own service standard..

OK so plan A didnt allow me to save half of what i need to pay these idiots off. It seems i will have to wait till after xmas to stick the boot in but thanks to all on here i have been able to keep my short fuse in check..

My main issue is the treatment handed out by the council in just about every aspect. They called me shortly after i posted and asked if the contractor had been out yet, i told them they hadnt and commented on the open sewer situation informing them that if i saw a rat they would be second to know.. first being the local rag!! This seems to have sparked a response as i got two further phone calls saying that a letter had been written explaining what went wrong (i asked them to summarize this over the phone but they declined...). I can now only wait for the letter to arrive but i did point out to them that any letter is 8 days late per their own standard for complaints and asked if they have also explained that in the letter (again nothing).. I am still hoping to settle this between myself and the council amicably but they seem to be insisting i go the hard route. Should my next step be to calculate what i have lost in terms of holidays and other expenses (travel from work and phone calls etc) and send them a letter before action?

OMG this is a long drawn out one.. Two and a half years ago my local Council (Oldham) used some of the money it received to put some alley gates up at each end of the passage way to the rear of my house, which they said would increase security etc. Very nice they are too btw, However, whilst the contractors were putting up the gates they were also to remove the old surface of the road, tarmac and landscape the area. While they were doing this one of them reversed a mini digger through my back wall (if you imagine the opening to Corrie that is what the passage used to look like). The back wall they wrecked formed the outer wall to my old outhouse (shed and toilet). Instead of telling me they had hit my wall they tried to botch the job and just cemented things in place hoping i wouldnt notice. The roof to the outhouse was four of those really heavy slate slabs which if fell IMHO would have killed someone so i got them to agree to come and have a look. It took 12 months to get them to agree to take down the entire out house and put in a wooden fence, when they came round first time they made a mess of the whole thing by leaving my yard full of bricks and although i cant prove it i noticed the very valuable slate slabs had vanished. I finally managed to get the work to a satisfactory standard 22 months after the first incident. You are probably thinking in that case i shouldnt be posting on here!! Wrong. It seems that when they took down the out house and removed the old toilet that they simply put large chunks of brick down the waste pipe which has been slowly blocking my waste pipe to my house. Last month the whole toilet and waste system was blocked. I contacted the council to ask them to send the jetting team round to clear my drain as i had no idea it was related to the out house at the time and i just wanted my loo to work. I was told by the council that they dont have a budget for that kind of work so i pointed out that i was prepared to pay, i was then told that the jetting team had gone home so i pointed out that the councils own website stated they offered a 24 hour service. The following day i tried again to get the jetting team out and still nothing so i contacted my MP who contacted them and they phoned to say they would be out the next day. I emailed them a complaint saying that the treatment i endured was terrible and shouldnt happen, i had no loo or water for three days ffs. The jetting team arrived in the late afternoon so i took time off work to come and allow them access. The man from the council jetting team said it was my fault the system had blocked as the waste pipe from the old loo had caused it.. picture the scene. I got onto the council once more to really let them know what i thought and lodged a stage one complaint, they are supposed to have 15 working days to respond to this and its now 22 days. If i add up all of the time i have spent trying to sort out just the waste pipe issue its three half days holiday i have had to take plus all the phone calls but if we add in the rear wall we are talking months. I have noticed a few people on here mention small claims court and i wondered if i should add up all my expenses plus the £52 i paid for the jetting and take them straight there?

I am having the same problem, i called them today and they are insisting i subscribed over the phone and i should of listened to the T&C. Any advice on what i can do about these idiots?

This has gone beyond a joke, i have received a form from the county court!! This guy is now taking me to court for the damage to his car!!!!! i have noticed though that the information about the accident is completely wrong, for example, he states i pulled out in front of him from a side road and infact i was turning off a main road into another road. I also think that as it is a junction controlled by traffic lights it cant really be called a side road. I was prepared to accept this as my fault at first but with this happening i am furious and now intend to defend myself to the best of my ability. I just wanted my car repaired and to move on with my life but between the insurance company and this idiot i am not being given a chance. I have been relying on friends and family to drive me around for two months now and this cant carry on..... And as for his court case, i can see me going to the court and telling them. I am lost on this one now.. help