Aw thanks for that xxx much appreciated x

Hi I had a small leak & across the road the elderly lady was having her roof replaced they seemed to be doing a good job, I asked if they could come & look at mine. Big mistake he said the batons needed replacing, re felting & insulating & my tiles put back on as there is nothing wrong with them, for the whole roof he quoted £3,800.00, told me it would take 3 days, the first day he asked for £300 then the next day another £300 & the day after another £300, then he came back same day for another £100. Then the next week because it was held up by bad weather he asked for another £1200 on the condition he finished the job, then the next week my roof still no further on he said he would be getting the lads to finish it the next day & could I give him some more money, I said no only when job is completed, he went away came back later & said he would put new tiles on for the same price if I gave him another £1200 for the new tiles I did in total he has had £3400 off me & keeps saying he will give me receipts which he hasn’t although I wrote it all down. Monday my tiles at the back started to be put back on & he came & asked for money to pay the lads on the roof I told him he isn’t getting another penny until the job is completed, then later that day the lads walked off as they hadn’t been paid. It has been over three weeks now.. He came yesterday to apologise I told him I had had enough to just put my tiles back on the back & to please leave me alone I don’t want him doing the rest of the house I live in a bungalow so there are the back side & front, I just want rid of him I know I will lose money but his constant harassment is making me ill. Then then he said the polish lads that he had on the roof had broken a lot of my tiles, so he would have to go to a reclamation yard to see if he could get some to match they are old clay tiles. Please don’t lecture me on what I already know I’m stupid for falling for it & even stupider for giving him money without a receipt. Please if anyone can give me some advice on how to handle this I would be so grateful as I am a pensioner & can’t take much more. I’m getting frightened of him coming to my door asking for more money. The elderly lady who he put the new roof on came across yesterday in tears he hasn’t finished hers completely as some tiles need cutting in & ridge tiles replacing, he is harassing her for money as well she has paid him over £8000.00 Please any advice as to how to go forward will be so appreciated. Thanks in advance Hilary

*RainbowTears* I am sorry to hear you lost so much money, I am normally so careful, when i'm on my laptop I hover over links/addresses to make sure the are who they are purporting to be but you cant do that with your phone or at least I don't think you can. Like you say it has taught me a lesson as well which is not to be so lazy & get my laptop out instead of the phone.

silverfox1961 Yes you are correct I received an email survey with the Lidl logo etc but what made it more convincing we do shop at lidl and they asked all lidl related questions like was the shop clean, how fast did you go through checkout etc. I rang the cooperative bank this morning & they had already done a charge back & stopped the continuous payment authority but am going to keep an eye on my account over the next few months. I am so annoyed with myself & 1'm going to be a lot more careful when using my phone in future, as the smart security on my laptop would not let me click on the link in the email and gave a warning that the site I was trying to reach was not safe & did I want to continue. Oh! well you live and learn Thanks everyone for your help & assistance, I genuinely mean that xx

renegadeimp Thanks! I'm with cooperative bank, the girl said the department that will deal with it, isn't open at the weekends.

BankFodder thanks for the advice which I will follow. You helped me a long time ago which got results. This site is amazing & so are the people that give advice.

Thanks! everyone I rang my bank & they have taken the details & will pass it to the relevant dept tomorrow & they will ring me.

silverfoax1961 Thanks for the explanation

sorry for being thick what is a CPA?

Thanks king12345 They only have my debit card number do you think I will be able to cancel my debit card & get a new one reissued?

silverfox1961 Thanks for the explanation I will contact my bank. Below is an excerpt from the email, in case anyone else gets duped the name of the company is Beauty & Truth The original email survey was purporting to be from Lidl which I realise now it isn't from Lidl as my smart security on my laptop is flagging the website/link as unsafe & wont allow me to go to it. I originally used my iPhone to fill out the survey which hasn't got the same protection. I will be more careful using my phone in future. this is an excerpt from email If you made a trial order purchase, you've been automatically enrolled in our time-saving Delivery Program. At the end of your 15-day trial period your Visa ending **** will be charged the value of your trial order. Every 30 days thereafter, you'll be sent a refill order using your Visa on file. We offer a 30-day guarantee. Should you decide for any reason that you do not wish to keep the product, you may return it for a full refund, less the cost of shipping & handling. Return shipping is the responsibility of the customer. Thank You! so much for all your help

thank you so much for replying, what is charge back?

I think I may have been scammed .Yesterday I filled out a survey for Lidl, the usual questions how did you find the checkout process etc After I had filled it out it said congratulations you have won a prize, so I followed the link filled out my name & address etc then it said I had to pay for delivery £4.99, this is when alarm bells should have rung but it showed supposedly feedback for the product, so I decided to go ahead and give my debit card details, idiot I know. After the thank you etc I checked my email inbox & it states that I will sent further goods & will be charged monthly which I do not want & it showed a cancellation link which I followed I tried to cancel but they want £28.00 for the goods or I have to pay return postage. I am worried that even if I do return the goods they still have my card details?? Please help I have had two strokes & this stress is not helping, I feel so stupid now. Any help or advice will be very much appreciated Hilary

Hi Everyone Thanks for all your replies, the text message worked, I quoted the relevant part below, in case it helps someone else. I do not know if you are aware but it is AGAINST the law to withhold these items from us as per the Torts (Interference with Goods Act) 1977 details are below:- Clearing out the tenant’s goods Property that the tenant leaves behind still belongs to the tenant and normally should be returned to the tenant. If you throw away property belonging to the tenant which subsequently turns out to be of value, you may be subject to a claim from the tenant for damages. The Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977 states that the landlord can dispose of goods left behind - as long as you follow a certain procedure:- • Firstly, send a letter by recorded delivery to the tenant stating that you intend to sell/dispose of the goods and give the following information: • Your name and address (where you can be contacted regarding the tenant's collection) • Details of the items held • The place where they're held • The date on which you intend to sell the goods (this must give the tenant a reasonable amount of time to collect the goods, say two-four weeks) • You must make sure you keep a copy of this letter. • If you're concerned your tenant won't accept the recorded delivery, consider hand delivering the letter so they can't claim they didn't receive it. We got a phone call off him last night, he has put the house up for sale & is going to ring the estate agent to tell them to let us have the key & he is sending a cheque for the deposit. Again thank you!

ericsbrother Many thanks for your reply I have sent him a text asking for the virgin boxes plus my deposit back, I have also drafted a letter addressed to him, saying the same as the text message which I will post through the letter box at our old address and I am going to get one of the neighbours to witness us putting it through the letter box. The work that was done on the property was to secure the back of the property with a fence and a gate, as it was open and anyone could walk down the drive and into our back garden this was done around 10 years ago with his permission because we had something stolen & I did not feel secure. The original fence was destroyed during the heavy gales as we live by the sea and it gets very blustery and we had to replace the fence & gate late last year. The other work we had to carry out was in the wood built conservatory, it started to rain in through the wooden door very badly ruining the cushion flooring we could not find a replacement door because of the weird size and paid a joiner to repair the door as it was rotten at the bottom which cost us £60.00 plus materials but it still rained in, the door opened up onto our drive & if we wanted to go into our back garden we had to go out of the door & through the gate so we paid to have a section of the conservatory overlooking our garden taken out and the section where the door was removed & replaced by the other panel we had a upvc frame built to go into the missing panel overlooking the garden & a upvc door installed leading out into the garden, this was done more for our convenience than necessity. Again thank you so much for your reply and advice. kind regards

Hi! I need advice please, we have rented a bungalow from the same landlord for 15 years we originally rented the property through a letting agent paid a deposit & a months rent in advance. We needed to contact the landlord & the phone number he gave us was no longer in use so I contacted the letting agent for his new number & was told the landlord was dealing with his own property's & they no longer had his details. For 10 years we have had no contact with the landlord no phone number or address & all repairs to the property we have had to do ourselves last year alone we have spent around £800.00 on the property. The property is riddled with damp which we spent money on as well trying to rectify. Then out of the blue at the end of last year he turned up at our house just as we were carrying out the renovations, of course he was pleased, we got his new mobile number but he would not give an address we told him about the damp issue but he did nothing about it, the gas engineer who did the annual gas check said the gas fire had severe heat damage and needed replacing & he did nothing about that either. Then at the beginning of this year we had the chance to buy a bungalow from a friend and we jumped at the chance, I contacted our landlord at the end of March to tell him that we were moving out at the end of April he said we were making a big mistake at our age etc he didn't want us to leave. My husband asked what he was going to do with the property and he told him he was going to leave it empty until he decided. When we were clearing the house for the move we moved the wardrobes to take with us BUT underneath the robes we found white fungus growing on the carpet which had been eaten away by the fungus, now we knew where the smell was coming from, we could not take the wardrobes or anything else out of the bedrooms with us including the mattresses from the beds which were also covered in mold patches underneath so everything had to be dismantled and taken to the tip with a small trailer which we borrowed from a friend who uses it for his work & we could only borrow it every now & then, so instead of just moving furniture etc to our new home which would have been quick as we hired a removal van, we had tip runs which took ages to empty the house. Our rent was paid on the 1st of every month so I cancelled the direct debit for May as we moved to our new home on 22nd April, my husband took as few days off work for the move but as I said the tip runs took longer than expected & we had only just finished taking the stuff to the tip on the 9th of May & were going to go to the house to clean it on the 10th May & pick up two Virgin Media Boxes which have to be sent back to them or they are going to charge us £360.00. My husband went to the house to clean it yesterday & pick up the boxes and found the locks had been changed. Our next door neighbour said the landlord was kicking the door & had a bunch of keys in his hand trying them in the lock so she went outside to see what the commotion was & he said we had changed the locks which we haven't done she told him we were coming that day to clean up & would obviously have the keys (they are good friends) so he started hurling abuse at her and he went away and brought a locksmith with him. In hindsight we should have let him know what we were doing but we had a lot going on as when we moved into our new property the combi boiler packed up and we were without water or heating for over a week, I am disabled & was unable to contribute a lot with the move so it was all down to my husband & a friend. We have rung the mobile number he gave us & it is going straight to answer phone & my husband left messages saying we need to be able to get the Virgin Media Boxes but he is not replying to our messages. If we don't get the boxes Virgin will charge us £360.00 together with an early cancellation fee of £268.00 as they don't cover the area we have moved to or we would have stayed with them. I have not got that kind of money as I am a pensioner & it has all gone on buying the new property & buying new furniture to replace the ones that were rotten, I rang the police who's advice was to pay Virgin, so they are no help. Please can someone give me some advice? I am not bothered about getting the deposit back, I just want the boxes. Thank You!

Out of the two I find Clear Score more informative & I opted out on the application to receive any marketing emails and so far I have only received the welcome email.

Just donated. RIP Martin, wish it could have been more but I am disabled & hubby has gone from earning good money to minimum wage...

So sorry to hear the sad news, Martin helped me and countless others and for that I will be eternally grateful . His family must be so proud of him and my condolences go out to them. RIP Martin, you are in my heart & prayers.

Nice to get some good news..... Well Done! Dave..... you deserve it Sorry to hear you have not been well.... hope things pick up for you.. All the best minky xx

Hiya Rich I am so sorry! Good Luck!!! & best wishes coming your way for whatever you decide to do...... minky xxx

Hiya Guys Just popped in to see if everyone is okay and still fighting! I see you are Dave!! go get em they deserve to be firewalked over!!! minky xxx ps: Dave! have you given up on the idea of hosting the information site? I sincerely hope not as it took me ages finding and then cobbling together various complaint letters.

Hi! ODC The original creditor (Loan) was Capital Bank (A Bank of Scotland Company) but the DCA Wescot letter rec 16th May are quoting Bank of Scotland as the Creditor and the latest DCA Equidebt letter rec 29th May are quoting HBOS (Halifax Bank Of Scotland) as the Creditor. The CCA req to Wescot 30th May has not shown up as signed for on Royal Mail site and the CCA req to Equidebt sent 4th June was signed for on 5th June. No response from Wescot cos I think it was passed on to Equidebt and as far as I am aware I don't think the OC has sold the debt, as I have not received anything to say so, but there again they are still sending mail to the wrong address even though I Informed both DCA's in BOLD/CAPITALS of my COA appended to the CCA req's. So I think it is a bit of a lottery who I am in debt to lol... Thanks ODC for all your good advice.... minky xxx

Thanks Dave.. Going to get them sent off tomorrow, It is looking like they can't find the CCA or like my copy it isn't signed. Many Many Thanks minky xxx

Hi! Dave will it be okay to send letter to DCA? as I do not have an address for the OC. Hi! ODC With not having an address for the OC will it be okay to send the request for the internal complaints procedure to DCA so they can pass on to OC. I may be wrong but I am assuming it is the Original Creditor who I am going after now and not the DCA.. Thanks again for your time guys! I really do appreciate the help. minky xxx