Hello again I was trying to post my details for the review deadline, and the site was down for maintenance, this seems an unfortunate time to have happened? I suppose it is too late?

do you remember I had trouble with getting my refund from Ideal Shopping? well after nearly 2 months of emails and threatening letters they finally refunded,and put a £10 credit in my account with them to come off my next purchase! damn just when I decided I will never buy another thing from the b....s, give me the money!

hi tez, just had my first crumb for 24 hrs, poor hubby is looking after me tea and toast in bed! even with his baddy eye! val.

all of them tez!! don't you? thats very good slick not to be confused with the golden oldies:D

evening everyone, nice to be back in the land of the living, I have just surfaced from 24 hour sickness bug!! at least I think it is? no tez we don't do breakfast in bed in this house, haven't eaten a crumb for 24 hrs, Jenny I've gone gold as well didn't notice before.

sorry saint I didn't see it, is there a certain place to click on under these circumstances? I am still a novice. val

Hi there you two, yes hubby is fine, he only had drops in the eye, thats all the local was, he's bored stiff, 2 weeks of this! Have you seen whats happened to the MSE site. ? APOLOGIES! TEMPORARY SUSPENSION DUE TO MAJOR OVER-DEMAND

Hi all, WHERE DID IT ALL GO?? I thought it was me at first, what happened? I was waiting for a letter from the Judge, which might help or claim, as he told us, and I received a "Notice of Judgement Hearing" today. I don't understand whats this all about? heres what it says:- Take notice that the hearing will take place on 30 October 2007 at 10.40 AM at Cardiff CC ..... NO ATTENDANCE REQUIRED 5 minutes has been allowed for the hearing please note.. This case may be released to another Judge, possibly at a different Court. vbrep_register("1200468")

Did you get one Jenny?

WHERE DID IT ALL GO?? I thought it was me at first, what happened? I was waiting for a letter from the Judge, which might help or claim, as he told us, and I received a "Notice of Judgement Hearing" today. I don't understand whats this all about? heres what it says:- Take notice that the hearing will take place on 30 October 2007 at 10.40 AM at Cardiff CC ..... NO ATTENDANCE REQUIRED 5 minutes has been allowed for the hearing please note.. This case may be released to another Judge, possibly at a different Court.

Hello all of you, is anyone on here now? I was trying to get on here last night . did the site go down all night,? whats happening with the proceedings, hope its all going through?

Hi jenny what happened to the site last night? will pm you

Poor old soul, hes still up the scaffolding,( NO not this minute tez!) did I tell you he found a long section of barge board and fascia board had rotted, thats what delayed him, had to make all new huge amount of extra work, and tomorrow he's going to hospital to have his cataract operation, so he can't do anything for at least two weeks, house looks lovely with scaffolding across the front !!!!

Thank god they are not yours jenny, they look likr my OHs

you wouldn't have kept them on if it was Tom Jones I suppose jenny;) well you lot never fail to give me a good laugh, tell me again where do you get these pictures from, I've fogotten and I think I should learn something new now:D

Hey stone if you have got someone to record OK but not worry I'm sure it will appear on here or Martin MSE will do it?

Hi jenny looking for you, I am wondering how it went, hope you are OK val

OK tez teach wouldn't get away with that noadays, mustn't touch, my OH had a cauliflower ear a few times, and just for being late for school!!!now behave and tell me where I can get some money for a couple of old mobiles? I have now got a new interest in life. trying to MAKE some money! pity i've never been any good at selling, but damn good at buying!! I also have a computer if anyone wants it they can have it. more details if wanted.

I am the same, very disappointed, but I try to think about what slick, saintly, tez, smutley and the others say, WE WILL GET OUR MONEY !!!

tez, sorry about your phone, you've got to stop this I even find myslef chuckling at your misfortune, you are just so funny, were you a comedian in another life????

Hi MB don't bang your head too hard, weird isn't it how all the judges seem to be on our side, I thought they administered justice? wonder how they got their hands tied? Well done you took on the big boys, piece of cake:D

HI kelley and kashie, yes smutley and I went to court but only for the oral heaing to uplift the stay, which was refused. we arranged to meet each properly inside the court building, had a chat before it was time to go in. this is my version, its a bit long! Well we survived the hearing, ( Friday 19th Oct) but no luck with the stay, no surprise there then, met up with Jenny,(smutley) which was great, we both felt so nervous, it really helped being in it together, jenny did brilliantly, I even surprised myself that I could speak! Only 3 of us turned up out of 5, the third was a chap from the sites alias butterbean his case was against HSBC, and behind us in court were 4 legal trainees from the university, and a man with Bs solicitor who she referred to as ' a mini clerk' ! ( if I got that right) HSBCs solicitor was there and ours both female (young girls) we arrived at 10am, the judge was late due to another case took longer than expected, and our case finished at 1 o’clock! Not the 10mins they told us then. There was a tremendous amount of legal jargon, the judge explained the impending OFT case to us in full! We each had our turn to speak and to be fair the judge seemed to be sympathetic, the banks solicitors had their turn, and this time (just our luck) made a meal of it, finally the judge summed up and made his decision, we already knew that because he told us at the start! We had all asked for the conditions in the alternative to be adhered to, but he refused that as well. The judge told us that even if we got the stay lifted and eventually got a hearing, we woudn’t get a date until next year and probably after the OFT case, even then if we won that case, we would not get our money, because nothing is being paid out until the ultimate decision is made. The case in January will only be the beginning, as which ever side wins will appeal so it probably goes to the House of Lords and it may even go as far as Europe so it could take 1-2 years before it finishes. Judge Hickinbottom was very considerate of the fact that we are nervous, when he finished his address, he asked each one in turn to speak, it isn’t as bad as you think, just speak out, he seemed understanding. He asked if we wanted to withdraw the application since there was no advantage one way or the other now that they will not pay out anyway, and gave us 10 minutes to decide he left the room so we could discuss it amongst ourselves. I decided to withdraw my application but asked if the conditions could be applied mainly for me to have the penalty charges stopped until the outcome of test case, he asked Barclays solicitor and she she went on and on about the cost to Barclays would be far too much as they would have to check accounts manually, (surely this was confirmation of the main point she more or less admitted automated penalties cost very little?) The Judge was not impressed by this, but in the end he did not agree to apply the conditions. When the Bs solicitor was giving her boring long spiel, she referred to my personal status of my overdraft, that I had £1000 in my overdraft account, I am not incurring penalties! My hand went up, the judge said I would have my chance to respond later. When I did I said "Your honour ever since I began this claim in January this year, I have constantly been moving money into this account from 0% credit cards, in an effort to prevent these penalty charges and that to the present day, means that my debt now stands at £8000. With the current account £4000 (overdraft limit £5000) NatWest A& L and MBNA credit cards, If I hadn’t done this the account would be over the limit by £4000" + thousands of charges!!! I also said "I am 67 years old and my Husband is 72 years old and we have had this account with Bs for about 45 years and it wasn’t until we retired in 2003 on a pension that we began incurring these penalty charges " I misguidedly thought that would put Bs to shame. Was this an attempt to make the judge think I am not suffering hardship? I know that by the end of next week the payments due out will mean that I will be up to or over the limit once again, and looking for somewhere to move money again. I will be lucky to pay off the cards in time before the promotion dates are up on the different cards; this is how it snowballs. That guy butterbean was really nice too, the poor chap had travelled all the way from Tenby, wife had just had their first child so she was not working, he had a £12,000 debt and HSBC had closed his account that day, so he is left high and dry and he is also on the default register, etc. and when Judge Hicky asked if the banks were looking for costs for today, Barclays said they were not, but the HSBC solicitor said she wanted costs, and the judge rolled his eyes and said that they were not appropriate! Butterbean, told us after he hoped she had asked him for costs, he couldn’t pay but he thought he would go straight to the press. There is some sort of rule at present throughout this process that is supposed to be preventing the banks from closing accounts. He showed Judge Hicky the letter he had today from HSBC solicitors; also they threatened to send the debt collectors to his door. The banks have also been intimidating people with constant phone calls on the weekends demanding money, cancelling cards and chequebooks. We achieved nothing other than the invaluable experience of a court hearing, the judge understood that we had missed out getting our money as he agreed that before the announcement Bs were paying out, he would be writing to us with reasons for turning us down after he had heard a few more cases by next week. He did say something about the letter being a benefit to us. This means that as much as I don’t want to say it, I think all this work to uplift the stays is now pointless. I suggest you just sit back and wait and watch the OFT case.

crfx I am so pleased you have proceeded with this. Every time I or my husband have read through all the info about the FSA and the OFT claim etc. we have been more and more convinced this is mainly down to the government pressure fear of reducing their cut from the banks revenue Do you still want claim details? you can have mine and I am sure plenty of others. I went to court last friday, failed to uplift the stay, on hardship grounds, I have posted the whole event on my site "Olden v Barclays"

I have looked around for butterbean and I think he's over on MSE or Penalties ? whatsit site?

Hi ice maiden look at carlysle and clysedale? i think that may be one of them?