Thanks for the replies, so they are legal but are only enforcable if the supermarket can identify the driver of the offending vehicle.

Hi, I need help to settle a diference of opinion, are supermarket charges for parking over the allotted free time legal? That is if there is easily viewed signage which says along the lines of "first 2 hrs free any overstay will incur a charge of £40 etc" (No clamping involved). The wife of a workmate got this charge & paid but he says if he had known it was for parking overtime in a supermarket he would have told her not to pay & there would be nothing they (the supermarket/parking co) could do as it was illegal. This is solely for carparks in Scotland. Thanks in advance for any answers/info.

I had a similar experience when my youngest was at primary, 1 boy made his life hell, on 1 occassion hitting his head off a wall & on another trying to strangle him while 2 playgroung assistants tried to restrain him. I got the usual platitudes from the headmistress "we have a bullying poicy, we are taking steps" etc load of rubbish. I went as high as the head of education for the region & was eventually told that nothing else could be done as the social work department was involved as the family had problems & of course the little animal was the real victim. (mother drank, uncle with 200+ convictions for everything from burglary to assault) Eventually I went to the police after the strangling incident & they did try to help but again "social work" is looking into it. Finally the boy was expelled & sent to his third school (I later found out he'd been expelled for his behaviour from another school prior to coming to my sons') The real eye opener for me was the reason he was expelled................................he threw a set of keys at the headmistress & cut her eye! I would tell them you will go to the press as this seems to be the only thing that gets them worried, everyone finding out their procedures don't work.

I've just had a cold caller at my door trying to tell me that AOL,Pipex & Tiscali are bust & CPW have taken over their business. The jist of the conversation was "you should be getting free broadband & calls & shouldn't be paying BT for your line rental....sign up with me & you'll pay a total of only £21.99 a month" When I asked for some written details of the deal & confirmation that "if I didn't do anything AOL would cut off my broadband" she said she could "sign me up in 2 minutes" & when I insisted on written details she got decidedly stroppy, so I said goodbye & shut the door. I assumed this was some [problem] to get commission for signing me up to this deal and using CPWs' connections in the BT exchange? I forgot to tell her I'd been on the phone to AOL on thursday & there was no mention of any of this.

The only thing it says on the card is about it having to be used within 24 months & for full terms & conditions see the zavvi website, but on the site only says cards are not redeemable online & the terms & conditions are all about the website use. It does state however that none of the terms & conditions affect your statutory rights...well surely its my statutory right to get my money back or goods to the value of as this was the original contract! I feel for the staff which is why I didn't take exception with the bloke yestrday but the administrators are obviously not interested as its now been in the press that any cards etc purchased before 27th november will definitely not be honoured ( honoured thats rich!)

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but....went to Zavvi yesterday (boxing day) to use my 2 sons xmas presents - 2 x £30 gift cards, purchased by their cousin for them back in the beginning of november. After spending the best part of 3/4 of an hour battling the crowds in the store to find some dvds and finding the back of the queue my wife was approached by a member of staff & asked if we were paying by gift card. When we said yes he apologised & told us they were not honouring gift cards or vouchers as they were in administration, then gave us a piece of paper with a statement about vouchers & gift cards purchased after 27th november & a number to call to speak to the administrators, we told him they were purchased as a xmas gift back on Nov 7th (we had the original receipt) and he said that we would have even less chance of getting anything back in that case! Is this legal as it seems to me they have taken money for what now turns out to be for nothing? Is there anything I can do other than phoning the administrators?It seems a bit like me going into the shop helping myself to some games, dvds etc promising to pay for them in a few weeks then saying sorry I'm a bit short I won't be paying now! Before anyone says its our own fault we should have used them sooner, they were in an envelope with the instruction not to open them till xmas day as the boys cousin is in the navy & wouldn't be here for xmas. Any & all usefull ideas appreciated.

Up here in Angus they tried police giving out lollypops to clubbers as they left the clubs! Don't know if it worked........probably choked a few of them!

Bit of a result, got my £9 from BT taken off my bill & today I got my Talk Talk bill including £12.73 worth of calls (+ vat) from my home phone to my wifes mobile for the time the BT line was down! Phoned TT & explained the circumstances & was told to try BT for compensation, explained to the TT person that it was TT that was billing me for calls made by people to me, at mobile rates & so it wasn't BT who should be returning the money it was TT. After being on hold for 5 minutes she came back with a "goodwill gesture offer" of £5 off my bill for the next 6 months. Bearing in mind Buzbys comments about TT I bit her hand off!

But why would I go to TT for compo? it was BT who failed to provide the service I contracted them to provide - a usable line, they own the line & the exchange surely? It is only calls that I have a contract for with TT.

Thanks for that Buzby I,ll give it another go but as I said when I "discussed" compensation with customer services yesterday I got stonewalled by the operator & her "manager?" with this offer of £9 so I can't see them budging. This is probably a stupid question but does it make a difference to the level of compensation that I only have my line rental from BT, I get my calls from talk talk?

Sorry for the length of the post but here goes....on 25/10/08 I reported to BT that my phone line was not working using my mobile phone (having stupidly tried at least 3 times not wanting to get charged mobile rates for waiting in a queue) and was advised that the fault would be rectified on monday 27th, meanwhile all calls to my housephone were redirected to my wifes mobile. This fault was ongoing throughout the week and every evening at @ 19:25 We received a text message to tell us that it was not fixed but would hopefully be rectified by the following day.The line was finally reinstated 11:00 on 2/11/08. This was a widespread fault which affected a large number of people in town so I have no real gripe as to how long it took to rectify, the problem for me is that because of BTs failure to provide the service I pay them for during this time any calls made were from our mobiles at mobile rates, instead being free/low costs (call circle) I expect I will be charged through the nose from Orange for the initial calls to report the fault and also I had arranged to have Sky fit my new HD fitted on 31/10 and took a day off work to be there for the engineer. Missing this date meant that I might not get it fitted till January so because of BTs ongoing promise that the line would be fixed I didnt cancel, lo and behold line not fixed, Sky couldn't install, day wasted as I had to take another day off.(luckily the engineer put the reschedule through as a service call so I got it yesterday). When my wife called BT as instructed to discuss compensation for the lack of service she was offered the princely sum of £6 when she queried the amount she then offered £10 only for the operator to be told from her supervisor that £6 was enough! I took over at this point and after going through everything again was offered £9 at this point I got fed up arguing and asked for a number to talk to a manager only to be told that they didnt have a number to give me! At this point I gave up. Is £9 a reasonable amount of compensation for 8 days failure to provide the service they are contracted to provide, considering they charge me £4.50 every 1/4 for paying my bill online by debit card? If not who do I need to contact to register my complaint? All advice/comments welcome even if only to say I'm being greedy!

Don't know about now but in the past if your car failed the MOT & the repairs were done by the garage that did the initial test (I think the proviso was that it couldn't leave the garage) then there was no chanrge for the second test.

How can BT charge £1.50 a month for admin of handling non DD payments yet try to get people to sign up for paperless billing (which will save BT even more money) & DD payment together by offering a discount of only £1.25 a month? am I being dense? Is this £1.25 over and above the non charge of £1.50 for paying by DD?

Thanks for your input gyzmo but I was hoping for a few opinions as to what action I can/should take in view of the time I have had the suite and the fact LOL will not budge from their attitude of we've made our decision and thats it. I also thought there might be others out there with the same sort of fault who would be willing to share their experience as I have never been in this position before. Here are the technicians reports I received from LOL. http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff270/RICK1EB/LOL/lol1.jpg http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff270/RICK1EB/LOL/lol2.jpg http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff270/RICK1EB/LOL/lol3.jpg

I bought a Juliet suite from LOL – 3 seat recliner sofa, 2 seat sofa and recliner chair delivered in Feb 06. By August 06 the leather on the recliner chair and left hand seat of the 2 seat sofa was flaking and peeling. I contacted LOL and was told someone would be sent to assess the fault. This indeed happened after several unreturned calls to LOL and in Nov 06 an ECOMASTER technician arrived to repair the faults, he assured us “we use the best of materials for the repair and it wouldn’t happen again”! Lo and behold in July this year the same problem appeared again to the same seats only worse. Again after several calls LOL organised a call from an ECOMASTER technician. Having heard nothing from LOL for several weeks we phoned them to be told that as the fault was due to wear and tear they would not be repairing the suite. I told the person I was speaking to (who I assumed was a manager) that I did not think it was correct as it was the same fault to the same seats as previously repaired and how could it be classed as wear and tear to a “luxury” leather suite after only 6 months. I should say at this point that both my wife and myself work, I have 2 boys the oldest who is 15 spends most of his time out with his mates/girlfriend or playing his computer/ps2 in his room and when he is in the lounge sits on the 3 seat recliner sofa, the younger one is 11 and prefers to sit on the floor to watch TV so the suite can hardly be classed as overused. I asked LOL for copies of the ECOMASTER reports to be sent to me giving them 7 days to deliver, but of course nothing arrived and it took several calls from me to actually get them, the excuse was they were waiting on them being e-mailed through from ECOMASTER, but they managed to e-mail them to me 5 minutes later (I will try to attach them). The technician has said the suite is un-repairable which is why I think LOL are refusing to take any action as that would mean them replacing the suite or refunding our money. The technicians report also states as well as wear and tear a lack of maintenance as a reason for the flaking, we were given a “free” leather care kit with the suite out of which we used the cleaner, conditioner and cloth which when used came away with flakes of leather and the colour of the suite (chocolate brown). The leather suite we had previously (not bought from LOL thankfully) was never conditioned and was only ever cleaned with warm water and hadn’t flaked by the time we sold it 6 years later! Am I being unreasonable thinking a “luxury” leather suite should not wear out in 18 months? I was told by the person I spoke to at LOL (Alistair who I assume is a manager) that if I wasn’t happy I should go to trading standards! I also stupidly took out the extended warranty which obviously won’t cover wear and tear so that’s another £200 down the drain. Any advice as to whether we have a valid claim, and if so how we should proceed would be gratefully appreciated.