I'm sorry, been a trifle busy trying to keep my job lately, so far been successfull! Anyway, my son has recently moved and while not giving up, has put that on the back burner, however, I will be seeing him next month and see what the score is. I might even take over the case myself, the young lad just doesn't have the time at the moment, seems he is one of the few who is doing well for himself at this time. I'll let you know the score when I can get a word with him. Cheers for asking though Jon

Aye, he does actually have a desktop in the house, but getting him to use it...... I will try though. He is, sometimes, a typical young man that can't be ar**d going through the correct channels, much like myself in younger days long, long ago. Besides, I'm not that far away, I get to stay with him once every 14 days, this is the reason I'm on here to glean as much info as possible to pass on to him, then follow it up when I visit, the 14 day letter seems like a good idea, that way I can see if he has had a reply the next time I stay overnight with him. Mind you, how often do independant young men listen to their father's nowadays. I could be barking up a brick wall or all sorts here, but I like to try. Thank you once again for all your input. I have emailed him with all that I have recieved so far, now we have to sit back and see what transpires. Jon

Yes that is a good point. I will say on his behalf that the company concerned did seem to be dragging their heels although give them their due they did try to deliver it back to him one time during the summer. Unfortunately for him he was not in. He works as a self employed window cleaner with his own little business and as such works all the hours he can! He tends to let things take their natural course rather than create a fuss, that's just his way, he is only 23 and still a young lad. The information regarding the missing employee/laptop only came to his attention at the beginning of October. As he was not aware of his rights (what young man of 23 is nowadays?) he did not know what to do. Both myself and my wife live in Spain, with me returning to the UK every 2 weeks for work offshore. Last time I stayed with him he told me all about it, which is when I told him he must claim as soon as possible. I think he has now found the reciept from the company so that's a start at least. When he sent the laptop in he also included all the paperwork with it, including the original invoice. I will pass on the good advice to him and see how it develops. Many thanks Jon

Slick132 Many thanks for that, I will have aread and see how I can proceed for him. Jon

Hello, my son put his laptop into a local repairers for data recovery from the HDD. This was back at the beginning of the year. He has now found out that an employee of the firm, left and took the laptop, amongst other items, with him. The firm are now talking about involving police to get a crime number and waiting until that is all cleared up before talking about re-compense. What is the law regarding this. I would imagine the firm would have had insurance against this sort of thing. What does my son do now? He would like a laptop for the one that was stolen, but what of the irreplaceable items from the old HDD such as one off photo's and movies as well as songs he has composed, is he entitled to any compansation above getting another laptop? Cheers Jon

Good morning. I have had a search on the forums but could not find what I was looking for. My son, who is in the Royal Navy, needs some help with his finances, so far I have been able to help him with sorting out old mobile phone bill demands and have been successful in writing off approx. £500 debt. Now however he is has been stonewalled by credit card companies. He want's to close the accounts and get rid of the cards. He would like to have the accounts frozen and has written to them asking the same. So far he has had no replies. What I would like to do is put together a letter for him that he can send them saying that I will be acting on his behalf in these matters. Unfortunately he can sometimes not follow up due to operational reasons when he is away at sea, sometimes for months at a time. I, on the other hand have plenty of time to communicate with them and also follow up if there is no reply. Can somebody either point me in the right direction of a template letter or maybe reply with the kind of wording that I need for him to let them know that I will be acting on his behalf. Many thanks

Thank you for the replies. I am keeping these policies going as a form of savings plan. I'm sure I can do this as I am still paying full UK tax as I work offshore in the North Sea. I will have to check on this before I make any decisions as to whether or not I want this payment stopped or not. Jon

Thanks for the reply. I don't suppose I could prevail upon you for the details of how you are going about this could I? By PM if you prefer not to give away secrets on an open forum! Jon

Good day to you all. My wife had motor insurance with Fortis, through its4me, purchased online, etc. So last August we moved to Spain, we didn't cancel then as we had not then sold the car. I was a named driver and would be going back to the UK due to my work and would need to use the car until such taime as it was sold. Eventually the car was sold some 2 months later and the proceeds of the sale were to fund a LHD spanish second hand car. This all took place and everything was running swimmingly (surprising for Spain) When she called them up to cancel the policy (back end of Nov, policy ran out in March following) she was informed there would be a cancellation charge, plus a full months premium!!! OK, not a problem, please send the notification of amount of no claims to..... New address given, got the OK on the phone so she asked if it was possible to get that info faxed to our Spanish bank for quickness so she could go ahead and claim that discount for her spanish insurance (quoted at €230 dependant on the no claims) they informed her that because of the DPA they were not allowed to do that (WTF?) so anyway, OK just send it to (New Spanish address) waited, waited, then waited some more, now we are into December and the bank is pressing for the required info so that we can get the insurance as quoted. Much needed as we had the car and were driving it on the banks cover note. So we waited a bit more, then a bit more and still more..... The bank had no choice but to go ahead and charge the full amount for the insurance (€640 and take the money, as they do over here) so we now have the situation, its4me demanding this payment, the bank having had no choice, charging us nearly 3 times the original quote. Xmas came and went, so did the New Year and finally at the very end of the month after countless (expensive) calls to its4me and Fortis the offending document was sent by post to our previous address, despite them acknowledging the change of address, luckily we still had mail re-direction to our son. Which is where I picked the letter up. We have now presented it to the bank, but will have to wait to see if she does get the original quote, bearing in mind the time delay! Anyway, she has also had a letter from solicitors regarding the debt, stating the usual blurb, however they have also addressed that to our former address. Now what I would like to happen is,....... a. write back to its4me, stating that due to their poor response to our initial request has cost us blahde blah amount. if they were willing to forgo the charges for cancellation, we would not persue the matter of the increased premium charges. or b. Just ignore them (the debt collectors) as they only have our former address. Can someone from the team of super brains offer some advice please? Cheers

Go to PePiPoo: Helping the motorist to get justice they will have all the info you need to help you out of this predicament. Do it as soon as you can to avoid any more stress. Jon

You need to go onto www.pepipoo.com fro more specialised advice. Plenty of top people on there that can give more info, but a word of warning, you will need to give them a lot more info than that, specifically dates and offence codes etc, as well as scanning the documents received and posting them up. HTH Jon

Yep, it's a standard thing. I thought it was bit funny having just moved to Spain an' all, so I called em up, nothing to worry about. Jon

Having just recently moved to Spain, I have been reviewing all my endowments. I am aware of the possible shortfall with all of them, however this is not an issue. I have a different mortgage now and am using them purely as a savings plan. The last one I took out included Critical Illness Cover. I think I might have been a bit naive about this. I would like to know from the learned members on here whether it is possible to remove this part from the policy but still continue to pay the premiums for the endowment until term is reached. It would appear that the critical illness cover is taking approx 1/2 of the amount I pay each month. I have not approached the company about this yet as I would like to take advice first. Can anyone point me in the right direction please Jon

We have recently moved to Spain, but kept the wife's insurance going as we were returning and had not sold the insured car. We did the change of address after we moved (to son's address in Scotland) no problem there. Sold the car last month and after a period of about 2 weeks informed them we no longer needed the insurance and wanted to cancel so we could get the no claim bonus certificate for our new insurers in Spain. No problem they said, send back your old cert, we will charge you £30 admin fee plus one months premium then we will send the required cert to your last know UK address. Obviously this will create problems for us with the time scale involved with post to Spain etc. My wife asked if they could fax the cert to the bank in Spain that is dealing with our insurance. They have turned round and said no they can't because of the Data Protection Act! Can anyone help. I just want to cancel the direct debit and make them whistle for the money, the problem is we really need the no claim bonus cert and I'm sure they will deduct money before sending cert on. Already posted on the back of simons thread and had a reply, so I am going to persue this further. Just waiting for my spanish bank to let me know if they have received the certificate then it's all guns blazing. I will need some help to point me in the right direction for letters to write etc. Jon

Spurring me on to defend my wife and the need to pay the charge and 1 months premium to cancel. Starting my own thread. Well done Simon and thanks for the PM Jon