The latest contract (5 years) that you signed would be the valid contract and Npower should be charging you at thsoe prices, not the rolled over prices. Ask them to produce the contract that ended on the 08/10/07 and more than likely they will not be able to produce this so no valid contract. However as you are able to produce a valid contract taking you through to March 2008 Npower may not have a leg to stand on.

The money goes into a pool with the local distribution company and the suppplier uses a MAP14 (industry palance) to obtain the payments. The supplier is notified via an industry flow of any amounts paid along with the date it was pai.d It is all referenced to a PAN number.

In January 2005 we purchased new fixed bed caravan with a 3 year warranty. Purchase value is in excess of £18000. We have had a few things done under warranty, no issue. However we tried to claim for the mattress sagging and the manufacturer via the dealer has rejected our claim under warranty stating that it is fair wear and tear and is excluded under the warranty. Just to add insult to injury, we have a mattress topper which indicates to me that if we did not have it, the mattress probably would have sagged a lot sooner. If we have to buy a replacement we are probably looking at about £500.like buying a new car only to have the seats start to sag a year later and then be told srry it is not covered under warranty. The caravan has been in for a proper service every year at the main dealer . What springs to mind is the following; • Wherever goods are bought they must "conform to contract". This means they must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality (i.e. not inherently faulty at the time of sale). • Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description. • Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety. As the fixed bed mattress is an integral part of the caravan surely it should be covered for a minimum of 3 years even if you used the mattress every night. A domestic mattress is normally guaranteed for a period of 5 years depending on price paid. Do you think I have any grounds for persuing this in order to obtain a replacement mattress and should it via the small claims court?

If you purchase a car or a caravan with a 3 year warranty, would the warranty becoem void if you did not service the vehicle at the due time? Lets assume that you did not take it in for a service and there is a breakdown but the breakdown has absolutely nothing to with the vehicle being serviced or not. Legally how would you stand? What if you had it serviced but not at an approved delearship for the brand of car or caravan and the service was done to industry standards? Would the warranty become void anyway or would you be able to challenge it?

In 1998 at the grand age of 48 years I went back to uni to obtain a BA in Business Studies. After obtaining my degree I obtained work and off I went. As I am now not too far off going on pension in 7 years time I decided to get a forecast. I have only been working in Britain for about 14 years. As it was low I queried this and was told it was because I never paid any NI between 1998 and 2001, 3 years. To make up I have to pay in a lump sum of approximately £500 and I cannot spread the payment. As I don't have £500 at present this means in effect I will not be able to even get the basic pension. I was under the impression that because you were at uni it was like signing on the dole and your NI would automatically be updated. Can any one throw any light on this otherwise it may not be very feasible for people to return to uni at a later stage in their life as they will lose NI credits.

No snipe or anything similar was intended at all. All I was saying that I don't agree that people should be allowed to post your details without your permission, i.e. they should contact you first and ask if they can add you to their list of friends or by the same token Facebook asks you if you wish to have your details on their servers. Certain types of people enjoy liaison with old friends but I can't be bothered because if the so called friend didn't keep in contact in the first place that is their issue and obviously they are not a true friend. Those that have kept in contact over mant years can be regarded as true friends and I do not need Facebook for that purpose. Anyway thansk very much for the update and no offence was meant at all. I guess my English grammar is rather poor.

Basically the account was in your maiden name and as that person "no longer exists" there may be no contract based on what they are saying to you. therefore if they try a £20 charge advise on cancelling the contract and as buzby has said it probably will be waived. I think that they just try and fob you off as they are too lazy to do the change of name!

My concern here is that Facebook were able to send me an email therefore they have a record of my email which can be obtained if somone hacks the site. You would think that friends would have the decency to ask you if they can add you to their friends list on a website instead of just going ahead and doing it. In my books it is an invasion of privacy and i don't care whether or not no one else can see my details, the fact remians that my details are now associated with this so called organisation. IMHO it is a load of crap and only for a certain type of person!

Advise Powergen it is in dispute and that they should hold off and get onto Energywatch and advise them what has happened. I would not be suprised if PowerGen then reduced the amount owing substantially as they can afford to do so as at the moment they are making the biggest profit they have ever made on power as the prices have dropped substantially over the past year but has never been passed onto the consumer. I think this smells of colusion r price fixing.

Every now and then I get an email advising that I have been added to Facebook by some friend or other without my permission. I find this quite annoying as I have no intention of subscribing to Facebook at all and I have no way of finding out what details have been posted. I don't want to crap on my friends who probably think they are doing me a favour but obviously my email address is being posted as I receive a notification. Is there anything I can do about this?

As per Buzby I wrote them a preliminary letyter and sent it by recorded mail but got no answer. I then sent a LBA and they replied quite promptly and I go a refund of the charge however not additional interest that I accummalated or the £12 exceeding my overdraft fee. I have come to the conclusion that this Card protection is all a big con. good luck with your refund but i think you will need to push them hard.

The cost of electric shot up quite a bit in late 2005 / 2006 however it has now fallen drastically but this has not been passed onto the consumer. If I had access to the electric wholesale market prices I would be able to prove this. I am working on this at present but it is difficult.

The main thing to remember is that it will be impossible for them to enforce any changes until they are able to read your meter on a monthly basis. Reasoning is that bills are estimated and on domestic are only read once every two years therefore althoughy you may be late in paying the bill, it may already be paid as the supplier may have overestimated the bill. To get around any late payment charges which will be illegal anyway this all you need do is ask them to resend the bill with an up to date reading. This means that they will need to send a meter reader around and if you requested this I think that they are obliged to do this so it may not be worth the effort by them. You can also cause them a lot of hassle by asking for a copy of the contract even if it is verbal and they are obliged to send it to you. If they can't, then no contract, no contract may mean that they have to bill you at the last rates supplied which could be in 2004/5 when costs were lower thus significantly reducing your bill anyway but you will have to argue the toss on this and back it up with your own calculations. I did and my bill was reduced by over £100!

Incorrect. I work for an Utility company and our agreement is with the tenant not the landlord unless the landlord consents to a "Change of Tenancy". Either way we would never disclose to the landlord what the tenant was owing because it would be a breach of the Data Protection Act and we value our licence. The landlord would only be liable for the debt from the time the tenant vacated the property, not prior to the tenant vacating the property. As a utility company we would explore other avenues to trace the previous tenants or write off the bill.

This is an answer to a letter cribbed off this site and sent to the FSA. Here si their answer. Dear Mr X Thank you for your email of 4 September 2007, which was addressed to Clive Briault. Your email has been passed to the Consumer Contact Centre as the appropriate department to respond. Your enquiry I understand from your email that you have posed a series of questions regarding the rule waiver granted for banks when dealing with complaints about unauthorised overdraft charges. I have listed your question as I have understood them below and answered them in turn. 1) What is the reasoning behind allowing banks to continue to charge consumers unauthorised overdraft charges, when banks/building societies do not have to deal with complaints on the same issue? Banks and building societies are able to continue to levy these charges as they have not yet been deemed unlawful. Yeah right! This will be determined by the test case. If the test case does find that the charges are unlawful then you will be able to ask for repayment of the money you have been charged. In the interim, we have put in place measures designed to ensure that consumers will not be disadvantaged in their ability to recoup past charges levied prior to or during the test case, should the courts determine these charges are unlawful. 2) It would be more equal if there was a suspension of cases and charges. Why has this more fair interim measure not been adopted? I believe this was answered in question 1. 3) You wish to know why 'double charges' are allowed to continue? As you feel that it is contravention of the Office of Fair Tradings (OFT) Report 842 from April 2006. The OFT report that you are referring to is 'Calculating fair default charges in credit card contracts - A statement of the OFT's position'. As you can see from the title this report is regarding credit card default charges and not unauthorised overdraft charges. After announcing their statement of principles regarding credit card charges in April 2006. The OFT decided to carry out further work looking at how the principles apply to bank accounts. It has now carried its initial review, which involved liaising closely with the FSA. The finding of this initial review is that the OFT shares the public concern about the level and incidence of bank current account charges, but it recognises that the application of the general principles it set out in 2006 to the banking industry is not straightforward and that a more detailed investigation of the fairness of bank default charges is needed. If you have any questions or comments on the OFT's work you can contact them using the contact details on their website at www.oft.gov.uk. 4) Why to this date have the FSA been unable to get high street banks to comply with Unfair terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999? The FSA has some jurisdiction in this area but our powers are rather limited. However, the interpretation of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations is really a matter for the courts. 5) Why has it been necessary for consumers to take action on widespread scale before regulatory authorities respond in their interests? The increase in consumer activism in this area is a fairly recent phenomenon (post OFT ruling on credit card charges) and the decision to bring a test case which arises from it was a decision made by both the banks and the OFT. 6) When consumers make a new complaint about unauthorised overdraft charges they will be placed on hold pending the outcome of the test case. You would like to know why? Up until this point, some customers have been refunded these charges when complaining, others have not. We don't believe it is in the interests of all consumers for this to continue. 7) Having found the funding (sometimes in cases pf extreme hardship) some consumers have already submitted court claims, which may now be stayed. You would like to know why? The decision to stay court proceedings is a decision of the court that the case was due to be held in. The FSA has not instructed courts to stay all proceedings related to complaints about unauthorised overdraft charges. 8) Consumers are still subject to penalty charges irrespective of the fact such charges are precisely the subject of the forthcoming test case. How do you propose to justify this given your statutory obligations to the consumer? I believe that this has been answered in question 1. 9) Will the FSA give a categorical assurance that the issue of consumer defaults placed on consumers credit files, as a result of unauthorised overdraft charges, will be thoroughly reviewed with the aim of removing altogether such default notices? I am unable to comment on this issue. It is for the High Court to decide what action is appropriate following their decision on whether unauthorised overdraft charges are fair. Unlawful charges I note from your correspondence that you refer to unauthorised overdraft charges are 'unlawful charges'. May I remind you that these charges are the subject of a case in the high court and the legality of the charges is still in question. Pending the outcome of the test case these charges are not considered illegal. I trust that this information is of use. Yours sincerely M Broadhurst (Miss) Consumer Contact Centre Financial Services Authority Consumer Helpline: 0845 602 2185 (call rates may vary) www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk Get clear, impartial information from the UK's financial watchdog. No selling. No jargon. Just the facts Please can I have some comments in order to respond back to the very kind lady.

What most of us is forgetting is that the action was started without any consulatation with any consumer group. As we were never consulted why should we be the ones to suffer a long delay and believe me the banks are going to try and delay it as much as possible. Basically what they are doing is challenging a statute!

I have the same issue. I do clerical work but sometimes the pain is so severe that ypu cannot concentrate. other times due to being kept awake at night one is in no fit state to go to work. I am a little bit luckier in that i can log into work from home and do my work but I cannot always do a full day's work. I am at the stage where I am waiting for a MRI scan. I have even offered to travel any distance to get it done sooner but even if I have it done tomorrow the consultant who can hardly speak any English cannot see me for 5 weeks. At that point I will probably have to wait another several months for the op. So much for the Labour Government reducing waiting times. It took nearly 12 weeks to get an appointment with the consultant although I am in agony constantly.

Contacted my MP Dr Richard Taylor Wyre Forest yesterday and had back the following response; Sent on behalf of Dr Richard Taylor Dear Mr xxxxxx Thank you for your email about bank penalty charges. I can well understand your indignation that bank charge cases currently under investigation are to be suspended pending the outcome of the high court ruling sought by the OFT, the FSA, the FOS and a number of leading banking organisations. I have recently written on behalf of another constituent with views similar to yours to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Kitty Ussher MP, to request that the FSA and FOS should continue their ongoing investigations in order to avoid any further financial stress on consumers involved in these cases. I note your wish that I forward your correspondence to the Prime Minister but I think it is likely that a reply will be routed via the Economic Secretary to the Treasury who responds to financial services issues. Therefore in the first instance I have sent Kitty Ussher a copy of your email and I will let you know when I receive her reply. With best wishes. Yours sincerely

I am hoping to a better response in this forum than the other forum I riginally posted in. In May 2005 we purchased cash a Blue Dorema all seasons awning suitable for a seasonal site with a one year guarantee from a dealership nearby. Three months later we had to have all the steel poles replaced. In December 2006 we had to send the awning back to the dealer for the stitching to be redone in places as the stitching was right on the edge and it did not take much for it to come apart. This was done free of charge as I quoted the Sale of Goods Act. Now 7 months down the line from the repair in February 2007, the same stitching has come apart again making it difficult to zip up the awning in the front. However more importantly just over two years from date of purchase the awning has gone from Blue to Green! We specifically chose Blue to match with the curtains etc. Our one neighbour who has the identical awning has also changed from Blue to Green a colour they specifically did not want. It is almost as if the manufacturer had a load of green canvas left over from a run which they then dyed blue which is why we have a green awning instead of a blue awning. Our other neighbour has a proper green awning and you cannot tell the difference in colour between the three awnings that is how bad it is. Do you think I have much of a chance pursuing this through the small claims court using the following arguments; a) Wherever goods are bought they must "conform to contract". This means they must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality (i.e. not inherently faulty at the time of sale). b) Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description c) Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety. d) For up to six years after purchase (five years from discovery in Scotland) purchasers can demand damages (which a court would equate to the cost of a repair or replacement). The dealer has already said no ways are they going to consider it therefore as I purchased from the dealer, I have to pursue any action through the dealer. I appreciate that it is up to me to prove non-conformity but I think that the awning which costs nearly £750 no longer conforms to the colour it was when purchased and neither does the workmanship stand up to conformity considering the price paid. I am not interested in getting a refund, but rather a repair free of charge or a replacement. What are your thoughts on this one? Thanks

Problem is that all these managers who have been on the fob off course need a kick up their backsides. I have had issues with items less than 28 days old and on occasions have had to raise my voice in order for them to get the issue resolved. Alhough not a laptop issue I had to do thsi in Currys in order to get a problem resolved and then it only happened because I threatened them with legal action. I get extremely annoyed when I have a problem with goods purchased and the monkey imitating a manager does not show the slightest bit if concern and just looks at you blank and states, "Can't help you, email write, phone an 0870 number, walk there if you want to compalin I have no interest in your problem. Now let me get on my my life".

If you go to a foreign country why do you expect them to serve food according to British tastes? If it was me, I would want to sample their food even if it was forgs legs, snails, snake, crocodile or similar. That is the experience of travelling otherwise you might as well stay at home. As British we should not be imposing our will on others although they can to us. Anyway I doubt whether you can claim for being moved to another hotel and it is probably in the T & Cs. Have a read through them before yoiu decide on anything.

In May 2005 we purchased cash a Blue Dorema all seasons awning suitable for a seasonal site with a one year guarantee from a dealership nearby. Three months later we had to have all the steel poles replaced. In December 2006 we had to send the awning back to the dealer for the stitching to be redone in places as the stitching was right on the edge and it did not take much for it to come apart. This was done free of charge as I quoted the Sale of Goods Act. Now 7 months down the line from the repair in February 2007, the same stitching has come apart again making it difficult to zip up the awning in the front. However more importantly just over two years from date of purchase the awning has gone from Blue to Green! We specifically chose Blue to match with the curtains etc. Our one neighbour who has the identical awning has also changed from Blue to Green a colour they specifically did not want. It is almost as if the manufacturer had a load of green canvas left over from a run which they then dyed blue which is why we have a green awning instead of a blue awning. Our other neighbour has a proper green awning and you cannot tell the difference in colour between the three awnings that is how bad it is. Do you think I have much of a chance pursuing this through the small claims court using the following arguments; a) Wherever goods are bought they must "conform to contract". This means they must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality (i.e. not inherently faulty at the time of sale). b) Goods are of satisfactory quality if they reach the standard that a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking into account the price and any description c) Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety. d) For up to six years after purchase (five years from discovery in Scotland) purchasers can demand damages (which a court would equate to the cost of a repair or replacement). The dealer has already said no ways are they going to consider it therefore as I purchased from the dealer, I have to pursue any action through the dealer. I appreciate that it is up to me to prove non-conformity but I think that the awning which costs nearly £750 no longer conforms to the colour it was when purchased and neither does the workmanship stand up to conformity considering the price paid. I am not interested in getting a refund, but rather a repair free of charge or a replacement. What are your thoughts on this one? Thanks.

Thanks Theanalyst. It seems that the laws around mobile phones is very vague and needs tightening up.

Any one please?

I took out a supply contract with Orange via mobiles.co.uk. I was informed that after the 3 month free trial for up to 1 GB download it would cost only £4 per GB. This was the main reason I took out the contract. Once the 3 month trial period ended I received a bill for over £400 as the charge was £4 per megabyte not £4 per gigabyte. Luckily I have it in writing about the £4 per gigabyte from mobiles.co.uk and will be taking them to court to recover costs. Unfortunately as bills are a month in arrears I clocked up another £400 usage. Mobiles.co.uk paid some of the first £400 and refused to pay the other £400 stating that when I received the first bill I should have stopped logging onto the Internet. Anyway to cut a long story short Orange notified me that the outstanding amount would be passed over to a DCA despite me asking if I could pay off the £400 over a period of time, i.e. normal subscription £70 but I would pay £120 per month an additional £50 as I could not afford a lump sum of £400. Basically they were not responsible for the actions of their agents. I have been paying the DCA at £70 per month and the amount is almost paid off, however in the meantime my credit rating has been severely affected. This is the only "bad" credit that I have and I have not missed a single payment to the DCA. As Orange never notified me that they were issuing me with a default, are they entitled to put one on my file. Is there any way I can get it removed and if so which is the best way to go about it? Unfortunately network suppliers seem to be a law unto their own and I am unsure how to approach it to get the default removed. Any suggestions would be welcomed.