I fail to see how anyone can help you spend your cash more wisely when you don't have enough to go around. Do they really think people on low incomes go around buying flash cars and designer clothes at the expense of their bills and rent? If you're on an income that simply doesn't meet the bills, there is nothing MA can do to help unless they can suggest a successful way to approach your boss for a rise. The minimum wage is £6.31 per hour, the living wage is £7.45 so that's over £1 per hour or nearly £50 per week difference in what we earn and what we need to be earning to live on. Incidentally, those figures were BEFORE the gas and electric companies hiked their prices. Maybe MA should be advising the government since they don't seem to have a clue what they are doing and absolutely no idea what it's like trying to survive on minimum wage. We had MP's experience time on the Dole, Whoopee, it's easy to do when you know exactly what you're entitled to, renting the cheapest place possible and still getting your tax, insurance and MOT paid for on your car as well as your fuel paid for too from government expenses. Now, let's see someone try it on minimum wage for a year or more with NO help from outside, NO prior knowledge of what extras they can claim for, a beat up old banger to drive that keeps breaking down and is starting to fail on MOT's on serious things because they can't afford to replace it. On top of that, they have to live 100% on what wages they get alone and have at least 1 hours drive each way to and from work every day. I'd like to see how long they last before the employer tells them to sling their hook because they have too much time off when their car keeps breaking down. Or the car fails the MOT on something expensive to repair and they have to somehow find the money to repair it or give up their job. That extra £50 we would get on a living wage would go a long way to preventing things like that. Maybe MA should advise the government to put the minimum wage up to a level we can actually afford to live on instead of advising us how to juggle our already strapped incomes.

Bailiffs should be totally scrapped. Their methods, not to mention their costs, make it almost impossible for a debtor to pay off their debts in a reasonable way. To add to that, taking a debtor to court and having a bailiff chase the debt is being done without the debtors knowledge. Often the debt is pursued at the debtors previous address deliberately so they cannot attend court in their own defence. That means the debt may not even have existed to begin with, anyone can apply to a court for a debt at the "debtors" previous address and in absence of the debtors testimony, the order to pay is drawn up. I have had just that done to me, luckily I managed to sort it, but not before several visits from bailiffs threatening to take my possessions. Had I let them in, my possessions would have been seized and sold before I could sort it out. Other times, they sue you at your previous address even though they may know where you have moved to because it's easier than trying to reach a compromise with you for payment first. It's just way too easy to deny you know the debtors new address. At least with an attachment to earnings/benefits, you can be compensated for the money that has been taken plus additional for the distress you are put under. What a Bailiff will take can sometimes, never be replaceable no matter how much compensation is awarded, (jewellery that has sentimental value for example, pets are another good example). My attitude to a bailiff: Come in but you'll have to excuse the Rottweiller who does have a nasty habit of chewing on people's necks. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt after a while though.

I have been looking at the HR laws regarding this. Article 23. (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. Article 25. (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection. According to this: They cannot force you into a job that you do not want to do. (Free choice of employment) They cannot force you to work for your benefit. (Equal pay for equal work and also, Just and favourable remuneration, also Article 4 regarding slavery or servitude). Article 25 basically states that they cannot take your benefits away from you as it would leave you without "a standard of living adequate for your health and well being". The DWP often sanction those who refuse a job offered to them. These offered jobs are often in no way similar to the jobs you are qualified or experienced to do. That means, if you are a qualified engineer, you could quite legitimately turn down a job stacking shelves in Tesco. You can also be sanctioned for refusing to do work for your benefits. As this contravenes so many HR laws (slavery, equal pay and just remuneration), I do believe one person already won a case using this clause. Anyone want to take out a law suit? How about a group action with all those who have suffered this indignity taking the DWP to court all at once? If they also demanded significant compensation for the stress and possible health issues, caused by lack of adequate food, suffered while on sanctions, that would hurt the government who have perpetrated this. Many are unemployed through no fault of their own. With mass immigration, comes the problem of not enough jobs to go around. One cannot be penalised for not getting a job if the jobs simply are not there to begin with. Even the age old standby jobs with temp agencies are filled to capacity now, mostly by immigrant workers. I'm not knocking them, at least they are working but it's at the expense of our own people's jobs and the government constantly penalise us for it and call British people "lazy" etc which simply isn't true.

Undertaking is very dangerous. I had a near crash tonight coming home from work with an idiot tailgating me as I overtook a lorry so I indicated to pull over to the inside lane when I had a chance, only to have to swerve back onto the fast lane as he shot past on the inside. I was doing 70 and he went past me as if I was standing still so I could easily have run him off the road at his speed if I had been slower reacting, he would never have been able to control it.

Another reason for police to concentrate on drivers instead of the real criminals. While I am in favour of it on principle, it will take too many police officers off the streets looking for a quick and easy nick. I would also extend it to lorries who hog two lanes because the one overtaking is doing 0.025 mph faster so they block both lanes between them for many miles at a time.

Of course. It's just that some of it has gone brown with age

I think the bailiffs enforce the rules more than their employers. If a bailiff visits your home, only he knows what is there and it would be easy for him to say "I didn't see that." That is often why they themselves are referred to as "enforcers" since the company may make the rules but a bailiff enforces them, whether that is to the letter or with discretion is purely the bailiffs choice. So in this particular instance, I feel it is right to shoot the messenger.

Thanks for the clarification.

When a bailiff removes your goods and sets the figure that they consider it to be worth, what happens if, at the auction, they command a much higher value? For example: Your debt is 500 The Bailiff removes a computer that they value at 250 from your home and a few other items that total the remainder in their estimation. At the action, the computer sells for 450 and the other goods sell for 350. This means that the debt can be paid and a further 300 is left. What happens to that 300? Is it returned to the debtor?

Visits are not the only charge. Many charge extortionate amounts for taking it to court to begin with. I have seen "court costs" of £600 or more on a £500 debt, more than doubling the amount the debtor now has to pay back. It stands to reason that if a person is not repaying because they are unable due to income etc, they certainly cannot afford double the amount.

They always were. As far as I am aware, these are only amendments to the existing lists giving more detailed descriptions rather than leaving it open to interpretation.

Write back and make a point of informing them: The court case must be at a location within a reasonable traveling distance from your home. They must write, informing you of the time and date of the court case. Unless you do this, they will go to their own location and it will be heard with no opportunity for you to appear to make your case. Same here. I lived in a 1 bed flat and only a cooker running on gas. I used very little gas as a result but kept getting letters with an attached leaflet virtually accusing me of stealing gas. I eventually got very abrupt with them on the phone, surprisingly I managed to avoid the four letter words though and received a written apology.

A friend of mine once said he would never trust a company with the word "British" in the name. British Gas, British Telecom and so on. I completely agree, I have yet to find one that isn't conning and ripping customers off.

Actually, I recently found out that if it's a privately rented bedsit, the only person other than the debtor who has the authority to allow a bailiff past the front door of the property is the landlord. From what I understand, none of the other tenants in the property have the right to allow the bailiff in. I wonder if this means the landlord can also sue the bailiff for trespass as well as the damages he caused? This would cover the entryphone system too unless the council actually own the property and the bailiff is acting on their behalf. In which case, the landlord (the council) have already given the bailiff permission to enter. However, most entryphones have a separate trade button so the postman/dustmen etc can enter between certain hours, bailiffs would simply use that to gain entry to the communal areas. Unless the laws have changed recently, the only people with the right to force entry are the Police and the Customs and Excise. Bailiffs as far as I know still cannot do it unless they have already been invited in by the debtor on a previous visit.

I do know of one Bailiff who will get his come-uppance. He entered a bedsit property and tried to use the "internal door" clause to get into the room using force. The guy got legal advice and they said to sue the bailiff because each door had a number on it which made the rest of the house a communal area just as if it were flats. What made it worse was that the guy had absolutely nothing of value on the premises so the bailiff left with nothing to show for his unlawful entry anyway.

Additionally, this will be a first step in internet censorship. First it's "pirate" sites, then it soon becomes any site they don't want you to access on political grounds then it will start limiting access to information they don't want you to have by keywords and so on. Certain Youtube videos will be restricted due to their content if your government feels that it is "unsuitable for your country", what they mean is that the video may show your government to be liars and thieves and traitors to your country so they don't want you to see it. Didn't people support the Blue Ribbon Campaign to combat internet censorship by our governments? Maybe this should be resurrected on the grounds that, while piracy may be a crime, censorship is not a viable answer because it gives the government too much power over what they elect to censor? We already have ISP's capping bandwidth on torrents due to "piracy" but many legitimate torrent users like those downloading online games clients are being affected. WOW has in excess of a 6 gb download and that's often followed by a series of patches that totals more than 3 gb. My friend took nearly 24 hours in total to download and patch it when he started playing due to torrent speed capping of his 20mb connection by his ISP. 9gb should have taken just over an hour at max speed. Strange how torrent bandwidth was never an issue for ISP's until the government tried to stop P2P being used a few years back, again on the grounds of piracy. The government have tried various things to get the internet under their control. Pron was a big issue until you realise that, if you take the total number of magazines in a newsagent, there's a larger percentage of pron on their top shelf than on the internet compared to the other information available. You can't fight piracy by censorship, it's as simple a that, but the government hate anything that isn't under their control so they will use any excuse they can to get control. At the end of the day, this isn't about piracy, it's about controlling what you can see, hear and read on the internet. I CALL THAT COMMUNISM.

You need a mortgage to buy a cinema ticket these days so that's not an option for most people. If they are going to pirate it, they'll just wait until they can hire it and then copy it. Alternatively copy it when it finally gets shown on one of the cable movie channels. Blocking internet sites is simply delaying the inevitable. I download and watch a film and if I think it's good, I'll go out and buy a legit version on DVD to support the producers. If I think it's crap, I never even watch it to the end before it's deleted. I won't buy it until I've seen it... EVER.

Redirects, web proxies and more will mean this won't work.

If bailiffs can't recover the money, the gov't will simply give them more powers because it's the easy option. Hence the reason this thread started. I agree with what you said, many of the laws and systems in place now are archaic in nature, even new laws rarely take modern culture into consideration. Many new laws totally disregard the rights that people have always had and piece by piece, our rights are being eroded away completely. The Magna carta was the nearest thing to a bill of rights that the UK has ever had but most of that has gone now. "We shall not be unfairly taxed on our income" is one rule of the Magna Carta. My income is still my income until it becomes someone else's when I pay them. So an indirect tax is still a tax on my income. Even VAT is an income tax because I have to pay the government out of my income to allow me to buy something. What we really need is a true "Bill of rights" that lays down exactly what our rights are. It would then have to be taken into consideration when new laws are put in place and new powers are given to people like bailiffs, police and such. This is what we should really be fighting to get, until we get it, we have no rights and the government can do what they like because there is nothing to say they can't.

If you are on benefits, there is a certain amount that you can offer and they must take it. I believe they cannot refuse an offer of £3.50 per week or more for a single person on JSA. You can find out what the minimum amount you can offer is from the Jobcentre if you ask. I am currently paying off a council tax bill of £1100 at £2.50 per week since I am on JSA right now. I would have to notify them if I start work so it can be revised. Edit: If they get pushy, inform them that you want it made as an attachment to your benefit so it is paid at source before you get it. They won't get much more than £3.50 per week at most that way and cannot hound you with visits and threats while that attachment is in force.

It may be an idea to have a word with the local MP's. My local LibDem MP is trying to lobby for banks to be forced to curb it. He says that it primarily targets those who are least able to afford it. While it may just be voting propaganda, any course of action that may lead to a solution is worth a chance.

Just be careful of what you may be letting yourself in for. They can call on very high profile lawyers. I had a run in with a multi national company and no lawyer I approached would touch it once they knew who it was. I would suggest you get a lawyer who is willing to do it before you invite the CEO to court. Some of these CEO's have pocket fluff worth more than your lawyer could earn in a year.

They need only pay what the estimated value that the item is expected to get at auction. If an item has been estimated at £150, that is all they need to pay, no matter what it's actual value may be. For obvious reasons, estimations are within reasonable limits but an estimation of a 1.5K+ laptop would be around £250 which is an average for reasonably new laptop and doesn't take into account what is inside it. If they know it's a top of the range laptop, it soon gets earmarked and never reaches the auctions. Don't deny this, I dated someone who worked in the admin section of a well known company in Bromley South. I learned a lot of secrets about how bailiffs operate, even down to taking items they are not actually allowed to take because the debtor didn't know what could and couldn't be taken by a bailiff.

OK fair enough, I didn't know about that phone but the letter implies that all mobiles require a TV license. The one I use is so old that I think even guys in the trenches in WW1 had more modern ones. TV? It has enough trouble picking up phone calls.

So many enforcement agencies use underhand tactics. Even TV licensing who write telling you that you need a TV license for a mobile phone, a laptop and a PC. They fail to mention this is only applicable if they have the ability to "recieve braodcast signals" and I don't know of any mobile phone that can receive and display broadcast TV signals. Civil debt Bailiffs often state that they have the right to force entry without mentioning that it is only if they have a walking posession order that they can only obtain at present by peaceful entry. These scare tactics are used all the time by a lot of authorities. They have no idea who the person is, what medical problems they may have and the stress and worry from this sort of approach could easily lead to serious results like heart attacks and such. Imagine someone suffering from severe depression suddenly getting a letter to say a bailiff is going to break in and steal all their stuff. If that person is already prone to suicididal tendencies, what do you think the possible result of that would be? I said "steal" since it is legalised theft as far as I am concerned, in the same way as stealing your car because it has no tax disk. If you owed me £100 and I came and took your stereo or your car because you did not pay me back, you would have me done for theft.