£50 for a mot including service!!

 

They are too cheap for a reason take it somewhere else

Get another mot done on it that way you will see if they are trying it on ,if so report them to VOSA

Well i would but the cars pretty much undriveable now that the water pumps blown, it had a massive overheat when i was bringing it back so in all liklihood the head gasket is buggered now as well.

Sorry if the explanations a bit confusing, but this is the first time ive ever had this kind of problem, and i havent been driving all that long (just shy of 2 and a half years) The main jist of it is is that i was expecting him to do the MOT there (he even said thats what he was going to do) but instead hes taken the car somewhere else and in between me dropping it off and picking it up, its suddenly developed a ton of faults which he now wants the best part of £1500 to rectify!

also, i forgot to mention, he quoted me a price of over £1000 to fix all the faults (the car didnt cost that much when i bought it), however when i have looked at the cost of parts, the total amount for all the parts i would need comes to less than £400.

Not sure if theres anything in this but id like a second opinion.

Last thursday I took my car (57 plate Ford KA) into a local garage for its MOT. The garage owner said the cost would be £50 but this would include a service as well. Aside from there being a dent in the bodywork (which was there when i bought the car and is not critical damage), the car itself ran fine.

A few weeks prior to this i had some work done on the brakes at the same garage, he said he had also had a look at the power steering and suspension as well but found no faults with it. I returned 2 hours later to pick my car up to find that my car had failed the MOT for the following reasons:- Leak on power steering system Offside suspension macpherson strut causing excessive movement. Steering rack faulty causing excessive movement. Brakes required replacement discs.

I challenged him on this as he had previously stated there were no faults, much less should there have been any faults with the brakes being as id paid him to fix them less than a fortnight previously! As it turns out, they had not done the MOT there, but instead had driven it to another garage well over the other side of town, and thus he said he wanted an additional £50 for doing this.

To add insult to injury, he also stated that on the way back, the water pump had failed, and thus he had had to call for the vehicle to be towed back, which he was planning to add to my rapidly increasing bill, a request to which i less than politely told him to put where the sun doesnt shine. the last straw came when he said he wasnt able to carry out the required work for at least 3 weeks and was intending to charge me storage for the vehicle while he "got round to it", to which i immediately got in my car and drove it home (i only live round the corner), where it has stayed since then and will continue to stay until i can get something sorted out for either repairs or a new car.

I have used this garage for the past couple of years and this has never happenned before with him, there was nothing wrong with the car before i took it to him and i find it surprising that after i left it in his care it suddenly develops a whole host of unexplained problems, most notably which caused it to fail its MOT. I have yet to give him any money and dont beleive i should have to, but is there anything i can do about it because i believe he is trying to take the micky and rip me off.

Ok, so theye gotten back to me today, although by telephone, i did ask for their reasons to be put in writing (either by letter or email) but this request has been refused (says a lot dont it?) anyways, the reason they have given is thus:-

"The exemption is due to this being a national contract. Admins such as yourself are paid the same rate and are employed under the same conditions no matter where in the country they are employed"

I think we've already agreed with you that this is unfair. Now you need to push for the exact reason they think you are exempt and come back with an answer please Then we can advise further.

well, i did speak to them yesterday morning and again they just said that they were "exempt". I asked them to state exactly why they believed they were exempt and to put said reasons in writing, and was told they would get back to me. as yet, nothing. the woman i spoke to sounded unsure and rather taken aback when i asked for this, almost as if she was just supplying a "stock" answer that usually works whenever the subject comes up.

you do need a comparator and that can be the lowest paid person in the job, yes

Well, this is the comparitor i have, who works at the same depot:-

Job title:- booking clerk/administrator Rate of pay - £8.50 p/h (time and a half for overtime or weekends, triple time for nights) Working hours - 3 shift system (6-2/2-10/10-6), however this person mostly works 8-4 mon-fri, and is always given at least 2 days notice of any overtime, and is allowed to refuse. Holidays - 28 per year plus stat holidays other benefits - company uniform, company pension, expenses Time worked at company - 18 months

Job title - Booking clerk/administrator Rate of pay - £6.31 p/h (no overtime, weekend or night rate, any work i do is minimum wage only) Working hours - 3 shift system, although quite often required to do overtime at little to no notice (the company currently owes me for 20 hours overtime for which the agency say they will not pay me for due to the "assignment" not covering overtime) Holidays - stat holidays only, unpaid, other holidays accrued at a rate of 1 day per week worked after the first 6 months (again, holidays are unpaid). Other benefits - none. Time worked at company 12 months.

Ok, so that sounds like you have a case.

 

I do think you need to push for a contract of employment, this would help you a great deal!

 

If there are 2 of you, I might be inclined to get one solicitor to act for you both. It may be that a letter from a solicitor will be enough and you won't actually have to go to court.

so, what "exemptions" are they trying to cite here?, or are they just trying it on?

Next up, are you paid by the agency, or by the company you are at?

the agency pays me

http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=4162

thanks for that, if im reading it correctly, they are not "exempt" as they claim, as i have not had any rights extended to me that are extended to company workers, nor am i paid when in between assignments.

A decent starting point is your contract with the agency. Do you get pay between assignments, according to that contract? That is the surest sign you are derogated out.

no, i do not receive any pay when not working, and i have never received any kind of contract of employment. The only thing i have signed was a document confirming my bank details, which also incidentally stated my rate of pay would be £6.50 p/h for the first 4 weeks, rising to £8.50 p/h thereafter, as of today, i am only being paid £6.31 per hour.

I have been employed via an agency for the past 12 months. Recently i was made aware of the "Agency workers regulations act 2011" by a friend who is a union rep. According to him, after 12 weeks of continuous employment on the same assignment, i should be entitled to parity with the wages of company employees etc, as it stands, i am still only receiving minimum wage, whereas others in equivalent positions are receiving £2.50 per hour more for doing the same work. I contacted my agency to query this, and was told that they were, and i quote, "exempt from this legal ruling", but they were unwilling to clarify exactly what this exemption means. Following the advice i received from both ACAS and my friend, i wrote to them and requested my parity to be backdated from the time when i had been there continuously for 12 weeks, and if they were not able to grant this request due to exemption, then for them to explain what their exemption is. I have yet to receive an answer, either in writing or via telephone/email etc. I have searched online for a list of "exemptions", but have yet to find any, so can someone tell me what they are, or if the agency im working for are trying to decieve me. also, i should point out there is another worker there who has been working there continuously for 3 years and who is also interested in this, as he would be owed quite a substantial amount of money in back pay.

Thanks for all the help on this....in reply to the IPI being official, yes they did officially send me a letter inviting me to a meeting and offered me to take somebody along, however i didnt realise quite how serious this would become as they told me that it was nothing to worry about on each occassion because i would not get fired until recently. So i relunctantly didnt bring anybody along with me.

The previous meetings where all noted and signed, however on each occasion in the notes the company have refused to view my contract in these meetings.

whenever you recieve anything in writing from your employer it should be treated as official, and thus something to worry about.

in your case they hav einformed you of your rights and because they have then lulled you into a false sense of security you havnt exersized them.

ALWAYS exersize your rights, they are there for a reason...

...I have reviewed my contract many times and it doesnt state anywhere about personal targets, especially termination of a contract.

make mention of this at the next meeting you go to, ask them to explain exactly why you are being penalised for a non-existant T&C...

In further response to godpikachu, the manager has set the exact same targets for every member of staff including full timers, and no the bonus structure gives benefit to the full timers in terms of how much they get paid where as part timers get paid only a quarter at most no variation on contracted hours.

Trust me on this, PC World abandoned personal sales targets in 2006, due to repeated critisism in the press and due to investigations by trading standards/consumer direct.

It was abandoned and replaced with the current "store target" system as PC World employees were being forced to deliberatley mislead customers in order to secure sales, and thus keep their jobs by meeting their sales targets. Some employees were simply doing as they were told, but others were more or less committing fraud, usually by adding on things that had not been asked for, or by including things that they claimed were "part of a deal".

stores in the DSG group are still doing this to some extent, i was with my friend the other week when he went to pick up his new laptop from currys.

the laptop was advertised and reserved with the price of £299, however in the store the pimply faced youth salesman attempted to charge an additional £65 for microsoft office 2007 and norton anti virus, neither of which were asked for and neither of which were wanted.

As the company no longer has personal targets, your manager has no business disciplining you for a non-existant sales target....ergo, you have done nothing wrong..

However yesturday before i posted i went into work with an injury due to football meaning that i cant drive or go to work as it is a knee injury (doctors note included), and the manager accused me of faking the injury to get out of the IPI hearing and told me to come to work the next day in which i had to refuse, nobody was in the office with us...

ok... if your doctor has isssued a sicknote, then your manager has no business venturing their own medical opinion, as i will wager a large amount of money that your manager is not a qualified medical professional in any capacity.

Please ask your manager to provide details of his medical qualifications.

...however my step dad was just outside of the store as he gave me a lift, he will be joining me in the next IPI. could this help me?

your stepdad will not be allowed to sit in on the meeting, unless he is an employee of PC world OR a union rep.

If you do have another meeting, inform oyur manager that regardless of the outcome, you will be making an official complaint about them, as they have committed various faux-pas and broken a few employment regulations, as well as a few company policies.

ok, this is blatant discrimination.

first step:-

Ring ACAS...NOW!

2nd step:- file an official written complaint with your manager stating that you are being discriminated against based on the fact that you have fallen pregnant.

Also state that you consider your impending redundancy to be unfair and that at no time have they consulted you or completed a correct (and legal) redundancy process, and that should you be made redundant, you will immediatly file for an unfair dismissal tribunal based on discrimination, harassment and failure to carry out redundancy proceedures in the correct and legal manner.

3rd step:- pick up a form ET1 from the CAB and fill it in, then wait for their response to your complaint.

if the resonse is anything other than "we are sorry, you wont be getting made redundant and you are entitled to full maternity pay"...then you file the ET1 and take them to the cleaners.

basically, your boss is trying to save money on maternity payments etc, and so is trying to get rid of you on the cheap, dont let them.

From OP

oops!, didnt see that :s..

anyways...

I have signed a 25 hour contract which the company 12 months ago, risen from an original 16 hour 20 months ago

ok, so you have 32 months (2 years, 8 months) service, so you fully qualify for tribunal aid and, if required, redundancy pay.

ok, the first step here would be to make a written grievance to the stores HR department, detailing that you believe that you are being unfairly penalised due to the store not being able to drum up enough custom in order to help you acheive your sales target, in addition, you feel you are being victimised as your manager keeps giving you warnins without allowing you the right of appeal.

ask them to show you where in your contract it states that as well as the store target, you have to meet a personal target, seeing as how PC world ifficially disbanded the "personal target" system in 2006 due to critisism over its staff deliberatley misleading customers in order to hit their personal targets.

seems ot me that the manager is imposing these targets because they either dont know that that system has been abandoned, or they are simply being an arsehole

your employment will have been transferred to the new owners via the TUPE system, and as such any and all existing conditions at the time of transfer still apply to you.

if they get you to sign a "new" contract, then all your T&Cs from before are rendered null and void, and you have to abide by the terms of your new contract.

if you refuse to sign a new contract, and you are not obliged to sign a new one either, they can do absolutley nothing to penalise you, as under the TUPE system they have to honour your previous T&Cs, even though you havent been given one.

should they penalize you for not signing their new contract, you can then lodge a formal complaint , and, if required, take tribunal action if they continue to harass, penalise or threaten you.

Hi i am currently employed by PC World in my local City, however i dont want to give away the details of location or my name due to the companies "no bad mouthing" laws.

ok, let me correct you here...

the companies "bad mouthing laws" are meaningless. They may have a policy of not bringing the store/company into disrepute, but until such time as parliament passes an act stating that you cannot say that PC world is a badly run and badly informed company that habitually misleads its customers and places ridiculous sales targets and responsibilities on its poorly paid workforce, then it aint a law, its a company policy, and wherever the law and "company policy" come up against each other, the law automatically wins.

Recently i have been invited to attend my fourth IPI procedure(individual Performance interview) which in essence is my final IPI (the procedure for not hitting sales which gets reviewed every month).

 

**snip**

 

what are my rights regarding dismissal due to sales figures ect... please help...

 

Thanks

ok, lets see what we can do...

firstly, how long have you worked at the store?, as you will need at least 12 months service with the company to qualify for an unfair dismissal claim.

the only other way you can claim for unfair dismissal if you dont have 12 months service is if oyu are bein discriminated against in some way, either due to sex, race, disability etc.

secondly, these "targets", what does your contract of employment state with regards to termination of employment?, what do they class not hitting targets as?, misconduct?, gross misconduct?.

thirdly, who agreed these targets?, did the store manager simply tell you that you all had to hit the target, regardless of contracted hours etc?.

If so, does the bonus structure reflect that part time staff hitting the same target as full time staff mean that part time workers get paid more?, as they are doing twice as much work?...bet you it doesnt.

finally, these "IPIs" you refer to, I take it you mean you have been given warnings for not hitting this ludicrous target.

When being given these warnings, were there formal discussions and notes made, were you allowed to have witnesses etc, and were you given a copy of these notes to sign to say that what was discussed is accuratley reperesented in them?...ill wager you werent.

OMG they wanted to have a un quailfied person take blood from u for alcohol and drug testing.

 

they may be a first aider but that certainly does not qualify them to do that.

yep, they reckoned that someone who had done a 4 day first aid course was fully qualified to draw blood from the vein and perform chemical tests on said blood to prove or disprove that you were under the influence of some sort of illegal drugs and/or alcohol.

and in other news, my magic vest has told me the name of the winner of the grand national for the next 50 years straight.

Can anyone recommend websites where I can find employment at home. I am so desparate for some work even if it is stuffing envelops or maybe copy typings

generally stuff like that gets advertised in your local paper or on introduction sites like jobrapido.co.uk.

a word of warning though, 90% of these "work from home" jobs are in fact scams, usually involving unpaid telesales work, foot canvassing or stuffing envelopes, usually somewhere along the line requireing you to make soem sort of financial outlay in return for nothing but exaggerated earnings potentials or unfulfilled promises.

trust me, been there, done that, got the T-shirt, comematorive program and celebratory tattoo.

Surely HMRC would be interested in a company who are faking payslips?!

you will never know unless oyu contact HMRC, do this now, not later.

Also, on the pay slips he finally received his hourly pay rate was £8 not the £9 per hour he was told when he started there.

ok, can this be proved with written evidence to back it up?, does he have a copy of the job advertisment or some other document stating that the rate of pay is £9 p/h?.

If he does, then he can pursue a tribunal for unlawful deduction of wages.

I have just spoken to ACAS who say although he has worked there for less than 1 year there is still reason for unfair dismissal claim if he believes he has been dismissed as a result of requesting statuatory information which we believe to be the reason! Am now going to write a letter as they advised infoming them that as they have provided no reason otherwise and have failed to respond to the formal letter of complaint we can only believe the reason for his dismissal is the request for information which is a statuatory requirement. We will give them 2 weeks to respond and consider employment tribunal from there.

Good, if ACAS say he has the right to a claim then write your letter to the employer stating the reasons and give them nomore than 7 days to reply.

in the mean time, nip down to the CAB and pick up a form ET1 and fill it in ready to lodge the claim, so that it can be done on the day your deadline runs out.

Do not dither in this, stick to your preset timescales and ensure that everything remains in writing, do not accept any phone calls or unofficial or undocumented meetings should the employer contact you.

erikaPNP is absolutley correct, the only person who can legally "lay hands" (never mind search) upon your person without your express consent is a police officer, but only when they have a reasonable suspicion that doing so is required.

I had a simarlar problem a few years ago whilst working for B&Q, as they had a "company policy" of doing stop and searches on both employees persons and employees cars.#When i was asked to turn out the contents of my pockets and bag, I of course refused and asked them to quote which law specifically gave B&Q employees the right to search another, and was told it was simply "comapny policy". I later lodged a formal greivance and won when they attempted to discipline me for refusing.

Simarlarly, another firm i worked for insisted it was their right to take blood and urine samples to test for "drug and/or alcohol abuse", again, i refused, primarily as i refuse to have anyone other than a doctor or qualified nurse take blood intraveinously from my person, and secondly because the place where i was working was a dirty warehouse and had no sterile areas in which it would be comparitivly safe to do the proceedure.

again, the employer was unable to provide any kind of concrete evidence as to how they were legally entitled to have a first aider extract blood from someone, and again they tried to discipline me for refusing.

To be honest it sounds like he has had a lucky escape there, as his former employers seem to be incapable of running a business!

As he was employed for less than 12 months, he would not be elligable to claim for unfair dismissal through a tribunal, however, he may be able to claim for unlawful deductions form wages if they have not paid him properly.

as he was never given a formal contract, it will be fairly difficult for them to provide evidence that he had signed something to accept his rate of pay etc

there is no legal requirement for the chairman of the hearing to be anyone in particular, however you should make note of this during the proceedings and make sure it is entered into the notes that you protest that the person who is directly involved in the grievance is also the person who is conductiong what is supposedly a fair and impartial process.

make sure as well that you take along a companion, this is a legal right under the employment relations act 1999 and your employer is obliged to allow you to have a companion.

if they refuse this you should not attend the hearing and make a statement in writing and hand it to them that you will continue to refuse to attend any and all hearings until such time as which you are allowed to exersize your legal entitlement, and that should they attempt to penalise you for this, or dismiss you for this reason, then you will not hesitate in lodging for an employment tribunal for victimisation and unfair dismissal.

i wouldnt waste the postage on the letter, youve given them 3 months to be reasonable and they have proven themselves incapable of doing that.

Should your letter reach "mr big", it will more than likely be ignored, or dealt with by his PA, who, in all likelihood, will simply pass it back to HR, who in turn will also probably ignore it, as you have had your final "response" from them on the matter.

if you do send it, make sure its sent by recorded delivery, although as i said, it will in all likelihood be a waste of postage.

in the meantime, id be filing your form ET1 with the CAB and seeing if you have any recourse that way.

At the very least, you can force them to show you this "bad reference" by making a data protection or freedom of information request.

this would be classed as an unlawful deduction from wages, as per sections 13 to 27 of the employment rights act 1996.

as such, your friend would be entitled to lodge a form ET1 for an employment tribunal, but, prior to this, they wold have to lodge a formal written complaint with their employer, something like this....

 

Letter before action

 

re:- deductions from wages

 

Dear Sir or Madam

 

 

I am writing to you today to formally request that I be reimbursed the sum of £140, deducted from my pay in the form of two installments of £70, the first one taken on and the second installment taken on .

 

By making these two deductions directly from my pay, you are in direct contravention of the employment rights act 1996 (Sections 13 to 27), and as such, unless you can provide me with written evidence of your right to make this deduction within 28 days of this notice, I will have no choice but to refer this matter to an employment tribunal.

 

Written evidence of your right to make these deductions should be in the form of a signed contract, between myself and yourselves, highlighting in particular the section in which it states that you have the right to do this.

 

Unsigned documents, or simply stating that it is "company policy", will not be a sufficient defence in this matter.

 

I give you 28 days to reply, in writing only, stating either when you intend to refund the monies, or your valid defence of this policy.

Failure to provide either of these outcomes, or failure to provide any response, will result in tribunal and possibly legal action being taken againt you.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

He is in a very weak position unfortunately - can he some how link this to an exemption?

 

Che

ive PMed you some details, as he doesnt want the full thing discussing in public...., might be something, might be nothing.