their T&Cs state there is a 10 day home trial period. If you returned the books within this period your membership should have been cancelled. If not the commitment is either buy 4 books or pay £10 per book to cancel the agreement. Re being bound to their terms, it all depends on how you got the books in the first place. If you order via their web site you have to agree to their terms before you can complete their order. I'm guessing that the invoice that came with the delivery would mention them too. I would be pushing for membership cancellation as you sent the original books back and stick to that. If they send any more books, write to them requesting that they stop sending them and tell them you will retain them for 14 days during which time they can contact you for collection or risk losing them. I can't see them going to court for £40, would you?

It will still be available on the live system. Closed account details remain there for 12 months. After that you need to order historic statements which cost £5 for one page, £10 for 2 or more. All you need is the sort code and account number. It could be found without these but will take a fair bit longer.

The Health & Safety (First Aid) regulations 1981 state that employers must provide adequate and appropriate equipment, facilities and personnel to provide first aid for employees at work. It isn't compulsory for this cover to extend to members of the public although it is encouraged. You cannot be prosecuted in Britain for giving first aid providing your intention was to help them. You could be sued but the accuser would not only need to show that injury was caused by the assistance that was rendered, but also that this was intentional rather than accidental. If a medical professional doesn't offer help they could risk being struck off the GMC's register as they are compelled to render assistance wherever they can. I think the pub manager should have shown more understanding and consideration given the circumstances and the owners should be ashamed of themselves given their lack of understanding of the law on first aid. Its a bit like saying we want you to come in and spend your money, but if you hurt yourselves - tough! Mossycat's comments aren't helpful here and are probably borne out of anger from hearing of people who make spurious claims in the hope of getting compensation for being clumsy. I think many of us feel the same, but we do at least read the content of peoples posts before "going off on one". I think that sarcasm rarely helps when someone is genuinely seeking assistance and bitchy comments have a habit of coming back at you. Yours is clearly not just another instance of this kind of thing and I completely see where you're coming from. What I'm not clear on is what you are looking for here? If its simply to highlight the lack of consideration, perhaps a letter to the head office of the pub chain? Maybe someone less directly connected with the incident may be able to see the risk of bad PR here. Failing that, the local paper may provide the arena you are looking for. I'm sure your wife is still angry with herself for letting this happen, but the staff could have done a great deal to reduce the pain and suffering.

maybe at that time they weren't involved in collecting debts for credit related matters (only civil recoveries for theft etc) and therefore didn't need a licence, but now they may have added this to their range of services? if providers of retail civil recovery schemes are not offering any such regulated consumer credit or hire services or collecting debts arising from credit or hire agreements, then it would be unlikely that the business would require a Consumer Credit licence.

It makes me really mad to see kids eating crisps, sweets chocolates or drinking from cans whilst their parents are still shopping in supermarkets. People don't seem to appreciate that it is theft as the goods haven't been paid for yet. I'm sure there are many parents who see nothing wrong in this and always pay for the consumed goods at the till. I know, as I'm sure many of the readers here will also know, that there are plenty of people who don't as witnessed by empty cans and wrappers stuffed into gaps on other shelves. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular scenario, there seems to be no relationship between the cost of the item and the amount being sought here. As the Police have issued a caution rather than prosecuting for theft, I would have thought a sincere apology accompanied by full payment would suffice here. Its quite ridiculous to suggest that Boots require compensation of £137 for a sandwich that wasn't even consumed. I'm a little confused about the caution though as I believed that you need to be 18 to receive a Police caution, under this age Police issue reprimands which remain on the police database until the 18th birthday and can be used in court in the event of future court proceedings. Remember that Tony Blair's son received a reprimand following his drinking binge and his mum's a highly respected QC. I'm sure that if it was likely to have had a long-lasting effect Ms Booth would have done something about it. RLP may also be committing an offence under section 42 of the DPA by disclosing the data to a third party for a reason other than for the one it was collected for. I can see how disclosure to OPOS could be legal but an insurance company certainly cannot purchase rights to this data. Even if they could, it would have no bearing on your insurance as the data isn't about you.

Royal Mail have increased the number of suspended deliveries recently due to an increase in attacks by dogs. They do have the right to stop delivering, but the process is usually to contact the householder to discuss the situation first. Mail not delivered should be taken back to the local sorting office, so I would be going there to discuss the problem. I agree with you that RM Customer Service is way less than useful and would always take the direct face to face approach.

Given the current squeeze on mortgage lending, if Nat West have already offered you a mortgage I'd be inclined to think everything was OK with your credit file. Have you received an Offer of Loan from Nat West or is it an Agreement on Principle? I ask because once the mortgage has progressed to Offer of Loan any Application Fees become payable whether you take the funds or not.

Help me out here someone - why is an unrecorded search important? If its unrecorded (how does that happen?) how do you know its been done and what difference can it make to anything?

I think this would come under the "failure to disclose material facts" heading that many insurance companies use as an escape clause. You really don't want to give these guys any excuses if it can be avoided.

From the DVLA website - Taxing without a Registration Certificate or New Keeper Supplement If you’re shown as the registered keeper of the vehicle on DVLA records, you can tax in person or by post at your nearest DVLA local office. You’ll need to complete a V62 ‘Application for a Vehicle Registration Certificate (V5C) which must be accompanied by £25 (fee for a duplicate Registration Certificate). Include this with a completed V10 ‘Vehicle licence application’, MOT, insurance and payment for vehicle tax. If your address has changed, you’ll need to provide your driving licence, original bank or building society statement or recent utility bill. If your name has changed, you need to provide your marriage certificate, decree nisi, decree absolute or deed poll. If you’re not shown as the registered keeper on DVLA records you cannot tax the vehicle. You’ll need to apply for a Registration Certificate in your name. To get one, fill in form V62 ‘Application for a Vehicle Registration Certificate’ and post to DVLA, Swansea SA99 1DD. You may have to wait up to four weeks for a new certificate to arrive. In the meantime, you should keep your vehicle off the road.

Pat - that's not always true, my last lease car showed me as the registered keeper, whilst the leasing company (Lombard) remained the owner. But I accept your previous points about RK's and insurance. I don't think I said that only RK's can tax cars, I just wondered how I could tax a car if I didn't have insurance for that car because my insurance company wouldn't provide cover as I wasn't the RK

I'm not disagreeing with anyone about this, just telling you what happened to me. Further research suggests that each insurance company has its own conditions and this particular one would only insure me to drive if I was the RK.

That's an interesting point. I had been with them for several years and there was no misunderstanding on my part. They clearly said that they need the car to be registered in the name of the insured. Needless to say I'm not with them any more.

why not ask his insurance company? Surely its better to know in advance than to find out after an accident.

you can prevent them from using your details as they have no legal right to them. If they discuss or publish information about you they themselves fall foul of the DPA and can be taken to court just like anyone else. As uneverdid said - what you earn is of no consequence to his ex-wife or the CSA, so as the details are irrelevant they should have no issues in destroying them.

I don't think CPS will care about the costs, for them it'll be about scoring a "victory" which they can quote as evidence that they are legal and get results. Their website includes another case featuring Edinburgh University but it's was too long and detailed to includ here.

ANPR can only detect an untaxed vehicle but using the various databases it can help to determine whether or not any insurance is registered for the vehicle and will alert the police driver that further information is required if none is found, if it were covered under a trade policy for example. Ok - although is is technically incorrect to refer to the vehicle as being uninsured, it is a term commonly used where people do not have insurance to cover the vehicle they are driving. The point I was making was that the use of ANPR cameras are becoming more widespread and now in Glasgow at least, they are being used in fixed positions. One other thing - if there's no requirement for an RK to be insured, how would the car get a tax disk? I only ask because I have just taken my other car off a SORN and because my NCD is used on my main car, the premium for the scond car was quite high. My partner offered to get insurance instead but was told by several insurance companies only RK's can do this. So without an insurance document in my name for that vehicle I couldn't get it taxed. Because we didn't want to transfer the car to her name we ended up going to a specialist insurer on a limited miles policy.

Wow - thanks for that. I've just checked it out on DVLA's own website and it seems there's no end to the list of people who have been able to show "reasonable cause" and pay the fee. Unbelievable! And they wonder why some people don't complete V5's when they buy cars....

I realise that this is a different company but thought this might be worth a read - Glasgow driver hit with £5k parking fine - The Sunday Mail Perhaps things in Scotland are a little different, after all it was a Scottish Sherriff who ruled that clamping was illegal in Scotland in his landmark ruling in 1992 as it constituted "extortion and theft".

This is an old chestnut but well done for raising the issue. Andrew Neil discussed this on his late night TV show with Daine Abbott and Michael Portillo and all three agreed that the DVLA does not have the right to disclose date entrusted to them to third parties. The only way they are legitimately allowed to disclose RK and driver information is via the police. They all thought that this scheme is nothing more than a cash cow for the DVLA, which it clearly is, but that the difficulty we faced is in proving who leaked the data in the first place. The suggestion was that if we felt strongly about it, we should write to our MP to raise the issue in the house and that this all goes to show that the government cannot be trusted to contain personal data, especially where there's money to be made. The problem is that the reason we would be writing was probably to complain that our data had been divulged to a parking compnay etc and that we were doing it to escape from any penalty we may face rather than because we felt it was morally wrong or even illegal.

This is a new hot topic north of the border. There's been a huge clampdown recently on non conforming number plates in and around Glasgow recently. I have a pal who works for Strathclyde Police who told me thatsoon virtually every car in the force will have an ANPR camera fitted. In the area cars this links real-time into the PNC and alert the police driver to anomalies as they are spotted, others will simply record the details for analysis later. Its proving to be really useful for detecting untaxed and uninsured vehicles. He went on to say that they wouldn't usually stop someone just because the letters were mis-spaced, but if there's anything else going on they will add the number plate to the list of offences. Glasgow Council also operate Community Warden vans which drive around neighbourhoods at night and these will also have ANPR systems, primarily looking for untaxed vehicles and there are already a couple of ANPR cameras on the M8, although he wouldn't tell me where!

Philip Hampton is the RBS Chairman, Stephen Hester is now CEO of the RBS Group and currently Gordon Pell is his Deputy. As Gordon Pell is due to retire early next year Brian Hartzer is joining from ANZ (Australia and New Zealand banking group) and will ultimately take over as Deputy Chief Exec. Alan Dickinson is CEO of the UK Corporate Banking division but is being replaced by Chris Sullivan but will remain as Chairman of Corporate Banking until he retires next year. He made headlines in May when news that he was to receive a share of the £5M bouns pot being handed to four of the bank's top execs. Many of the newspaper reports incorrectly labelled Alan Dickinson as CEO of RBS when it was actually Fred Goodwin because they forgot to add "Corporate Banking Division" after his title.

I don't think Alan Dickinson's your man - he's head of Corporate Banking not retail. Gordon Pell is head of Retail banking operations but will be replaced by Brian Hartzer (if he hasn't already).

I agree there are differences but the law is common to both and treats them in the same way. It all comes down who receives payment from the purchaser.

Sorry if this is already done to death but why were the Police permitted to merey give a caution to close the case if the college are seeking recompense? The charge sheet should detail eveything pertaining to the event. Surely if damage had occurred this should have been discussed at the time? Its a bit like saying "OK you can go, but don't do it again" and later coming back and saying "actually you can't go as there's more to this". How can the college prove that the bill relates to that particular event and not some clumsy driver months later?