Hi It's been 6 months since I've been out of work and on Job Seekers Allowance. When I went to sign in today, my Jobcentre just told me that I need to fill in another JSA3 form in order to continue my contribution based JSA. From what I understood, half of the JSA money is income based and the other half is contribution based. I was only told of this today and have only another 7 days for it to reach the 6 month mark. On top of that I was also told that the JSA3 application may take around 2-3 weeks to process (since they have to send it somewhere else). So I filled in the form and handed it in today itself but am worried about how it can affect my future payments. Can I end up losing some of the money as a result of the delay? I really don't think it's fair because I wan't told about this any sooner. Cheers, Jake

I lent about £500 to one of my mates about 2 years ago at my workplace. I just know that I withdrew the money from a specific ATM machine through a Credit card as I didn't have any other money on me. She told me that it was an emergency but now she's near enough disappeared. I just had her mobile number but she’s either changed her number now or doesn’t answer the phone anymore. One of my mates told me that she regularly visits a bingo club nearby. I also heard rumours that she doesn’t live at her old address anymore either. That was about 6 months ago. Now I need to get my money back but I am not quite sure how to go about it. For starters, would I have to know precisely when I lent the money? And do I go to the Police or do I get hold of a solicitor? I am thinking of making a Subject Access File request in order to find out the precise day I gave out the money. Thanks ever so much.

I am sure many of you have heard of Alan Carr (not the comedian) who is the author of the highly acclaimed book Easy way to quit smoking. I know Alan Carr died of lung cancer years after he stopped smoking but his name and his legend lives on. I know of a few people who have read the book and managed to stop smoking but recently I have been hearing of a DVD by the Alan Carr foundation in the UK that have managed to get really effective results in less than 1 hour. You can buy this from Amazon.co.uk for less than £9 or so. I am not affiliated with the product in anyway. But I know it works. It works because it doesn't deceive people into buying nicotine based products promising to quit smoking. This only prolongs the habit because as long as the nicotine monster stays in your system, the cravings will never go away. The nicotine bug is what is causing the stress, anxiety and the imbalance that makes you believe that a cigarette is the answer. As long as you trust the culprit to be the solution, the symptoms would just stay with you, lighting away your lungs and your money until that one day you wake up and realise that you just can't stop coughing for one reason or the other. Give it a try and please make a reply to this post and let me know about your success story. Good luck!

Hi I have been unemployed since October of last year. I received a letter from the Tax office around about that time telling me that, they now presume that I am either self-employed or unemployed and as such would be responsible for my own tax payments. But given the fact that I haven't been employed ever since, I am keen to know if I am expected to pay any tax money. I am only receiving JSA at the moment since there's been a long delay on my housing benefits. And no, I haven't told the tax office about my circumstances as yet. But I intend to do that tomorrow morning. Cheers.

I had been out of work for 4 months now. I living in a shared house on a tenancy agreement and the landlord doesn't live in same house. After 4 weeks of making my application I was sent a letter asking for more information. I was told that this was the second letter that was sent to me to request the same information, but one of front desk staff later told me that the first letter had been sent to different house number on the same street. I gave in the requested info within a couple of days and it's been 5 weeks from the day I had given them the additional info they needed (so that's 9 weeks altogether). Every week when I phone I have been getting the same reply "We don't give interim payments" (they must have that on recording). I have a copy of the HB/CTB Guidance Manual dated April 09. Would this be the right manual to refer to or is there a new one? According to the manual I should be entitled to an interim payment under regulation 93. So I was thinking whether it would be worth the effort for me to go over and drop a copy of this manual to them with the relevant sections highlighted? If I am to do this, do you think it's ok for me to just give them copies of the the relevant sections and not the whole manual?

Wow! Glad to see it worked out. I am in a similar situation. They wrote to me and requested more info after 4 weeks of my application. I was told that this was actually the second letter that was sent to me to request the same information, but one of front desk staff later told me that the first letter had been sent to different house number on the same street. I gave in the requested info within a couple of days and now it's been 5 weeks from the day I had given them the additional info they needed (9 weeks altogether). Every week when I phone I too have been getting the same reply "We don't give interim payments" (they must have that on recording). I have a copy of the HB/CTB Guidance Manual dated December 2006. Would this be the right manual to refer to or is there a new one? And if I was to do the same and do what InstallSpark had done, would you recommend I give them a printout of the whole Guidance Manual or just the relevant sections highlighted above? Just some additional information about me: This is actually my second housing benefits application. The first one got rejected since I was living in the same household as my Sister-in-law to whom I was paying a commercial rent. Even though Shelter's website says that as long as I pay a legitimate commercial rent this should be ok. But I didn't argue with that. I moved house instead and made a second application. I made sure I met all the HB requirements in full before I made my application. I did forget to send in a couple of bank statements though. When they wrote back to me, they requested a few recent pay slips, even though it was mentioned on the application that I had been unemployed since October last year and had enclosed both my P45 and JSA letter.

I appreciate all the advice. But is there any immediate advice you can share with me that will perhaps help me with my appeal hearing tomorrow morning? Thanks again. God Bless!

They followed all the procedures. I have the minutes from the disciplinary hearing and I wasn't accompanied because I didn't wish to be. It's a FTSE 250 company. It's going to be 2 of the Area Managers holding the hearing. They are the same 2 people who conducted the investigation for my grievance about a year ago against the same Manager. They basically said there wasn't enough proof to come to any conclusion.

I wish I had said something a bit more colourful but I have always been careful with what I say in the workplace unless its a joke and we both knew about it. I obviously summarised the incident where the GM suspended me. Didn't see the point of writing everything here. According to the witness statements the GM had called me to come to his office to talk about it. I never heard that because I was trying to read a book during my short lunch break. You see, my GM is more of a person who tells people what to do but never is open to a two way dialog. Very much a manchild sort of personality. So when he came into the staff room, I just said "I don't have time for this" assuming that he was going give me more grief over the incident. A small conversation did take place in the staff room, but it was brief and none of what was conversed there was even taken into account. There are 3 witness statements though. He was trying to reason his actions but I kept on reminding him that I am part of the Management Team. He never acknowledged this but rather said if you are not going to stop arguing you can go home. By this time I had stopped talking to him. I was trying to keep quiet but he kept on trying to provoke me. I didn't know that he was suspending me, so I picked up the book and started walking off. Yes I did say I'll go home. All I ever said in my defense here is that I reminded him a number of times that I was part of the Management Team. The witness statements didn't mention anything about what happened in the Managers room which is where the GM claiming to have grounds for an act of gross misconduct. That's why I didn't mention it before. Basically I just wanna get through the next phase for now which is the appeal hearing. Since I have been subjected to this sort of thing, I would really appreciate some advice on what I should say. Cheers. Jake

I just shouted out "This is discrimination" as I was walking by. I have had a verbal warning about a year ago for lateness. Nothing else. And I have been with the company for 12 years and had never received any disciplinarians except for the one mentioned above.

Hi I've been a member of middle management for a few months now and just recently my General Manager has neglected in allocating any managerial duties to me. The General Manager has never liked me and never wanted me in the Management Team to begin with. But he didn't have much of a choice because I had passed all the relevant exams. One afternoon as I was sitting in the Manager's Office (which is normally shared by all Managers), he walked into the room and asked me to leave the office. I wasn't in anyone's way since the office was empty. I told him that I was a member of the Management Team and I didn't see anything wrong in being there. He refused to acknowledge what I had said and asked me to leave the office again. So I did. And on my way out I accused him of discrimination (which I am sure everyone overhead since I just shouted this as I was walking by his office; he has a separate office room). I went over to the staff room and when everyone asked me about what had happened I told them. Momentarily the GM came in and suspended me from work. I was accused of rudeness to management & gross insubordination. And at the disciplinary hearing my services were terminated. My appeal hearing is coming up next week. Before this incident I had complained to HR and Head Office about the GM and his conduct about 6 months before this incident took place. And he wanted to get even in someway. The person who terminated me just happens to be a close mate of the GM. The GM had previously tried to get him to do my Managerial Assessment exam. At the time I was suspicious as to why he was insisting on one person to do the exams when there were so many others just as qualified to do it with. When asked he told me that the person that he was trying to get hold of owes him a favour. I immediately knew what the favour was. Fortunately since I was adamant to have my exam done as originally scheduled he had to get someone else for the assessment. Do you think I stand a chance at the appeal hearing? And what sort of defense do you think I should use? In terms of references I know that the company normally uses a standard form to reply to all inquiries. I have known of incidents where the company had refused to give a reference but haven't heard of any incidents related to bad references. I had been told that it is illegal to give out a bad reference anyway. And yet, I was somewhere in this forum about how a 'gross misconduct' can affect future prospects and references for many years. Is this possible? All help is gracefully appreciated. Thanks ever so much. Jake