Dear all, I would appreciate some advice. My friend holds a current account with Barclays. She has an arranged overdraft of £130. Her balance at the time of these problems was around the £0 mark. Her direct debit was due to come out of her account for car insurance: £78. The debit came out and was returned the same day, even though this did not bring her to her overdraft limit. The insurance company then charged her £20 and redebited 6 days later for £98. This was again returned, and again the overdraft was available for use. The insurance company has now levied another £20 charge and are now demanding £118 within 14 days. They have also added a default to her credit record. The bank have also made two returned transaction charges on to her account, more money. What can she do? Can we claim the £40 of charges the insurance company has levied back from the bank, as they should have payed these DDs. Thanks!

Hello all, Got myself in a bit of credit debt, had 3 credit cards on the limit along with a store card on the limit. 2 x cards @ £1000 limit. 1 x card @ £800 limit. 1 x card @ £400 limit. Missed a few payments and only met minimum payments for a while which has caused by credit score to go into the poor range. I have now payed every card off in full, so i owe NOTHING (wooo!). I have heard before once cards have been payed, not to close the account. Elsewhere, I have heard I should. But I'm not sure what the best thing to do is. I want to keep one card really and keep pushing the provider for limit decreases over time, etc. Should I just use the best one and ignore the others....or close the ones I don't need? Thanks.

I sent the insurance company a letter stating why I did not think the amount was due, reminded them they had not sent me T&Cs and requested they do so, asked for a detailed breakdown of how the balance was calculated. Received a letter back telling me they would be considering my complaint. Couple of weeks afterwards they sent me a letter confirming the advisor did state I would receive a refund and that they had given me incorrect information. As I was quoted this by the advisor, they have removed the outstanding balance and honoured the refund I was originally due. They also supplied a detailed breakdown and the T&Cs. They also gave me £25 as a good will gesture. Good result!

Thanks guys, I will start with the letter and see what they have to say. Keep you posted. Any other input is appreciated and welcome

Thank you for both your replies. I'm definately going to get some stuff in writing, that's definately important! What is an SAR? Information request isn't it?

Nope. I can't remember them ever actually sending me any. I'm unsure, I may just have lost them though.

Hey all, Here's the story. Bought a years motorbike insurance from a large high street insurance company. Rode for around 1 to 2 months. Cancelled insurance - guy on the phone told me I would receive an approx £33 refund due to what i'd paid against the amount of time I'd been insured. He told me that this was after they had taken the £30 cancellation charge and I would receive it upon returning my insurance certificate. Had a couple of letters from them a few weeks after demanding £33 to be paid TO them. Upon ringing and asking why, they said it was in my terms and conditions but would say little more about it. I'm not prepared to pay something I shouldn't have to and that means I will have paid around £60 for two months insurance - the premium was £112 for a year. I told him I wouldn't pay when I didn't see what is is for and all the guy would do was put a note on my account saying I had refused to pay. Now had this letter from the debt collectors and have already missed their deadline due to being away. What do I do from here? Thanks!

No I haven't but I'm going to try that before I take it back again. Also, phones4u are refusing to provide a courtesy phone to me whilst they repair my phone. I thought that they are required to provide me with a like for like replacement? Especially as they sold me a product that was already broken

Hi all, My friend walked out of his job the other day. He wrote a letter and gave it to them, then left straight away without giving any notice more than allowing the store to phone someone to come straight in and cover him. Payday has come as he hasn't been paid for the last 2 weeks before he left. Surely, even though he broke his contract terms and left instantly, they still have to pay him?

This is an old post you can now close. I did win against my employer - they weren't able to let me go and I got off scott free after presenting all the evidence, relevent employment legislation (ROA act), etc.

Yes thats right, this is the problem I have. I find it deeply unnacceptable because its been like this for so long and nothing has been done about it. As it happens, it will hopefully no longer be an issue for me soon due to major shift changes. But until then, I can't push any more arrangements out of the way becuase of this. It seems like employers are allowed to literally dictate exactly when they want you there regardless of why you can't be. As long as they keep to the 48hours, it seems to be perfectly acceptable and they don't seem to have to give you any notice. Does this mean that they could call you up in the morning one day and say be here in 2 hours on your week off whilst your 100 miles away from work or your fired for breaching the contract? Clearly, thats ridiculous and unreasonable and I'd hope no-one would ever try that - but would there even be any protection for the employee....even when it's that ridiculous?

Ok - update to this situation.(I'm aware I can't take back the contract by the way). Went in there 13 days after purchasing the contract. Said I was fed up with the phone and gave them a written list of the problems. The tech guy went through them and fiddled around with the phone and managed to solve the main issues - massive lag, freezing and crashing. But this fix only helped for a while and has been getting worse and worse since. This is a list of all the problems I now get on a daily basis (there are more but I've forgotten!): -Battery life shockingly poor (worse than 3 other people's EXACT same model) -Lags regularly when doing anything. That means even turning the screen on or scrolling through the menu. Once it starts doing it, you have to reset the phone. -Button presses register on the screen but nothing appears in the text box. This happens on texting and internet text boxes, etc. You have to close it, open it again multiple times until it decides it will start registering the text into the box. -Signal literally flickers up and down like a wave (not daily) -Internet turns itself on but is still even off in connection settings - can't get rid of it. It then disappears again when it feels like it. -When actually trying to turn the internet on, it 'refuses' around 75% of the time and states that it will only 'Use phone for data connection when Wi-Fi is unavailable'. It does this when the wifi is unavailable and fiddling with the wifi makes no difference. Solution? Keep turning it on and off until it works. Resetting the phone does not help. -Applications crash regularly including the whole OS system - thus everything disappears off the screen for a number of seconds while it 'starts up' again (not daily) There are other problems - I just don't have them on the top of my head. Please note, I do use and have correctly set up Advanced Task Killer. It helps to a certain point but is then rendered completely useless and has no effect. So, I take it back to Phones4u. Now 3 months down the line. They say that all they can do is send it off for repair. If it comes back faulty, do it again. If it's still faulty, do it again. If still faulty, then they will replace it. I could understand that - but the phone has been faulty since day 1. They say that they can't replace it outright after 2 weeks. I informed them that I complained in store and had it fiddled with in under 2 weeks of purchase. They said their guy should have done a service query, now too late. I'm sorry - but because they're guy didn't do the job properly, I now have to be messed around and go in and out because they sold me something that was broken WHEN I BOUGHT IT? Surely not......?

Why on earth is a company able to refuse to supply you with a copy of the contract? How can that in any sense be fair when the contract is what sets the rights of both parties - if you can't see it, how can you comply by it?

Hi there, I've sent a couple of the site team a PM now (one of them was quite a long time ago) and received no response. I'd like to change my forum name, for good reason, but I'm not getting any reply. So how should I go about it? Thanks.

Thanks for the reply sidewinder. That sounds like a sensible option and I have all the necessary paperwork for the last 6 months to check my finish times. I am paid for the extra time and I like to do it. What I don't like is when I have a plan to do something for 2 weeks in advance (regardless of whether it is extremely important or a trivial night out at the pub) and the day comes and I'm lumped with masses of work that are completely impossible to complete in the given time.

Most creditors seem to be quite forthcoming when it comes to these arrangements. It shows your commitment to pay and at the end of the day, they want your money. I'm not sure what payday companies in particular usually do but I have seen a few threads on here where people have had no problems. I would not wait until they default, hit it on the head now. Especially if you are asking to freeze interest and charges. Why wait until defaulting - you'd just be paying more charges!

You shouldn't need to close your bank account. Go to the bank, explain the situation and have them block any payments. If they can't / won't do it, then change your account. Be aware that you would need to close the existing account if they won't block the payment otherwise the bank may charge you for the bouncing payments. With regards to paying Wonga, work out exactly what you can afford to pay them each month. (My advice would to be pay as much as possible as you want to clear the debt quickly). Send them the proposal and wait.

My advice - and I will point out now I am no expert - is to write to all your creditors asking for the balance that you owe them to this point. Before you can tackle the debts, you should find out what you owe and where. At this point, you will be able to consider your options. You should be able to make another arrangement with each one to pay what you can afford each month whilst freezing any interest and charges. This is damaging to your credit rating but probably not as bad as defaulting on many agreements. There are many other options but I should think that people will be able to give you better advice once you know exactly what amounts you are dealing with from each company. With regards to charges / interest, I don't think you can get interest refunded but you may be able to claim back some charges. You would have to wait for an expert here to help you with that though.

I really like it. Like the new design, like that they have switch new tab and new window around on the right-click menu (although I keep pressing the wrong one now I'm not used to it!!) It seems to be quicker than FF 3 and I've had absolutely no stability problems! Great!

A well principled individual does not take drugs. They don't encourage it and make vunerable people around them aware of the dangers. They campaign for the government or drugs help organisations or whoever to make whatever changes they believe in to stop the harm drugs do. Maybe they should report the supply of drugs if they see it.....maybe.....as this is affecting other people. Principles are irrelevant however when it comes to the personal actions of somebody else which do not affect, harm or endanger others. Its quite frankly none of your business and I hope that any police enquiry is unsuccessful and you are discovered to be the meddler. Of course the police don't share other peoples view - it is their job to prosecute and enforce the law where they are given evidence to do so. Their opinion will always be the same because IT HAS TO BE. That is their job and they are restricted to that. For the record, I don't take drugs and I don't like them or think they should be around. But it's not my place to interfer with others free will to do as they wish with their own lives.

The contract says: It's been going on for at least half a year. Surely they can't just demand that you finish all the work if there is too much for your shift? What if you have to pick up your child, be there to meet the boiler man, pick up your dad from the airport, be at your mates birthday party that you arranged 2 weeks ago? Just because they can't be bothered to employ enough staff to get it done through the week. It's not that they say - ah this saturday, we want you to work overtime until 8pm instead of 6pm. It's that on friday, some staff (which may or may not include the manager) will make you aware that the next day is going to be extremely busy, implying that you won't be going home on time.

If your manager has been unkind and is 'mistreating' you then you should take it up with higher management and follow the grievance process at your workplace. I do sympathise with you about the comments made about you - totally unacceptable and what a shame the other witnessess chose not to back you. On the matter of cannabis, what another human does in their own time out of the way of meddling busy bodies is their own business and nobody should infringe on that when it does not harm or endanger others. My polite advice to you - mind your own business and request that the manager to keep his mouth shut at work about it. Don't want to hear about it? That's fair. It's not fair for you to interfere otherwise so I think you should carefully consider that. Don't let the other problems influence your action in relation to another mans personal choices and free will.

I could stand to be corrected but I'm pretty certain that they are within their rights. I am in an extremely similar situation myself and I'm about to leave. If they were employing new full-time staff, it could be different (no idea - wait for expert opinion). But as far as I know, they don't have to take on one less part time member so as to give your partner full time. Annoying, and damn depressing, but understandable. The reason they employ lots of part time people (especially in retail) is because a) it gives a larger bank of people to use as cover in the case of absence (sickness, holiday, etc) b) if there is a large staff turnover in the place (maybe due to poor management, people hating their jobs, etc), any people leaving would cause less damage to the business. If there was 2 people doing a role part time, and one leaves, they still have "half" a worker doing the job. If the job was full time, they would be stuck until they re-employed.

I work as a van driver. I work every other saturday. My shift ends at 6pm on sat. Almost every time, the shift will runover to between 7 and 9pm. I don't mind doing this every now and then to help out when its busy....but every time? I have plans, commitments, things to do outside work. Do I have to work late? Or can I tell them that when it hits 6pm, I'm gone??

Oh thats great considering I took out the contract purely because I wanted this new phone. I already have a damn contract with Voda. Complete waste now!