We've just send a polite but firm letter giving them the opportunity to refund in full within 14 days before we issue an LBA. If they don't or they try to stall by sending out any more guff letters then an LBA will be sent and we are quite happy to take this all the way. Cheers for your advice. We'll tackle APCOA later!

Sadly not. They've been cashed and banked.

Hi - My daughter received a ticket from Apcoa at a railway station. Although the photos in the accompanying letter shows that there is something stuck on the windscreen she swears blind that there was nothing there when she got back to her car. She had also just moved so the letter came through to us here. Rightly or wrongly she sent them a cheque for the £80 they were demanding. Further letters had arrived from ZZPS (the phoenix which arose from Roxburgh?) saying that this had been passed to them and that she now owed £140. She rang and said that it had been paid but they were their usual abusive selves and said that it hadn't and that they were going to come after her for the money. A letter then arrived from their pet solicitors Wright Hassall who claimed that she now owed them £176. She was really worried about this and again, rightly or wrongly, she paid them the £176. She then checked over her bank statements and the original cheque she wrote out to Apcoa had clearly been cashed. Where do we take this now? I feel that ZZPS and Wright Hassall have conned her out of money and that Apcoa have caused a load of distress by moving this parking charge to them in the first place despite cashing the cheque. Any advice would be gratefully received thank you.

The mobile mechanic took the car to the second mechanic.

Hello all, A bit of background. I went out one night to find my car would not turn over at all. A mobile mechanic we had used for a few jobs before came and diagnosed that the engine had seized. I asked for a quote to put in an engine which he sorted out. I also got him to quote on a timing belt and new clutch (mine had done 150k) which, again, he did. As the cost of the work was way less than getting a car of similar quality (A 2004 Passat 130 TDi) I decided to go ahead with the work. There were a couple of teething problems with the car which the mobile mechanic seemed very dismissive of - the brakes were not very good at all and there was a strange resonance when getting to about 1700RPM which he just dismissed as me not being used to the new engine. About 10 days after getting the car back the clutch started to judder and eventually failed a few minutes later. I called the original mechanic who came out to have a look and then, rather than doing the work himself, gave it to another garage to look at. This is where it all starts to get a bit iffy. Mobile mechanic claims that the clutch slave cylinder had failed, leaking fluid into the clutch causing the failure. As this was a new problem the clutch would not be covered under warranty. However, he somehow managed to wangle a new clutch (apparently from the supplier) which this second garage fitted. He then asked me to pay the garage £240 cash in hand to have the work done. No mention of a new slave cylinder, nothing. I was very unhappy about paying for this sort of work without any paper trail so I declined and asked the original mechanic for an invoice for the work. He made all sorts of ridiculous excuses as to why this was not possible. I then get an invoice from the garage that did the work. I have since had further trouble with the clutch and the brakes. In the end we looked at it ourselves and found that the brakes and clutch hydraulic system was all airlocked as bleeding the system fixed the problems I was having. The brakes and clutch share the same hydraulic system. I'm refusing to pay the second garage. I want my original mechanic to bill me so that I can take the whole matter up with him. What is my position here? Did I have a contract with the second garage or was the contract between the mobile mechanic and the second garage. I've never asked any subcontractor that I have used to bill my original client. I'm really unhappy paying for this work which I reckon should have been a warranty repair. It seems far too co-incidental that the slave cylinder failed - this was an area of the car that the mobile mechanic was messing with when he was doing the engine and clutch replacement. It also seems a bit strange that there was no bill for the replacement slave cylinder - I've never yet met a mechanic who just gives bits away whether they are needed or not!! Anyone able to help me out as to my position here? Thanks

Keep paying the original agreed amount to Halifax and ignore Wescot. They cannot do anything to you but will try to put pressure on you to pay amounts that you cannot afford. They have no power, they have no right to come and visit you or any of the other superpowers that they claim to have. Just stick with the original arrangement and you'll be fine. When the time comes up for review and if your circumstances haven't changed then keep paying the £1 but do write to Halifax (not any of the other monkeys) and let them know that is what you are doing. Wescot may try to intimidate you with threats of this and that when the time comes but it'll come to nothing - their job is to play on people's fears and they use legal sounding guff but it as real as the medical sounding stuff you hear on Casualty every week and about as effective!

Also do not, under any circumstances, give them your card details. It is not unknown for companies like this to just charge whatever they like to your card. Sending card details by email is as secure as sending them written on a postcard and not recommended at all. They cannot make "unexpected" visits as PGH7447 stated and you have every right to tell them that they are not allowed onto your property and that you will only correspond with them via email or post and not by telephone. Indeed, them offering discounts does sound like there is something very, very fishy here.

SIG are one of the shoddiest companies I have ever had to deal with. We qualify for the free insulation and booked an appointment for a survey. A bloke turned up and looked around the loft and did some diagrams. An appointment was booked for the loft insulation to be done. A team turned up, took one look at the loft and said that they hadn't come equipped to do this job and that the survey was wrong. They left saying that they would reschedule. Since then we have heard nothing. We have called numerous times, emailed and written and, so far, only one woman has bothered to respond. So today I am taking this further. It would appear that they are quite happy to grab as much of the grant money as possible to do the simple little jobs, generate lots of statistics about how great they are and sod those of us with slightly more complicated (but equally valid) jobs. I loathe companies who behave like this.

Thanks for that. She has sent a letter telling them to deal with me and I am going to fire a letter off at them this weekend. Let's see what that does!

Hello all, My daughter was set up by a "friend" who used my daughter's bag to try and take goods from a Primark. My daughter was apprehend outside the store and then taken upstairs - the "friend" had disappeared by that stage. The police were never involved and the store did not pursue the matter any further other than barring her from entering another Primark. The girl who set her up is apparently know for doing this and, whilst my daughter is no saint, she wouldn't shoplift. She was totally up front with us and told us what had happened as she had nothing to hide. I did some reading around and told my daughter to expect a letter from RLP which she did today. It is cloaked in the sort of legalise that DCAs (of whom I have experience of kicking in to touch thanks to CAG!) and really worried her. The letter is headed "Without Prejudice Save as to Costs" We act on behalf of Primark. We are instructed that on 21st November 2011 at our client's premises you committed a wrongful act causing loss to our client. They then go on to say that the staff were diverted from their normal activities etc. etc. for which they are entitled to compensation for. They claim that the costs are considerable but they are willing to accept a fixed amount of £87.50 I can post the whole of the text if needs be. I have a couple of problems with this. As the Police were not involved and the store did not pursue the matter, can they accuse her of committing a wrongful act? Can they really claim this money from her given that there is no evidence whatsoever that any offence was committed? As she is only 16 years old, what is her standing in law? I would like to handle this one for her (she has now realised that they are nothing to really worry about since I showed her some of the highly witty letters that Moorcroft and Roxburgh have sent to me in the past!) Can she write to them and grant me permission to act on her behalf? Any advice on this would be gratefully received. I am also considering pursuing Primark over potential breaches of rules regarding safeguarding. Whilst she was accompanied in the lift upstairs by a female member of staff, she was left alone with two male security guards and was then interviewed by them and felt highly intimidated by them. She was then escorted off the premises by a male security guard with no female member of staff being present when she was taken down in the lift. This has bothered us more than the letter from RLP. Thanks