I have regularly purchased items off auction sites and never had any real issues. However I've hit a problem with an online auction and not sure how I stand with this. The auction was online. No physical auction took place and there was no facility to view the goods before hand ( I'll get into more detail about this in a moment ). I would also point out that the auction house clearly say a seller is someone who has consigned goods to them to sell. GIven the goods have never been in their posession at all, and I was not able to view the items, then surely the terms and conditions of the auction house become invalid because the fact they don't have hte goods means their definition of a seller doesn't apply. The listing were for watches by a company labelling themselves "gamages of London". Upon checking the name out, there was a website, and very professional it was too. I bid on three items which were all successful. All the items were listed as NEW and offered a 5 year manufacturers warranty. The auctioneer sent me a request to pay, which said "click here to pay" however the link did not exist and the only option was to pay via bank transfer. i requested an online payment method, but the amended link still didn't work so I paid by bank transfer. As is normal for auction houses they will send you delivery details upon payment. After I had paid they send me delivery instructions and this is when I started to get worried. They said I had to contact the seller so he could arrange the delivery. So they never physically had the items in their posession ( which isn't in itself unusual ). However, the contact number for the seller was a mobile number, which guess what.. didn't work,. I have attempted to email them but had no response. It now transpires that the company that makes the products doesn't actually exist. They claim to be manufacturers however when you delve into the ins and outs, its a one man show who has produced a website claiming to be a company, selling the items which I have no idea if they even exist or not. The auction house have the money. The seller has the goods. However, I have no idea what my course of action should be given I cannot contact the seller, and what if any recourse do I have against the auction house if the goods don't arrive or as I suspect, they are basically cheap items falsely advertised on a website set up by the seller. What am I able to do about it. I have paid over £500 to the auction house and now I have a horrible feeling I've lost the money.. Lesson learned I suppose, but is there anything I can do, and am I covered by any consumer protection.

update - We sent the boss a strongly worded letter telling him that basically he has to pay redundancy money and that he must give adequate notice. Within 48 hours he wrote telling my wife the shop was shutting in 4 days and she would be made redundant as there would be no work for her in the new shop in the village pub. He then gave her notice that he would pay her 3 weeks redundancy notice. BUT because he hasn't given her adequate notice she is expected to work her two weeks notice in the pub training the staff there on how to do the job. So my wife is going to get her redundancy pay, and basically two weeks more pay which he says is her notice period, but she has to work them training others to do the job he says doesn't exist anymore. ah well... better something than nothing I suppose.

Yes I knew that. Its a money making [problem] that unfortunately no one can do anything about.

We explained all that to Capita, who being honest, didn't give a flying duck. They just expected us to pay saying that we'd lived there, and therefore we were liable. What I cannot understand either, is that when it all blew up, within 8 weeks of us being told we owed the money, they had the debt with the Bailiffs. During the entire 2 years that we were living there and she was supposed to pay the council tax, there wasn't one letter addressed to her from Mendip Council, and not one bailliff showed their face. How come for 2 years they didn't give a damn, but suddenly when we were truthful and told them we'd been living at the property, they made every effort to get paid. My suspicion is that the landlady had been claiming housing benefit for 2 years, and rather than do the correct thing and prosecute her, they simply just came after us to get the money back. What I would like to know, is if she was registered at the property during the two years. If she was, then we never should have been liable for the council tax anyway because we would have been simply lodgers as she would be the lead name on the council tax bill. We would not have been liable.

Rather foolishly no. What we cannot understand though, is if she was claiming benefits at the house, that would include Council Tax benefit. That would mean the council tax for the property for the two year period would have been paid by the benefits office. We surely then wouldn't have had to pay because the council tax was covered for that period. If however, she wasn't claiming council tax benefit but was registered at that address, then as the property owner, and still residing at the house, she would have been liable for the council tax anyway, not us.

This is a long story, so I'll try and cut to the chase. Back in 2013 we moved into a property. The landlady who we were renting off asked if she could continue to be registered at the address. She agreed that she would cover all the council tax bills for the property. Two years later we received a letter from the council to "the occupiers" asking us when we moved into the property. We truthfully told them the date. Two months later, we received a massive bill from the council for two years worth of council tax, backdated to the date we moved in. We got in touch with the landlady who admitted she had not paid the council tax. We were now stuck with a £2300 debt when in fact it wasn't our debt. To add to our problem, the landlady admitted she had been illegally claiming benefits from the property whilst we were living there and she could not admit that she was due to pay the council tax as that would lay her wide open to prosecution. We contacted the council and explained the situation, but they wouldn't discuss it. As far as they ( capita ) were concerned, we were liable and they had passed the debt onto Ross and Roberts for collection. We rang Ross and Roberts, who were in fairness understanding, and they agreed a repayment plan which we stuck to like glue. In December 2015 I contacted them to make a payment and they gave us a figure which they said was the amount needed to clear off the debt. I then paid that amount and was told by the lady on the phone that the debt was now paid and we owed nothing more. They would cease any action against us. We didn't think any more about it We got a letter from the council saying we were in arrears with our council tax and they were taking us to court. I went into the offices to talk to them they told me that there was still £470 owing from the previous liability order and that they'd used my council tax payments for that year to clear this off. I explained everything about Ross and Roberts, how they said we'd paid it all off, but the woman insisted that they hadn't collected the full amount and had left £470 uncollected. That was why they were using 2016s council tax payments to clear off those arrears first. After much arguing, they agreed to cease the court action and use the money we had paid for the current years council tax. As for the £470 owing they would simply add it onto the bill and we could repay that on top of the current years council tax over the year. Owing to financial problems we fell into arrears with the council tax, and because as they put it "you have a bad history of paying" they just sent the matter to the courts and we were given another LO. When we contacted Ross and Roberts to sort out payments, they told us that there was still a LO for £470 owing which they were treating seperately, and had added £310 costs onto that bill. Not only that, they added £310 onto the amount for that current year as well. Had Ross and Roberts not told us that we had paid off the full bill, back in 2015, then we would have carried on making all the payments as planned and we wouldn't have been hit with a huge amount of fees, not only for the £470 that they incorrectly didn't collect, but also because that then had a knock on effect for the current year, and owing to us owing the grand sum of £110 for the current year, they whammed us with £310 charges for that. So if you can understand it, we ended up paying £620 in bailliff fees for two liability orders. One for £110 which I accept we owed, and £470 which Ross and Roberts had themselves told us we didn't owe it was their mistake when they didn't collect it as they should have done back when we were willingly making payments to clear off a debt that wasn't even ours in the first place as the landlady should have paid it.

My wife has regular payslips, and the payments are made into her bank account so she is easily able to prove the number of hours she has worked since she started there.

My wife has been employed by the local pub owner who took on the lease of the village shop three years ago. My wife was employed from the outset to work in the shop. Since day one she has consistently worked over 28 hours a week at a rate above the NMW. She has been paying tax, NI, pension etc and has received holiday pay. However, she was never given a contract of employment. The pub owner has now bought the land that the shop is on, and plans to demolish it and build houses on the land, meaning the shop will close. He is however going to open a small "shop" within the pub to sell essentials such as milk, papers, cigarettes etc. The boss has told the staff nothing more than "I am closing the shop at the end of April and you won't have a job anymore", however he has failed to put anything in writing at all. I have several questions which I hope someone can answer 1) The boss is suggesting that as he never agreed in writing to a set number of hours a week, the position was one of a "zero hours contract". However my wife has worked 28+ hours every week since she started. Am I right in assuming that the 28+ hours a week, in the absence of a contract are implied terms and those are the terms are legally binding. 2) Until as such time as he informs my wife in writing that he plans to close the store and her position is redundant, then legally she is still employed on the terms that she's worked to for the last 3 years. 3) Even without a contract of employment, my wife is still entitled to written notice of redundancy. How much notice is she entitled to, and should the shop close before that notice period expires, he then would still have to pay her in lieu of notice. 4) Unless he puts it in writing that the position is redundant, then is he legally obliged to pay her for the hours she would have been working for had he not closed the shop. Any advice and answers to the questions above would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Can I ask what they legally do have to prove then.

There is a section in the letter "The driver of this vehicle is required to pay this parking charge in full within the time frame stipulated above. As we do not know the drivers name or current postal address, if you were not the driver at the time, you should provide us with the name and current postal address of the driver and pass this notice to them" So I am assuming I don't have to tell them the identity of the driver, and by their own admission they don't actually know so cannot possibly enforce this charge.

Sorry could you explain this in more detail.

It has my name on it, and they are saying the DVLA have identified me as the registered keeper. The exact wording is "Having checked the vehicle details with the driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency ( DVLA ) we are writing to you because either you were the registered keeper at the time of parking, or the registered keeper at the time of parking, or the registered keeper has named you as the driver at the date and time of the event" They categorically state however, that I was PARKED for the period in question, but have no actual photographic evidence to even say I was parked. All they have is a photo saying I drove in, and drove out. As I said above, I could have been driving for 3 hours around the car park. Surely they cannot prove that I was parked and thus a parking charge would be completely wrong under the circumstances.

For tickets received through the post [ANPR camera capture] (Notice to Keeper) please answer the following questions. 1 Date of the infringement 26/02/17 2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 7/3/17 3 Date received 9/3/17 4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [y/n?] Not that I can see 5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Only ANPR of my car driving in and driving out. No photo of car actually being parked. 6 Have you appealed? {y/n?] post up you appeal] no Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up 7 Who is the parking company? CP Plus 8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] MOTO Reading West, M4 For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. POPLA There are two official bodies, the BPA and the IAS. If you are unsure, please check HERE If you have received any other correspondence, please mention it here

Hi, I was driving back from London home to Somerset, and due to a long day pulled over to the service station to take a rest. I fell asleep in the car and stayed there for 3 hours 22 minutes. They have sent me a charge notice saying I was parked over and above the time allowed without payment and have sent an £80 charge notice for this. However, the notice has a photo of my car arriving, and my car leaving, but no photo of me actually being parked. Surely there is no actual evidence that I was ever parked in their car park, and that I could for all intents and purposes have been driving round the car park for 3 hours. Without an actual photo of me being parked on the land owned by MOTO, surely they cannot enforce this notice.

Thank you for the response. On my wifes pay slips each week it simply says the number of hours worked in total and holiday pay is calculated by an average of the previous 12 weeks. if my wife were to refuse to accept any reduction in hours would he have to dismiss her or would ahe have to hand her notice in and explain why with notice that she intends to claim constructive dismissal ? Also if he did dismiss her for not agreeing to take a reduction in hours what if any recourse would she have. Finally and sorry to hassle you further, you mention that he could offer to buy out her contract. How would this work in practise. How would it be calculated and could my wife write and suggest if he wants to do this he can make her an offer. ?

Have you ever heard the phrase "if you can't say something nice.. don't say anything at all"

With your experience and desire, I find it incredible that someone hasn't snapped your hand off. There is a massive shortage of skilled people in the catering industry, especially in baking and traditional fayre. I can promise you, that with your experience you are far from on the scrapheap, and this trade is dying out for people like you. ( I am a chef ). Keep going, and I promise you that you will find something that suits you because there is such a shortage of skilled people in this profession.

My wife was employed as a shop assistant when the local village shop was taken over by a new owner. She started on the day he took over the business just over 2 years ago. Since that day she has worked consistently over 25 hours a week, with an average over the 2 years of 31 hours a week. She has never been given, or offered a contract, but is paid through the books with pay slips, holiday pay and pension etc. There is a flat attached to the shop, and for some months its been empty. The boss wants to let that flat out on a private rental, but there is a codicil attached by the people who actually own the shop that whoever lives there must work at the shop and it cannot be rented out to anyone other than an employee. My wifes boss has come up with the idea that he will rent the shop out, but to swerve the codicil he will be giving the new people some hours at the shop. He has said that he will therefore be reducing my wifes hours to 20 hours a week, which in all honesty would cause us severe financial problems. When he told my wife the plan he explained that because there is no contract, no hours are guaranteed and that she is actually therefore on a zero hours contract. This is HIS interpretation of it, and therefore he can reduce the hours as he sees fit. Surely he is incorrect, and that because she has consistently worked an average of 31 hours a week, this is an implied contract and any changes to her hours MUST be agreed by her before he can go ahead. As far as I am aware, it is his responsibility to ensure that if he wants staff to be on a zero hours contract, he must say that when he employs people, and must provide a contract of employment that states this. He cannot employ someone on full time hours, then decide later on that because there is no contract in place he wants it to be a zero hours contract. What are my wifes rights here, and what should she do to approach her employer about it.

Well some good news and bad news. Good news, the council have agreed to take the debt back from the Bailliffs ( who for a change were really helpful and considerate ). They however are not prepared to budge that I owe the money however have accepted a £25 a week payment agreement and a reduction from £7100 to £3300. Still a ridiculous situation but I suppose given that the burden of proof does not count for anything these days, and I had little or no chance of getting away from this, then I suppose its the best I can hope for.

Well absolutely stuffed here. The council have written back to me saying that I should have objected to the liability order in December 2012, and therefore they will not consider any removal of the liability order unless i can provide documentary evidence that I was not the business owner. In their words "the onus is not on us to prove anything as we have the liability order, and it is your resposibility to prove we are incorrect" So I am absolutely screwed here as no one can provide any documents for over 13 years ago. The kind souls have given me 4 weeks to provide any evidence I can to support my argument, but other than that they are not budging.. If they still refuse to accept I do not owe that money, then I'll pay them at £10 per week and make them wait 12 years to get it all. .

Herein lies the same problem. Enterprise Inns have now sold the pub on to someone else about 8 years ago. I asked them for any relevant paperwork, and they say they don't have anything on file either. So there is absolutely no paperwork anywhere, and because the Liability order is in my name, the council want proof from me that I don't owe the money to them. The onus is on me to prove to them I didn't own that business, which is utterly absurd. Surely the onus has to be on them to prove I do.

Just been involved in a very heated argument with someone from Liverpool City council Apparantly according to them, the responsibility is on me to prove I do not owe the money because I would have received a bill in 2002, and therefore its up to me to prove I don't owe the money because I didn't tell them in 2002 I didn't owe it. Now according to them, because the company I worked ( who have now gone bust ) told them I should pay the business rates, they have decided to just take their word for it. So I can contact the council and tell them that Mickey Mouse is responsible for the business rates for Tescos, and they will send the bills to him. No proof is needed, just someone contacting the council to tell them. Amazingly, its the same with council tax. A property owner can simply write to the council tell them that Mickey Mouse is responsible for paying the council tax, and because Mouse doesn't tell them he isn't the one who is supposed to pay it, then Mickey Mouse gets a liability order, and then has to prove why he's not liable. Utterly bloody stupid.. I think I need to get in touch with an MP on this one, because they are refusing point blank to budge and won't tell Rossendales to back off. So I am expecting a bailliff to attend anytime soon. He's gonna get told where to go as well..

Thanks, I have learnt from this situation that councils will talk for hours on phones, they deny they know anything about it. I've rung them countless times about this, and each time because I've heard nothing more thought they'd dealt with it. Apparantly not. I've emailed them and have a confirmation of receipt, so they cannot now deny that I am objecting to this liability order. Just have to wait and see what they say now. If they've waited this long to chase the debt, then god knows how long it will take them to sort it all out..

We rent a house, and as part of the tenancy agreement the landlady agreed to pay the council tax for the property. Well for one reason or another she didn't pay it, and the council obtained a liability order for over £2500 dating back to the date we moved in. We had received letters from the council, which we forwarded onto the Landlady in the expectation she would pay the outstanding amount, but due to financial problems she never paid the bills, and as you would expect the council in the end obtained a liability order. We received notificaton from Ross and Roberts that they would be attending ( as you would expect ) to get the money paid. I got straight on the phone to them and explained what had occured. How the Landlady should have paid it, but didn't. I have to say the woman on the phone was absolutely wonderful. remarkably helpful. Whilst she accepted it wasn't our fault, as she rightly pointed out, the bailliff could only deal with the liability order in our name and we were responsible to get it paid. She gave us two weeks grace so we could get in touch with the landlady and see what arrangement we could come up with, but as stated, we had to ensure that money got paid. I immediately made a couple of payments to show good will, then got in touch with the landlady and made arrangements whereby should Ross and Roberts agree, we would pay it over a set period. The same woman agreed instantly to our proposal, and as long as payments were forthcoming she would suspend bailliff action. I explained our financial situation basically over hte phone, and she actually suggested I reduce what I proposed by £30 a week, so as to ensure that we didn't leave ourselves short over the winter period. I was sat open mouthed at how helpful she was. We made the payments on time, barring one week when the day we were supposed to pay, happened to fall on Christmas day, and I just got a very polite phone call from their office saying they understood that due to Christmas the payment would most probably be late, and to remind me to pay it as soon as I could, so I would stay within the terms of the agreement. Once we got to the last 2 payments, they rang us again, telling us how much was left, and telling us to ensure that we didn't pay too much as the final payment was less than all the others would have been. I've dealt with bailliff companies in the past and found them to be downright obstinate and refuse point blank to listen, but in this case, Ross and Roberts were absolutely fantastic and helpful. So for a change, heres a thumbs up to a bailliff firm for being considerate and downright helpful.

I've written to the council explaining that I should never have been named as the person liable for the business rates and asked them to suspend any bailiff action until this can be sorted out. Rang Rossendales, who in their defence ( which doesn't happen often ) were very helpful, and have spoken to the bailliff and explained the situation to him so he is aware of it. I have done a land registry check to see who owns the building and when they purchased it, and as I suspected, the people that owned the building back in 2002 are no longer the owners, so there is no paperwork whatsoever to say who was supposed to be paying the bills. Just got to wait I suppose and see what Liverpool council say, but from what the woman on the phone was saying, its not an easy task getting a Liability Order removed, and amazingly, she says I may end up having to pay because its my fault that its now 13 years since the liability order was granted and the onus was on me to get it removed quickly, even though she freely admits it could well have been issued wrongly in the first place.