The energy usage readings - they remained the same for 3 years! They appeared on my dad's bills too, for 3 years. I know it's probably unbelievable but SP wouldn't come out and look at it.

Thanks all - I didn't realise that the seller's estate agents really did this. My conveyancers in England have my official mortgage offer and it has only been 2 weeks since my father's property sold. Speaking to my solicitor in Scotland last week, there are just a few loose ends which need tied up as my the estate is not complicated at all and the executors have done everythiing they need to. The estate agents were informed of this last Friday so I can't do anything any quicker for them. The whole process of viewing the property, making an offer and getting to this stage has only taken a matter of weeks because I was careful to avoid being in a chain for a long period of time as I know how frustrating that is. Thanks again.

Hi there, I am in the process of buying a property as a first time buyer and have had an offer accepted on my ideal home but no date to move in as I am waiting for my late father's estate to be completed. Since the Seller has accepted the offer, his estate agents have been calling me 2 or 3 times a week for updates which I don't mind but they have also been contacting the solicitor who is dealing with my late father's estate in Scotland! They did this during the time I was in Cuba on holiday (no wifi available there so I was in communcado!) and the solicitor in Scotland was led to belive they were my estate agents by what they said. Luckily he didn't give them any information, but I thought it was a bit cheeky. Through discussions about the estate etc I told him that they weren't acting on my behalf and he didn't need to give them any information if he didn't feel the need to so when they phoned him last Friday, he was extremely short and to the point with them, telling them to mind their own business. On the Friday afternoon, they then called me again saying they had been in touch with my Scottish solicitor and that he was extremely rude to them and wouldn't give them any information. They said to me that in the process of house buying, once an offer is made by a buyer, they then act on behalf of the seller of the property and the buyer! Is this correct in England? I haven't instructed them to do aything for me as I don't have a house sale going through in England? I'm not convinced about what they are telling me and in Scotland where I have bought properties before, this would be a conflict of interest. Can someone please advise? Many thanks, Worstutility

Dear All, I am extremely unhappy with the way that Scottish Power have dealt with a complaint I had. My father lived in Scotland and my brother and I live 360 miles away in England. To cut a long story short, in 2012 my late father notified them that his meter was not working correctly from October 2012 to date, they were sending bills to him with the same meter numbers on . In September 2014, my father died and Scottish Power had still not changed the meter even though it was still showing the same readings as in 2012. My brother and I were left his property as part of the estate and I (and the solicitors in Scotland) have attempted to get them to change the meter since September 2014. We found a buyer for the flat and they wanted to move in on 10th July 2015 but obviously we had to declare the meter wasn't working so they threatened to pull out of the sale. Luckily, at the 11th hour, Scottish Power did change the meter on the afternoon of 9th July as I threatened to sue them because the Purchaser threatened to pull out and the house sale may have fallen through. This meant that all the paperwork didn't get done in time and we finally sold the property on 24th July 2015 to the same person. The bills have now been sorted out and luckily my dad did keep making payments to Scottish Power until he died as he was afraid that he would end up with a large bill once the meter issue had been sorted out and I now have to pay them £12.09 to finish everything off. As you can imagine, this was extremely stressful for my late father who was very ill during this whole period, fighting cancer and going through radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He involved the Citizen's Advice throughout the whole time but nothing was ever resolved. I then took up the fight after he died because I knew it needed sorted before we sold the property. My dad did not let the situation go, but didn't get anywhere and I have now spent hours trying to sort it out even though I lived 350 miles away from the property . I feel that we deserve some sort of compensation but don't know where to start. I know that my solicitor in Scotland has written and called them on numerous occasions up to the date they changed the meter and I was constantly calling and emailing them to try and resolve everything so the sale went through. Does anyone think that it is cheeky to look for some sort of compensation? I spent at least 2 hours on the phone to them, then phone calls to my solicitor in Scotland, plus the bill I will receive for the solicitors letters that were sent to them? I wouldn't even know where to start in calculating such a thing? Any advice from anyone would be appreciated as the last 3 years have been very difficult dealing with this and the loss of a parent? Many thanks for reading. Worstutility

Thanks everyone! My brother and I were discussing the Lasting Power of Attorney tonight. Are we able to do this ourselves with my dad and witnesses or do we need to involve solicitors? The problem we've got is that we don't live close by and have used most of our holidays travelling to see him for oncology appointments so it's difficult to get back to see him at the moment. Luckily we have carers going in to check him. I will call them tomorrow though and explain the situation.

I am looking for a little advice really. My dad lives 350 miles away from me and further away from my brother. Recently we have been travelling to see him because he has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and so we have been taking him to consultants appointments etc at his local hospital. This evening he called me to state he had received a letter regarding benefits he was entitled to and it was quite a threatening letter looking for information however my brother had replied to this last month. They have obviously lost/not received the response he posted. Understandably my dad is quite upset and is under so much stress and worry that he doesn't feel he can deal with these things. In this instance obviously I will call them tomorrow, explain the circumstances and advise them of what my brother has already sent back to them. The thing that is worrying us now though is being able to help my dad out with these things. We have thought about redirecting his mail to me just so that I could keep an eye on things and I know my dad would be happy for this to happen but obviously it still means that he would still have to sign things etc etc. would this be illegal to do? The reason I am asking is because when I checked it on royal mail's website the special circumstances form is if you have power of attorney or if they have died but neither of these things apply here. Can anyone advise what might be the best route for us to take? I know it's a long shot but it is a bit of a cry for help because we just want to make things easier for him. Thanks in advance, Worstutility

Hi there! Exactly the same thing happened to me over Christmas. I was one day outside of my year's warranty according to Carphone warehouse. Unfortunately, I had to go to the Apple shop and buy a new one and give them the old useless one back but they did give me a report to state that it was not able to be repaired. Apple advised that they would have replaced my phone if I had bought it through them under their 2 year warranty however Carphone Warehouse refused to do this. In the end, I threatened them with SOGA and a few months down the line, after they had spoken to Apple, they refunded the cost of my phone. I have now decided that I am only going to buy Apple devices directly from them now because of the 2 year warranty that they provide for this sort of fault. When I checked with my provider, Vodafone, they would also have replaced it for free. I know SOGA does apply but it's hassle for us! Keep fighting though as you have a case! Best of luck!

Right - I sent a letter by registered post enclosing the receipt, report from Apple and also the letter head which the sales person printed out for me yesterday confirming hers and my conversation with the repair helpline person who stated that none of the legislation applies to contract mobile phones. I have given them 10 days to send a cheque to me for the amount of £159.00 before I start proceedings through the small claims court. I am not hopeful that I will even receive a reply however you never know!

Hi there 2ltr16valve! Thanks for the reply - I have tried the SOGA on the phone to them today but it didn't wash but as I have it on CPW letter headed paper from the store (I got the girl to print it out because he said the same to her as he did to me) that the SOGA doesn't apply to them I think I am just going to send the a letter with all of the documents attached and requesting my money back. I just had no alternative but to buy a new phone. I think I will be kind and give them 10 days to reply and then just go through the small claims court. Apple registered it all on their system and so did Vodafone so with the documentation, hopefully they won't argue. Hope everything goes well for you.

Hi All, Just looking for a little bit of advice on this one. I bought an iPhone 4S on 20th December 2013 and on Christmas Day 2013 the wifi button greyed out completely and I cannot use the phone for Facetime, iMessages or the internet now without using up my internet allowance on my contract. Sometimes the signal at my home isn't too good either because we are in a bit of a dip so I rely on my hone having wifi so that I can use my Sure Signal from Vodafone. This is a known issue with this phone and there are dozens of people around the world that this has happened to but some have been able to fix it by restoring it through iTunes but I wasn't able to. This was bought on a contract of £25.00 per month over 24 months so I would have thought that the phone should last at least that long. I knew I would have a problem with Carphone Warehouse and their poor aftercare so I decided to take it to Apple to have the fault diagnosed first to see what it was first. After their staff member looked at it he said that the wifi chip had burnt out and the phone would need to be replaced but if I had bought it from them it would have been done there and then. I then had to go to Vodafone because of a separate issue and whilst there I asked them what would have happened if I had bought the phone via them and they said that they honour the Apple warranty now of 2 years but even though they are my network, it still needs to be Carphone Warehouse that replaces it. Anyway, I took the phone over to Carphone Warehouse and the sales asssitant said that I only had a year warranty. I said that they should be honouring the 2 year warranty for my phone as it was on a 24 month contract and this had to be referred to the manager. The manager told her to phone the helpline which she did and after about 20 minutes of waiting, she finally got through to someone. He obviously said no, I would need to buy a new phone and also verbally said to me that they did not have to comply with the Sale of Goods Act for this type of problem. I also asked about Apple's EU wide Consumer Law which was given to me by the Apple shop and he said this does not apply to them either. Gob smacked wasn't the word! Anyway, because I have a disabled son, I need to be able to be contacted at all times and I am travelling to my family tomorrow and need my phone with me so I had no alternative but to purchase a new phone from Apple directly at a total cost of £159.00. I have a copy of the diagnosis from Apple and a receipt for the phone that I had to purchase as well as a copy of the notes made on my account from Carphone Warehouse which the sales assistant has recorded details of our conversations with their helpline stating that they don't have to comply with SOGA or any EU directives. I thought my next step would be issuing a letter stating that I am willing to go to court to get this money back but I just wondered what everyone else thought? I don't think that the phone is fit for purpose if it breaks halfway through a contract. Any advice would be appreciated and many thanks, Sarah

Hi there! I just wanted to let you know that I will be attending Carphone Warehouse tomorrow because exactly the same thing has happened to me with the Wifi being greyed out. I am with Vodafone and approached them first because they are my contract provider and they advised that it is a known problem with the iPhone 4S since the 7.0.4 update where the wifi chip has burnt out after my phone became really hot. I am not hopeful that they will repair or replace and am going to take it all the way so will let you know what happens once I have been to the shop tomorrow. I am not prepared to pay anything to get this fixed as it happened 3 days after my warranty expired! Worstutility

Thank you so much everyone for your advice! I really appreciate your help on this.

No I didn't but it's only 10 months old and I had seen on Watchdog before that it isn't worth doing that.

The screen doesn't have a crack on it that I can feel or see but she pressed it in, it came up with a big spider web type pattern and then she told me it was cracked underneath the protective glass. I felt it and said I couldn't feel anything. I can't say that he is perfect because he isn't but I know he didn't do anything to it just before hand because he was lying on his bed watching it at a distance! The thing I am worried about is that on the photos I took there was definitely no point of impact and I feel that it was faulty and she made it worse and now taking it back will mean me trying to explain the spider web pattern on it. Thank you all!

Hi all, I am just looking for some advice please. My son bought a logik TV from Currys with his Christmas money last year and was watching it this morning when the screen went mostly white. I still had the receipt so decided to take it back to currys for an exchange as I feel that there was some sort of defect. When I got to currys I went to the girl on the customer service desk and she plugged it in, switched it on and then told me there was damage that had been done to the tv and started pressing the screen saying this was the point of impact. I told her that there wasn't any impact because my son was lying on his bed watching it and he must have been 6 feet away. I also showed her the photograph and said could she point out any impact from the photograph but couldn't so called someone else. He looked at the bit that she had pressed and said it was accidental damage and not a fault. I showed him the photographs but they wouldn't budge. What would be my next step with this. Reading the forums I can see I may have a fight on my hands but to be honest I was fizzing mad at the way I was dismissed and the fact that they blamed him. Would this be something that could go wrong with an LCD TV or could it be that something has been done to it in the days/weeks/months previously and it has just shown up? I feel that she caused the impact point on the screen when she was pressing it! Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you ims - I really appreciate it. I'll get going with it now along with some bedtime reading of the case law. Will keep you all updated.

Hi there! Sorry I should have stated that I followed this up with an LBA....my apologies. I take it I now register this with the court clearing place in Salford and then wait to see how they respond? Worstutility

Hi All, I just wanted to start a thread here for confirmation really. I SAR'd Citi because I wanted to know if I had paid PPI on an old credit card. I was lucky enough to receive all of my statements from them but sadly no PPI. I did however have a good look through them and found that they had charged me £355.00 in late payment charges and overlimit fees all of them £20.00 each apart from 3 of them which were £25.00. I decided to ask for them back and used the spreadsheet on here - sent them a letter and spreadsheet but because the default charges were added more than 6 years ago, it is not their policy to refund charges. I then sent them this letter borrowed from Shelley's thread: "Following media reports, and an investigation into credit card charges by the Office of Fair Trading, which I have recently been made aware of, I now understand that the regime of fees which you applied to my account in relation to late fees, and over limit charges, are unlawful at Common Law, Statute and Consumer regulations, in that they did not represent a genuine pre-estimate of your actual costs. I would draw your attention to the terms of the contract which you agreed to at the time that this account was opened. It is an implied term of that contract that you would conduct yourselves lawfully and in a manner which complies with UK law, and in consideration of fair business practices and good faith. It is my contention that you failed to operate my account in a manner conducive to the above and have demonstrated a lack of fiduciary duty. I calculate that you have taken XXX plus XXX which you have charged me in interest which totals XXX. Additionally, you entered a default notice against my credit record. This default was the result of impecuniosity caused directly by the taking of penalty charges by you which you had applied to my account. In recent years, Courts have been happy to accept claims for bank charges that exceed 6 years whilst having regards to the precedent set between KLEINWORT BENSON -v- LINCOLN CITY COUNCIL under section 32 © of the Limitation Act 1980. Should county court action be needed I will be seeking to rely on this. Therefore this letter requests a refund of all charges indicated including interest 14 days from the date of this letter. I request that payment is made directly to me, by cheque, and that any refund in whole or part should not be allocated to any set off or third parties. Should this occur, my claim will be deemed as unsettled and I will proceed to the Courts for recovery. You now have 14 days to respond positively, and in the absence of this, I will put you on notice with a further 14 days “letter before action”. I trust this clarifies my position." I take it the next step is to go to court as I have not heard anything from them regarding this letter and the 14 days have now expired. Any help would be appreciated. Many thanks, Worstutility

Dear All, Thank you all so much for your help in this - we received a letter at the end of last week offering us the full amount that was due to us along with a goodwill gesture for the inconvenience caused because we had to chase this up. Hopefully the cheque will be winging it's way to us as I write this but again many thanks. My donation will be paid as soon as I receive the funds. Keep up the good work everyone!

Sorry everyone - I am having a terrible time trying to upload my documents! This is the first letter that I received from the legal dept advising that they did not need to supply evidence that they had destroyed my documents[/b]. "Thank you for your letter dated 17 April 2012 with which you enclosed a copy of your email to my colleague, Amanda Grice, dated 14 April 2012. Our obligations in respect of "Subject Access Requests" made under the Data Protection Act I99S are as set out in that Act and in particular section 7 of that Act. I do not believe that any of the provisions of Civil Procedure Act 1995 are applicable in the present circumstances. I do, however, suspect that the application of the Data Protection Act 1998 or Civil Evidence Act 1995 is largely irrelevant here. I believe that all you are seeking from us is confirmation as to whether you had Payment Protection insurance (""',) on your accounts with details of any premiums paid. I have asked my colleagues in our Financial Services team to investigate this and to respond to you directly as soon as they can. As I have previously explained, we do not hold data indefinitely. Data Protection Act 1998 Schedule 1 Part 1 paragraph 5 (referred to as the Fifth Principle) states as "5. Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes." My colleagues in our Financial Services team will be in touch within the next couple of weeks with information in relation to PFi. if you have any other queries please do not hesitate to contact me at the address below." This is the second letter advising that they did not consider that I had a claim: "I write with reference to your previous complaint regarding Total Cover which we responded to on 20th April 2012. As part of our ongoing quality review process we have re-visited your complaint and after careful consideration of your complaint, it appears our initial response was below our usual high standard of clarity; therefore I am writing to you now to re-iterate the main points of that initial response. tn terms of your La Redoute account (reference 40HBBR. ' can confirm there has never been any insurance of any kind, applied to this account. Regarding your Vertbaudet account (reference 4HMHV)> I can confirm you did have Total Cover; this was sotd and applied to the account on 4th November 2002 To re-clarify our position in regards to insurance policies sold prior to January 2005, it was after this date when new legal requirements were introduced for the way in which general insurance was sold and therefore policies sold after this date were required to comply with the Financial Services Authority's rules. These ruies include, for example, full discussion of the benefits of the insurance together with those areas that aren't covered by the policy Prior to this date, there were no similar requirements, however it was part of our policy to ensure that all customers taking out insurance before January 2005 would have been issued with the terms and conditions which would have given them fuii details of how the insurance worked together with details of what was and wasn't covered. We still have no reason to believe that this policy was not followed in your sale. After re-visiting your original complaint, I am sorry to inform you that I will not be upholding your complaint. I can confirm that Total Cover was cancelled from your Vertbaudet account on the 8th April 2004 when the account was closed and transferred to a Debt Recovery Company. If you are not satisfied with our review of your complaint you may refer this matter to the Financial Ombudsman Service (contact details were supplied in our previous letter); even though our view is that, as the policy was sold prior to the introduction of new legal requirements in 2005, the complaint would be outside of their jurisdiction. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me on 0845 2701045. Our opening hours are Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm." If anyone can help me with this and how to proceed I would be extremely grateful.

Sorry I don't think the attachments worked on this! Here they are again in the order they are supposed to be in. Worst Utility. Reply from legal dept - anonymous.pdf Total cover reply - anonymous083.pdf

I wonder if anyone can help me with this? I applied for information for two accounts under an SAR on 20th January 2012 (Vertbaudet and La Redoute) and received some information from Redcats on 2nd April 2012 which was obviously late. They informed me that they were unable to provide statements for both accounts as they only hold details for the last 7 years. On 17th April 2012 I sent a letter to them advising that they should provide me with evidence that this data has been destroyed by a registered data controller in accordance with the Civil Evidence Act 1995 and this is the reply that I have received from their Legal Dept: I then received a letter from their PPI complaints person to state that they will not uphold my complaint regarding the PPI because it was sold before January 2005. A copy of this letter is attached here: Could someone please advise me as to how I proceed with this? I find that their legal dept are a little patronising towards the letter that I sent to them requesting evidence of having destroyed all of my records. If you would prefer to message me privately I have no problems with this as I am aware that this company do read the posts! Many thanks and hope you can help! Worst Utility

Thank you so much - once we receive the amount owed I will happily donate to the site to help you all keep the good work going. Many thanks again. Sarah

Hi ims, Thank you for such a quick response! Yes, we did get all of the information from RBS and it confirmed the PPI figure that I found from his old records. I still don't understand why we got this information without paying for it either. To explain about the loan, he just signed all of the paperwork when he took the loan out originally and didn't notice that Loanguard had been added. There was no mention of this when he applied. It wasn't until I was going through old paperwork in January and said to him was he aware of it and he hadn't a clue. I couldn't run my finances like that however..... Anway, according to my paperwork and calculations they added £747.00 to a £3500 loan and because they didn't mention the Loanguard to him when he was signing, never gave him any details about the PPI or asked him about sick pay he was entitled to (he's been an NHS nurse for 15 years with good sick pay entitlement) I do think that they mis-sold this to him. Would this constitute as mis-selling? I have used the simple spreadsheet with 8% for him and this calculates £1271.08 that is owed to him. Would this be the right one to use or should I look at the other one because the interest rate he was charged was more than 8%? I have also checked his bank statements and when he had the Royalties account he was charged £15 per month for benefits that he didn't use apart from the "preferential rate" on his loan. He was charged these from the time he took out the loan until I spotted it in 2008 after the loan had been paid off. I know what rate he was charged for his loan but don't know how good this was compared to what it would be with this Royalties account. I may well just accept these charges and go for the PPI. If there is anything more you would like to add, feel free! Best wishes, Sarah

Hi All! I have been sending all of the letters to RBS on behalf of my partner. Too cut a long story short I sent an SAR to them requesting the PPI information enclosing the £10 cheque and they returned this fee to me advising that he had been charged £747.00 for PPI on a loan he had with them from August 2003. The loan has been paid off since 2008. On 20th March we completed and sent the FOS questionnaire to them advising why it had been mis-sold. Basically, he didn't even know that he had been paying for it. At the time he took the loan out he was also told by RBS that if he took out an Advantage Gold account he would get a preferential rate for the loan. I do however require help with the following: How long does the RBS have to come back to us with their decision? I have been told 8 weeks but I think I have read somewhere that the FOS has granted them 12 weeks to reply to the fact that they mis-sold this. I would like to be on the ball to chase them regarding this and lodge with the FOS as the 8 weeks is coming to an end. Also, would it be worth going for the Advantage Gold charges if we found out that this account had been mis-sold? Forgive me for being cynical but I don't think it was a preferential rate he had and during this time I think they were on commission to sell these accounts so feel that he may have been led up the garden path on this one! Anyway, any help would be appreciated. Regards, Sarah