My personal accounts are with First Direct whom I moved to from Smile after receiving bad service and a 'couldn't give a stuff' attitude to helping me when their system decided of its own accord to stop paying my standing orders even though my salary was there Anyway, had no issue with FD but am now looking to start up a small venture I will initially run in my spare time but am hoping to build into a business. Now I know I need to set up a business account but I know FD don't do them. I had an HSBC credit card some years ago I paid off and shut down because of the dire offshored Customer 'Service'. More recently I opened a savings account with their M&S Bank JV and had to ring up to reset my password, it took me 15 minutes to actually get this done as the person was struggling with their English. (it usually takes me 5 minutes tops to deal with anything with FD) I wrote to close the account and explained that the CS was why I was closing the account. Anyway I digress. The point of explaining the above is that I don't really want to go to HSBC or co-op. So anyone have any suggestions for one that: Has UK based CS Doesn't cost a fortune to run (brief research indicates there are a couple that have fixed monthly fees) Doesn't require a trading history (I will not be needing credit facilities from the bank and until such time as it is generating sufficient turnover will have a standing order in place to fund the account with the capital required to pay the monthly running costs) Any suggestions appreciated.

I moved to FD after smile made the decision to stop paying standing orders on my account even though my salary was still going in and I didn't notice as I had an injured shoulder so couldn't sit at the PC for a while. First I knew was when I got calls from the likes of my ISP asking why my bill wasn't paid. When I rang they couldn't explain and didn't seem to care even though I'd been with over 4 years and had been paying an account sub. Before I went back to work I decided to switch and moved to FD as my boss had raved about them. I've received excellent service for the past 3+ years but what I've read on here has really shocked me. Are they really one of the worst offenders?

I used to have a smilemore account and it's always carried the fee. Only reason I put up with it was the 'free' £500 OD

Not sure about Santander but I know with First Direct I can opt to have notices just displayed online, could she have done this? You and your daughter have my sympathy, money matters do reveal who real friends are but if I lend any of mine money I asked to be paid back in cash so I know I have it in my hand then as it does bring out the worst side in some people. Hopefully someone sympathetic will hear the case but if they don't, clear the charges, cancel the DDs and close the account

I stand corrected then. I thought the idea behind these cards was to simplify billing and admin for the company so that any authorised expenses are paid and any unauthorised are claimed back from the employee while they are given a stern warning.

Provided you are contrite and agree a repayment plan with them you'll be ok. They are really after the ones that basically say 'I ain't paying nothing back, what are you gonna do about it'

Just thought I'd flag this as another success, received a cheque for 1869 quid. Here's the story: About 6 years ago I had been an Egg card customer for a couple of years and we needed to replace some old wooden windows and have some decorating done. The lot was going to come to about 16 grand, Egg had a good loan rate on at the time so I decided to approach them. I thought it better to do it by phone so I could fully explain my finances and what I wanted the money for. Was on the phone with an underwriter for about 40 minutes going through everything, she gave me the monthly cost over 5 years which was about 340 quid a month which was fine with protection and I didn't twig at the time this really should have been optional but I thought I better take it otherwise she may not approve the loan (that was certainly how it sounded) Anyway we completed the call and she indicated she had authorised the payment of the amount into my account and it should appear next day. Sure enough there it was, there was about 4 grand on top for the premium which was paid to Norwich Union. As the months went on I began to think 'surely the amount owed would go down quicker if I got rid of the PPI'. I let it run for about 12 months so Egg could see there was no issues with the repayments, but then I sent them a message asking for it to be cancelled as I wanted more of the payment to go against paying off the loan amount. They agreed. I thought no more about it until last year when I was nearly made redundant but thankfully that didn't happen but I did go from shifts to office hours (I was paid a shift allowance and the union agreed a lump sum mitigation payment to allow us to adjust to being without it) While all this was going on I received a letter from Egg indicating the loan was being sold to Brittanica-Moorgate and would be serviced by Moorgate Loan Servicing. A bit of research unconvered a complex web of companies, some of whom operated out of Luxembourg. I received the lump sum from my employer in my July pay and decided to get rid of what remained of the loan with it as the company was also referred to as Brittanica-Moorgate recoveries (I had not missed a single payment on any financial commitment and did not want my bank getting spooked by this as I know from friends that have had financial trouble that debts are usually sold to recovery firms) I rang and got a settlement figure and the account details I needed to make the payment then rang my bank to do the transfer (as it was nearly 5 grand I didn't want anything to go wrong) Bank did the payment and I rang Moorgate back to confirm the money should now be in their account. They said they would issue a letter indicating the loan had been settled (had to chase this a couple of times but it did come eventually) and thought no more about it. After hearing Martin Lewis talking about PPI I did wonder a couple of times whether I should look into it but as the loan had been sold on and I didn't think Egg Banking plc still existed I didn't think I'd get anywhere as I didn't know what company would now be responsible. Around August I got a letter from Canada Square Operations plc (letterhead indicated it was formerly Egg Banking plc) stating they were now responsible for the PPI sold by Egg and they enclosed a claim form. I let it sit there for a couple of weeks and then filled it in and sent it back Two weeks later got a letter confirming receipt. Three weeks later another saying it was being investigated. Another few weeks later got a letter saying the complaint had been upheld and offering me the settlement figure above, signed the form and sent it back, cheque arrived last week, sent it to my bank and it was showing on my account last Friday, just leaving it to clear now.

I never buy anything online using anything other than a credit card as companies don't tend to want to pee off the credit card companies and it means you are not out of pocket if something does not turn up or something goes wrong.

Indeed, as someone else mentioned though, a chargeback or threat of one is also a good weapon. I bought a custom built PC and monitor on an RBS issued Mastercard The PC arrived and the system builder indicated I should report any transit damage within 24 hours. Plugged the LCD monitor in and it was completely dead. Rang the company and told them I could obviously not test the system without a monitor so asked for a refund on the monitor and I would go and purchase one, they booked a courier for the following Thursday Selected one in the local PC World (I am a tech support professional so know what I'm looking for), got it home and hooked it up, system was fine and exactly as ordered. Courier came on the Thursday and uplifted the dead monitor, I waited a month for the refund onto my card, nothing. Rang the company who confirmed they had the dead monitor in their warehouse, put through to accounts and told another 7 days. Waited and still no refund, phoned again back through to accounts and asked where the 178 quid for the monitor was, told "Our accounts department has far more important things to deal with than your refund" Oh really I thought so rang RBS and told them, they put me through to a department that deals with chargebacks who told me to simply send through all the documentation regarding the purchase and they would handle it. Phoned the accounts department back and told them they had 5 working days to refund the card otherwise I'd turn the matter over to the card company to deal with. On the third working day I check the online account for the card and there's a refund.

Can't speak as a company owner as I'm an employee on PAYE but did claim tax credits when I was working part time. I ended up with an overpayment of when I successfully applied for a full time role and told them, this was 800 quid, fortunately I had some money spare so just paid it but they seemed happy enough to agree a repayment term. As has been said, provide all documents you are asked for and you'll be fine.

Bit more extreme but this worked for me against a certain well known mobile phone chain, if you are feeling brave. I ordered a replacement external aerial for an Ericsson phone from their website. Part arrived, it was for the wrong phone. I rang their Internet 'customer service' and told the guy that I had been sent the wrong part and that it was thus advertised incorrectly on their site. His response was "What do you want me to do about it?" I asked if I could be sent the correct part, again I got "What do you want me to do about it?" So I headed directly down to their local branch and asked to speak to the Manager. They were reluctant to go and get him so I raised my voice so all of the customers in the shop could hear me and started to recount the incident and emphasised the call centre bloke's words, the Manager was there like a shot, I got a refund for the part, a profuse apology and he did all he could to try and track the correct part. I work within a software technical support environment and inwardly sigh when customers tell me they have had dealings with pcworld.

Even before the EU ruling I seem to recall there being a way to get Valve (owners and operators of Steam) to disassociate the game from you but you had to send off the DVD to the States which is of course not possible with downloaded titles. EA, Warner Brothers, Ubisoft, MS and others do a similar thing with the console games, for example with Mortal Kombat and Tiger Woods' PGA Tour you get a pass code to enable online play but this registers against your online profile, if you sell the titles on the next person has to pay for the feature. The argument they give is that they are trying to recover the development costs and costs of running the servers and other backend infrastructure.

Unless you are self employed or are in a partnership the company would apply for the card and would be billed for the expenses on the card rather than you so provided AMEX is happy they can pay there should not be an issue as far as I'm aware. Nor could they load your debt onto the card as your agreement with them is totally separate from the company agreement. A company is seen as a legal entity, so AMEX could no more chase your mother, father, sister, brother or friend for your debts than it could attach your debt to your company account.