I have today received a letter from Equita bailliffs saying they are coming around to sieze goods for Non domestic rates when I took over a tenancy on a pub for 6 months in 2002. The council says the bill is £7000 but to this day I have never seen a bill, statement, request for payment. We took on the pub but due to being burgled twice we simply couldn't afford to pay the rent and the landlords entered and took posession of the property and kicked us out. We've finally got outselves relatively on track, but still have numerous debts to contend with and this is one that we simply cannot afford. There is absolutely no way we can pay it and there is not a cat in hells chance that we could find that sort of money. What on earth do we do. We've moved around alot with the pub trade so this is the first I know of it and I am absolutely at my wits end here. I don't know who to contact to see what can be done. I don't own anything of any real value so they have no way of getting hold of £7000 from my goods so if they sieze what few goods I've got it wouldn't even clear off £500 let alone the full amount. The baillifs will of course add on their fees which bang the price up even more. What on earth am I going to do...

I was recently visited by a bailiff on behalf of my council for falling behind on my business rate as my standing order was not confirmed due to an error on my part. It was a very embarrassing ordeal as my customers were present and I was very surprised to see the bailiffs as the council did not inform me of this visit nor that they had not received payments. Had i known i would have made payment. I called the council to remonstrate that i wasn't made aware of this and they said it was not their responsibility as I am behind on my payment so I reluctantly paid the bailiff as he was intimidating mentioning the longer he is here the more I will have to pay for his fees. Before leaving he did say the fees will be approx £250. After following up with the council for an itemised bill the bailiff sent me the following: Payment by C/C £113.94 Sch 5 Head H £24.50 Attendance / Van £150.00 Levy fee £111.00 Waiting £120.00 - I was not told there would be further credit card fees (i have paid the council using credit card before without paying extra fees) - Nothing was removed from my property so do not see why they have charged £150 for van fees. - I do not know what the 'levy'' or the 'Sch 5 Head H' fees are? - waiting fee as he was at the premises for just over an hour These charges look bogus and was wondering if anyone can advise as I feel I have been over charged? Many Thanks

Ive had a hotpoint cooker for years and in Nov 12 it broke down. I couldnt afford a new cooker so close to Xmas so called Hotpoint to book an engineer to come and fix it. I was on the phone for ages, it appeared to be an offshore call centre, very noisy and the man I spoke to - his English wasn't great. He spent most of the call trying to sell me limescale preventer for my washing machine! He even put me on hold without any notice for over 2 mins and said he was speaking to his manager to give me a very special deal on it! At which point I got a bit short with him and told him that I just wanted my cooker to be fixed and nothing else. Anyway, he said it would be £135 and this would come out in 3 x dd payments starting Jan. Great I thought as I wouldnt be hit with a large bill just before Xmas. So I gave him my account number and sort code to set up the DD. Anyway the engineer came, it took a couple of visits to order parts and fix it but it got done and I had a working cooker in time for Xmas. The Jan came and went. Start of Feb, I was checking through my online banking when I noticed they hadn't taken any payment yet. Literally the next day I get a letter from D&G about my warranty on my cooker being auto renewed in March. I was confused as I didnt realise I had taken out a warranty, thought I was paying for a repair. So I called D&G on the number given. I was waiting ages (over 16 mins) but was so relieved when the lady on the phone spoke English. However, she was really rude! i explained that I didnt understand the warranty as I didnt know I had one and she didnt explain it very well and got quite arsey with me. Then when I told her no payments had been taken she said that i had given them the wrong bank information (which I know I didnt) and very sarcastically " that worked out well for me for Xmas". She told me just to leave it if no letter had been sent to chase for payment. I told her I didnt want to do that and I would rather pay for it straight away. So she took my debit card details - strangely though this time she said the payment was £125.88. She confirmed at the end of the call that payment had been taken and my following years plan had been cancelled. Great, thats is what i wanted. That was on 12 Feb. Yesterday, I got a letter from Indesit saying I have not paid, it has been referred to their Admin company (ARC) and if I don't pay within 7 days, I will incur a £30 admin charge!! I checked my bank account and the money has not been taken! Im livid! I plan to call the admin company tomorrow to arrange payment (again!) but what can I do about Hotpoint letting it get to this? Not to mention my time and cost wasted on the premium rate lines. Thanks

Hi, Last May my finances changed so I thought it best to take out an extended warranty on my 5 year old Hotpoint washer dryer as I’d unlikely be able to afford to replace it if anything went wrong. In November the drying program stopped working correctly, and then in December some of the washing programs stopped also. Being a procrastinator I did not do anything about it until just over two weeks ago when the latch broke on the door and I could no longer use the machine at all. I contacted the Indesit Repair Centre. The nice man on the phone took all the details then ordered the replacement parts for the door. He told me the engineer was booked for the 22nd and that I would receive a text the day before to give me a two hour window in which the engineer would be out. I did not receive a text and unfortunately missed the engineer. the repair was rescheduled for the 29th. But as soon as the engineer arrived he announced he might not be able to stay because of my cats(!) He then looked at the back of my washer dryer (I had pulled it out of it’s slot for easy access) and said as there was rust on the back casing he could not repair the machine because “someone might stick their hand in it or the cat might get in and electrocute itself.” He then left. He was here for no more than 5 minutes. This rust is not visible when the machine is in place, and it has no affect on its ability to work. I do not care about the rust. It is cosmetic. It has nothing to do with the faults needing repaired. And if for some bizarre reason someone wanted to stick their hand (or a cat) in the back there is no access to the rear of the machine. I contacted the Hotpoint Service Centre again, they contacted the engineer, then just repeated back that they could not repair the door and leave the rust and as rust isn’t covered they would not fix the door. I would need to contact Domestic & General directly. I contacted Domestic & General and explained the situation. But as soon as I mentioned the rust I kept getting “rust is not covered under the terms & conditions”. I kept repeating I don’t care about the rust, the rust has nothing to do with it, but I was told there is nothing more they can do and would cancel my policy. The only reference to rust or corrosion in their Terms & Conditions is this – 5. Your equipment must not have been lost, stolen, misused, neglected, poorly installed, subject to malicious damage, damage caused by accidents or damage caused by fire, explosion, floods, lightning, storms, frost or other bad weather conditions, rust, corrosion or water. Am I being dense? Does that not just mean they will not cover damage/faults caused by rust or corrosion? As neither of the issues my washer dryer has are caused by rust or corrosion then surely they still have to repair or replace it? Any comments or advice is welcome.

Hello Everyone, I would like to explain a situation I am in and will be very much thankful if someone can help me by advising the options I have. It’s about a boiler repair which was carried out by two of Domestic & General’s authorised repairers, I will call them repairer-1 and repairer-2 to keep their identity hidden and DomGen to Domestic & General. Before starting, in nutshell, since 28th Sep 2012 till now 18th of Jan 2013 (17 Weeks) I had nearly 6 visits but boiler couldn’t be repaired and rather damaged by repairer-2. DomGen and repairer-1&2 are teamed up together not to admit their fault and at the end using sludge in the system card. Here are the details; On 28th Sep 2012 and 1st of Nov 2012 Repairer -1 visited, tried to repair but failed and reported that low system pressure is the cause of the boiler not working. That’s not true, I am having excessive water pressure which has caused pipes to burst couple of time and damaged the shop ceiling and stock downstairs. Their solicitor’s letters claiming compensation for the damage are proof of that. I then Called DomGen again to send any other repairer as the repairer-1 has failed. They sent Repairer-2 as they have only 2 authorised repairers covering my area. Repairer -2 visited on 13th Nov 2012 but no luck and went away saying they need to order few parts. They never called back so I had to call them and book them in again for 28th Nov 2012. The Repairer-2 came and did what started a new problem. The Repairer-2 couldn’t figure out how to open the front fascia and casing. Infect it was one of the old Ideal Europa boiler whose front fascia and casing needs some patients to open which repairer-2 never had. Repairer-2 used excessive force and finally ripped the front fascia (Control Panel) off which was having control knobs on it and connected back to PCB. The Casing was still intact. Repairer -2 left the scene with bits hanging down the boiler knowingly that there are kids at the home. Repairer-2 said before leaving that he needs to order new front Fascia as this one is damaged. On 4th of December 2012 I called up Repairer-2 to find out whats happening and they said it will take 9-10 days to get the part in. I couldn’t do anything except calling DomGen and told them there are kids at home and boiler is not working for long time. In those days temperature was below freezing. On 6th of December Repairer-2 called me and said they can’t find the front fascia as it’s obsolete and we have to write the boiler off. Later on that day, DomGen Called and confirmed that they have to write it off and will let me know the settlement figure soon. Next day DomGen called and offered £341.99 as settlement figure. I refused to accept it saying that boiler is being written off due to Repairer-2’s mistake and I should have a boiler replacement by Repairer-2. Instead of £341.99. £341.99 will not do anything for me. New boiler will cost me at least £1500 and why should I pay for repairer-2’s negligence. DomGen said they will speak to Repairer-2 and will come back to me. After few days, I called myself to DomGen as they didn’t call and inquired. They said they have instructed the Repairer-2 to speak to you and resolve the issue. I told them they havn’t called. DomGen said we will call them again today and they will call you to discuss it or resolve it but at our end we can only offer you £341.99. Repairer-2 never called me to resolve the dispute so I had to take the initiative and called them on 18th Dec 2012 after giving them enough time. They admitted the damage to front fascia but refused to compensate or replace the boiler and referred me to DomGen for £341.99. On 20th December 2012, I sent recorded delivery letters to Repairer-1, Repairer-1’s Director and DomGen demanding full boiler replacement and costs of temporary accommodation for my tenants ( I’ll explain later about temp accommodation) within seven days of this letter which should be 27th Dec 2012. No-one contacted me after 7 days. After 21 days of these letters, I drafted a letter and Sent to Trading Standards of DomGen Council, Repairer-2’s Council, Subjected Property’s Council and FSA. These letters were drafted on 10th Jan 2013 and sent out on 13th Jan 2012 with Boiler’s pictures showing the damage caused by repairer-2. I haven’t received any reply back from any of these yet. On 14th of Jan 2013, DomGen called me (after 24 days of my recorded letter) saying that they have spoken to Repairer-2 about your demand and repairer-2 is saying that boiler is not being written off because of front control panel damage but actually being written off due to corroded casing of the boiler. I told DomGen that you are coming up with another excuse and trying to cover Repairer-2. I completely disagree with their statement and want a third party to come and inspect the boiler’s casing as it’s not corroded. I also told DomGen that I have sent letters to Trading Standards & FSA and I am taking it further up. On this she asked if I had any response from any of them and I replied it’s just been sent out yesterday. She put me on hold for 3-4 minutes and came back saying that we can send a third company to see the casing and that company is Repairer-1. I said I don’t trust Repairer-1 would be neutral enough as both of these are on your panel and they might cover each other so I will doubt the transparency of Repairer-1’s report. Even phone numbers of both Repairer-1 and Repairer-2 ends on 8888 which clearly shows a link although both operate from different locations. DomGen said that I am not co-operating if I refuse Repairer-1 to come and inspect. I had no other choice than accepting it. I was clear that there is no way some one can say that casing is corroded. Next day repairer-1 came and started turning on the boiler, I told him that you are here to look at the casing as we are in a dispute of casing being corroded. He didn’t give much attention to my point and started opening the bits of boiler. He opened the pump of the boiler, some water spilled on the bottom of the boiler from pump. He started to stream that spilled water into a bottle saying that it looks like there is sludge in the water. I told him you are dropping this water on the bottom of the boiler where lot of dirt, debry and sludge sitting for long time. Now you are mixing it all with system water and pouring it into bottle. No wonder it will look like dirty and sludged water. He carried on. Once finished, I asked him do you think the casing is corroded ? after couple of left and rights he admitted that casing is not corroded. He left but forgot his sludged water to take with him for lab test. I also told him that I have changed whole of the pipe work in the property recently just to deal with high mains pressure and there should be no sludge in any ways. If you find some dirty water in the pump it could only because of the pump not used for many months. Next day on 17th Jan 2013, DomGen calls me and says that you have sludge in your system and we don’t cover sludge damage so we cannot compensate you any more than our first offer of £341.99. I reminded her you sent someone to find out about if the casing is corroded or not and which is not and now you are taking a U-Turn and playing the sludge card. How about previous writing off due to front control panel damage ? She refused to talk about anything else but the sludge. After all, she ended the conversation saying that she can only offer £341.99 which was offered on the very first day. This is end of Boiler’s story. Now, as I mentioned at one point about my Tenant’s temporary accommodation. On 22nd of October 2012, 5 weeks after the boiler breakdown, the social services of my local council on tenants request served me an enforcement notice on defective boiler and ordered to get it working in 10 days. While all the peoblems were going on with DomGen, I was dealing with my Council’s environmental authorities too regarding the cold and no hot water in the house. I tried to kept them updated and calm for a while but when it started to get out of hands I had to relocate my tenants to a temporary accommodation. If I don’t do it council would have done it. I moved them on 5th of December 2012 after Repairer-2 broke the front panel and dispute started between me and DomGen. Since 5th of December 2012, the tenants are in a temporary accommodation which is costing me £640 per week (£91.42 per day). When I sent letters to DomGen, Repairer-2, FSA and trading Standard, I mentioned about this cost to be paid as I had to relocate my tenants just because of Repairer-2’s negligence and bad workmanship. Quite detailed !!! isn’t it ??? Don’t want to miss anything and really thanks to those who came to this point reading all the way down. What shall I do now ?? Shall I speak to a solicitor ?? this will involve extra costs on board. Or shall I wait for trading Standards and FSA to come back. Shall I file small claim in county court ? At onne point DomGen said that this case doesn’t come under FSA as DomGen is only providing service and passing the job to Repairer-2 so trading standard should look into it for Repairer-2 or small claim on Repairer-2 but not FSA ? Is this correct what DomGen Said ? Thanks again for reading through and any replying with your valuable suggestions. I am taking a stand on truth and will not bow down till the justice is served against these big Sharks.

I bougth a one year protection plan for my washing machine from Domestic& General, but after an experience with them I would have been better offby buying a brand new machine. On Tuesday 20. Nov. 2012, I booked the date for the repair of my washingmachine and told them it was an electrical problem, as machine was blowing thefuse. The earliest date they had available was following Tuesday 27. Nov. I wasnot happy, but had no choice but to accept that date. Day later (Wed) somebodyfrom their office called me on my phone and asked if engineer can come that dayto repair machine. I said yes, but I needed some time to get home from work.They said no problem and that engineer will contact me in couple of minutes toarrange the time. Nobody rung me, instead I received a text message telling methat engineer will arrive between 12- 02pm. I left my work and went home andwaited for an engineer...and waited...and waited... He never came. No phonecall, no text...nothing! I rung customer services and told the lady my problem. She responded bytrying to sell me their descaling product. When I told her that I am not happyabout it, she tried to contact the engineer, but he wouldn’t pick up the phone. I asked her to book me another appointment and she did, but not even onTuesday 27. November, the date I originally had, but day later Wednesday 28.November. I was fuming but there is nothing I could do. I made a complaint bye-mail, to their Customer "Care" Department, but still did not get areply. On 28. Nov engineer came and guess what? He did not have a spare fuse withhim. Little 13A fuse and he came to repair my machine. I had to go and by fusesfor him from local shop. To cut the long story short, after trying to find the fault for an hour, hehad to give up and told me that his superior will come in about one hour. Hedid come and unfortunately he neither could fix the problem. I was told thatthey need to replace whole drum, but they have to order it, as they don’t haveit in the stock. I was told that somebody will call me next day. No call nextday! When I rung them they told me that they couldn’t give me a date for repair,only when they receive a drum. Anyway, few days later they called me and bookeda day for a repair. Friday 07. Dec, 17 days after I first rung them. It wasbooked as a morning job, between 08am - 01pm. I even got a conformation textday before, that engineer will come in the morning slot. I did not go to work and I began waiting... At 11:30 engineer calls me andjust informs me that he will come between 3pm - 5pm. I was shocked and when Iquestioned it and told him that I have to collect my kids from school at thattime he told me more or less that that was my problem and that he will come atthat time. At the time of writing this 12:30, machine is not repaired yet andGod knows if it is going to be, at all. For one repair, I had to ring them at least 4-5 times, each call lasting15-20 min (most of it is waiting) and to take 3 days off work. Now simple mathwill tell you that I would be much better of just buying a new machine thanpaying £140 warranty + 3 days not paid at work. Not to mention shattered nerves!

hi, called d&g today to book an engineer to look at my servis fridge freezer. i thought it was covered but it appears the plan details are for a zanussi fridge that i have never owned The chap at d&g was very helpful and sorry but alas i am not covered i bought the fridge freezer from my sister approx 10 years ago who had taken out extended warranty on it so contacted the policy holders and transfered the details to me and have continued to pay these up to date. the chap at d&g said the policy was taken out with them in 2007 through comet. but as a say i never bought a fridge from comet. first i realise sometimes these policies are not much good but d&g have just sorted me out with a new dishwasher and cooker (replacements for appliances that i also bought from my sister at the same time) second, yes dopey me should have checked the plan details properly instead of paying £60 odd quid a year for nothing third, i never kept any paperwork for previous years so i have no papertrail to follow and find out what went wrong. i dont think i will get anything back from d&g or from previous policy holders but if anyone has any useful suggestions then please help thank you

My friend started a business at the start of the year which I was helping him set up. He took out a 3 month license on an industrial unit which ended at the end of February and wasnt renewed as the business never really got off of the ground. I was acting as his advisor at the time due to having a bit of business knowledge and helped him through the process of finding a unit and also dealing with attaining the license for it. Fast forward to last week and I receive 2 Bailiff Removal / Magistrates Liability Order / Warrant Of Execution orders for Non Domestic Rates addressed to both myself and my friend T/A (his company name) totalling around £1700 and informing me that a bailiff had attended to remove goods from my property, the letters both referencing the local council authority which the unit was licensed. Being bemused but with an incling to it being something to do with the business I ring the council to ask what was going on and it turns out they had contacted the estate agent who was in charge of the license and had been (falsely) informed by them that myself and my friend had taken out a 6 month lease on the property dated from December 2011 to May 2012 and we were being chased for fees for this period. I quickly informed then that 1. It wasnt my company so why was my name even on the account in the first place? and 2. That the unit had only been taken for 3 months so why was the account being billed for 6 months? Being rather snotty she said that they'd been sending correspondance to the unit and other contact addresses and had no reply from us (obviously due to the unit having to be vacated) so proceeded with court action for the 2 outstanding bills but may be able to wipe them if we could provide them with a form which would entitle us to small business rate relief. She then emailed this through which I got my friend to fill out and took this to the council along with the license agreement which clearly states the agreement was with him and not me and only for a period of 3 months. The woman in the council office took all of this into the back office and then came back and said the original debt could be wiped but we would still have to pay around £120 in court fees and £283 to their bailiff. and that because they weren't informed in the first place that the business was my friend's and not mine also (this information they were falsely given by The Estate Agent) and that it had already been through court and that they wouldn't be able to take my name from the bill. I have 2 issues here: 1. That i've somenow become become liable for £400 for a business that wasn't mine due to the estate agent giving false information. 2. That both of these liablity orders were issued for periods the unit wasn't even occupied, one from the period 1 Dec 2011 - 1 Apr 2012 (the license was only up until the end of February) and another one from 1 - 14 Apr. Meaning the second one wasnt even valid in the first place but still has racked up fees of £60 court + half of the £283.50 for the baliff. I've spoken to my friend who's agreed to write a letter to the council and the baliff expressing that the business was his and not mine. Also stating that this been proven by them being provided a copy of the license agreement which was in his name and for them to stop contacting me and to take my name off of the bill. Will they accept this or ignore it and keep harassing me? From my estimations, the second bill was never valid in the first place and ontop of this, the bailiff has overcharged on everything so the charges should only be £50 tops for the baliff's lawful fees and £60 for the court fees for the first bill? Does anyone know how I should proceed from here?

Hi everyone. Not sure I am in the right place, forgive me if not ....Anyway, I have had a visit from a bailiff to my home address for unpaid business rates...I havn't been self employed since Feb 2010, after closing my business due to slow trade. I have no buisness stock (as everything went within a few weeks on ebay etc, for a very, very, low price. This was sold in desperation, as I had to be out of the property, and had no where to store this), but the bailiff has come to levy on my home goods. I am quite happy to pay what I owe, but can the bailiff levy on goods in my home address? Jayne

Hello All, In 2011, I took out a one year warranty for my dishwasher with Domestic and General. This would cover me for any repairs needed in that period. I paid monthly instalments and had paid in full in April of this year and my year policy ended shortly afterwards. I checked my direct debits in August of this year and I noticed that D+G were still taking payments from my account. I contacted Domestic and General and I was told that the warranty auto renewed and that is why payments were still being taken from my account. I never wanted the warranty to auto renew and I never did expect it. Domestic and General told me that they had sent me auto renewal documents in March of this year. I NEVER received them and if I had received them I would have cancelled the policy. Last week. I asked for the warranty to be cancelled. (I never used their services in the period of unknown auto renewal I did not know a warranty was in place!) and I was told it would be and enquiries would be made with respect to direct debits being taken for a warranty in which I did not know existed. I then cancelled my direct debit arrangements - (I know I should have checked and cancelled the DD earlier but knew nothing about the auto renew!). Today, I received a very worrying letter stating I owed D+G the full amount for the year and no refund. I again contacted D+G. I was told the letter I had been sent was in error! However, I would not be sent a refund for auto renewal and payments already made. A complaint has been made. Here is the warning: Domestic and General WILL auto renew domestic appliance warranties even if you NEVER receive renewal documents. Its in the VERY SMALL small print in their terms and conditions that you will receive auto renewal documents and if they do not hear from you, they will renew it. If you never receive the auto renewal documents and do not contact them as a result - Domestic and General WILL take your money. Customer Services from Domestic and General apologised for the worrying letter sent in error. However, they refuse to pay back the money for a warranty that I did not want and did not get notified about. I did not receive any renewal documents. D+G state that their warranties (because not worded as insurance policies) are not regulated by anyone (not even the FSA/FOS) and as such are taling money from customers even after renewal documents are not received by the customer. Shocking customer service and I recommend D+G are AVOIDED! Thank you for listening.

I am writing to see if anyone has experience of taking D&G to court, and if you could offer any guidance please. My ex-husband took out a policy with D&G on an appliance in 1998, before I moved in with him. When we married in 2000 we added me to his bank account, making it a joint account. When we moved house in 2005 I discovered the policy and contacted D&G, notifying them that we no longer required the policy and were moving house. I provided them with our new address. Foolishly, I assumed that this would be actioned. When I noticed an unrecognised monthly DD in 2007 I investigated further and discovered they had not stopped the policy and had continued to take payment. I contacted them again and asked them to cancel the policy and refund the interim fees. The agreed. Again, in 2008, I noticed that this had not happened. If this seems irresponsible on my part, I agree - however, I work very long hours in a management position and find it very difficult to stay on top of things on a regular basis - I take the time maybe once or twice a year to do a wholesale check of my accounts. I contacted D&G again and was told that it would be stopped, and that I would receive a full refund. In 2008 my marriage fell apart and I have spent several years going through a fairly messy divorce, just now coming out the other side. I recently noticed the fee was still being taken from my account and, once again, contacted D&G. This time I have received a very different attitude - they won't admit that they have done anything wrong but have offered to refund my fees from my last complaint in 2008. I have requested a copy of my full file in order that I can go through it in detail to identify whether I have grounds to take them to court, which I believe I have. However, given that it is my responsibility to check my DDs I was wondering if anyone cud advise me as to whether I am going to waste time and money..? Thanks in advance.

Friend left her marital home in mid-2008, a victim of domestic violence. Her name was changed by the court, (to protect her) at the same time as her divorce was finalized. She is now trying to get a small mortgage, but has been refused on several occasions. On checking her credit rating, we've found that a CCJ has been applied against her previous name and that this is now linked to her new name. This was a bit of a surprise, considering that the court changed her name on all official/government documents! I think she has a good case to overturn the CCJ, because she wasn't at the address given in the CCJ, (even Callcredit have her at a different address before the CCJ was issued!), but how can she (if she can!) unlink the addresses? She is worried that her ex-husband may now be able to discover her new name, he is very violent with convictions for fire-arms offences. Thanks in advance for advice.