Hi, this is my first post so I hope I am asking in the correct place? I have a Northern Rock Mortgage and had Payment Protection for it with Liverpool Victoria to cover for redundancy etc. I thought I had to pay it for the Mortgage and agreed to their amount of £91 a month s they said I was high health risk after a nurse came round and took blood pressure and asked a few questions. (bearing in mind I dont smoke and and played football 4 times a week). Yes I was a little big, but still very active. I was told I needed to get down to a 36" and under 16 stone. I had to stop paying as could no longer afford the rate. Am I able to claim for this under the PPI claim? An advice would be appreciated?

I took DWP to Tribunal to appeal a Carer's Allowance overpayment. To find out what information they held on me and my husband we put in Subject Access Requests. We received back 2 sets of documents (thick in my husband's case and very thin in mine). I assumed that they had the right to withhold quite a lot of information because my case was still active. My Tribunal was heard (and I'm pleased to say I won). Less than a week after the Tribunal the Data Protection Team in Glasgow wrote to both of us saying in essence, "whoops we made a mistake and didn't send all the information we should have done. Do you still want it?" We didn't - our reason for asking for it had past and we felt like having a rest from DWP and all their machinations. Now I am going through the DWP complaints procedure and this failure to disclose is one of the complaints I am making. Out of the blue we've just received some bizarre letters from the Data Protection Team in Cardiff thanking us for our original SARs (now over a year ago) and saying they'll issue the records ASAP. I think we should probably let them do this but take this to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) once they've sent everything to check that this time they really have sent everything they should have. Is there anything else we should ask them for like compensation or something? and how do you judge what compensation they should make? Should we think about taking them to Court? (we won't get Legal Aid and can't afford a solicitor so we'd have to represent ourselves but it seems fairly straightforward - but are there any bear-traps we can't see as amateurs?) All advice very welcome on this.

Hi can anyone help? I recently left a property approximately a month ago which I had rented along with some fellow students through a private landlord. Following leaving the property, I learnt from one of my former housemates that the landlord planned to withhold £40 of my deposit (originally £150) due to a stain on the underside of my mattress and that he was going to pass on the remaining £110 cash to my former housemate to return at a later date to myself. I am adamant that this stain was none of my doing. During the tenancy I did not flip the mattress at any point. So further to this I checked with the 3 government back deposit schemes to see if the landlord had registered with a scheme – it turns out he has not. So I then emailed the landlord expressing my concerns with the action he had taken in regards to not providing any invoice, and his method of return of the deposit, as well as that the stain on the mattress was none of my doing and that I felt it was unreasonable that I would have checked the underside of the mattress at the beginning of the tenancy. Adding to this I expressed that he had not protected my deposit as required by law and I therefore requested he paid returned my £150 within 2 weeks. He has replied to this with the following message: Dear XXXX, My response to your letter is as follows:- I will be sending your bond cheque for the full amount of £150.00. You now have a choice; I will buy a new mattress which will cost around £100.00. I have a signed inventory check letter which is dated 30th June 2011.This document will be produced, along with photographic evidence to show there was NO stain or damage to the bed in your room, prior to your tenancy. It is signed by the person who occupied the room. You can re-imburse me £100.00 and I will not go on to seek recourse for a whole bed. I will be sending the evidence to your parents, who are probably not aware of your current position. I dont think you or your parents would like the slur of a county court judgement on your record which will adverse effect on your future prospects. In the tenancy agreement that you were asked to read before signing it states that you are ALL jointly and severally responsible for any damage in the property, how would it look if I took all of you to court to pay for an item that just you have spoilt. I'm sure the other tenants parents won’t be happy about that. As you stated in your letter you would prefer to settle this amicably. I leave you to decide which way to go. Yours Sincerely I am now unsure of the action I should take. I reiterate I am adamant that the stain is none of my doing, and the signed inventory that he is referring to; had no mention of a mattress with any stains. He is now also threatening to seek recourse for the whole bed if this goes to a small claims court – there were a couple of broken slates underneath the bed which I declared with him before leaving and he agreed to there being no problem with this. I have not seen any of the other evidence he claims to possess as of yet. If he pays back my deposit does this not mean that he is accepting that there is no chargeable damage? Would any court judgement have an effect on any future prospects? Originally I just wanted to use the threat of no deposit protection as leverage to get my deposit back and would like to avoid the ‘slur’ of court. If he returns my deposit can I still take him to a small claims court for not originally protecting it? Ultimately I would just like to take no action against the landlord for not protecting my deposit and just receive my full deposit without any charges. Is there any way of going about this? Any other further advice would be much appreciated Please note that I am student, and I have notified my parents contrary to his belief – not that this should make any difference. Regards

The following is a VERY interesting speech given by Martin Cutts at the Parking Review Enforcement Summit 2012 a few days ago. I have not as yet had time to take the contents of Mr Cutts speech into consideration but...from a brief glance.......this frankly hopeless part of the Freedoms Bill should be stopped in it's tracks!!!! This is the speech: http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/pl...ly2012copy.pdf

I have been claiming JSA since January after being "laid off" through lack of work. The company eventually went bust in March. I previously took out private income protection insurance which I have been claiming since March but it is linked to my JSA payments. When I claim for the income protection insurance I have to prove that I have received JSA payments into my bank. Because I am on contributions based JSA I have been told my last payment will be this week and I have no chance of claiming income based JSA. I have been told I can still sign-on every two weeks, to make sure my NI payments are still made, but obviously I will receive no more money. The fact that I have worked for 23 years solid after leaving school counts for nothing. I can live without the £71/week but the insurance money I receive pays all the bills. Does anybody have any ideas how to keep the one without the other?

Looking for people who had these fees. please post here; http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?356-CPP-Group-Plc

I recently moved cities and duly completed and paid for redirection of my mail. I assumed that this would all be straightforward however.... a few days ago I received a catalogue in the mail from a company that I have not used for about 5 years (sent to my previous address). This company did not have my previous address, rather one from 5 years ago. Then today I received a letter offering me about £400 in vouchers to spend in DFS addressed to me at my new address. (I have never had any dealings with DFS) On the bottom of their letter they clearly state that they obtained my information from the Royal Mail Redirections Database. Now if you look at the RM Redirections forms, Section 8 - "Use of your Data" has 3 opt-out boxes as follows: 1. Royal Mail Group and other selected organisations would like to send you, by post, offers and information concerning products and services relevant to home movers. If you do not wish to receive these, please mark ''X'' in the box 2. I wish also to recieve such communications in email format. (Please mark ''X'' in the box.) and 3. At no extra cost, we can provide your new contact details (of each type) to organisations that already have your equivalent old contact details so they can update their records. (Such organisations include public bodies.) This may help reduce the risk of ID theft and environmental impact. If you do not want this, please mark ''X'' in the box. I had an extremely heated conversation with a young woman who seemed unable to grasp the concept that my personal information was just that "Personal" and that they had no right whatsoever to disseminate it to other organisations (apart from those legally entitled to it such as DSS, DVLA, Police). However after a 20 minute search amongst the thousands of forms that must have come in within the last 6 weeks, she came back to me and claimed that I had not ticked the boxes to opt out and that therefore they were entitled to pass my information on to whomever they wished. What an interesting concept! Am I to take it that we are no longer protected by the Data Protection Act and that because the Royal Mail is such a large organisation that they are feel exempt from prosecution for abusing their customer's personal information? Nowhere in the above do they make it plain that their intention is to make your information freely available to every company in the country (and probably worldwide too) for their marketing purposes. This is a totally unscrupulous and abusive use of personal data held by them and supposedly protected under the Data Protection Act. I have also written to the CEO of DFS, Ian Filby (sent via email) as his is the name under which the letter was sent requesting a copy of the information that they hold on me and immediate removal of my information from their databases. I have also let them know that should I find that they have subsequently passed on my information whether for "Free" or for "Financial Gain" that I will seek damages. Is there anyone or any organisation that can prevent/act on the little person's behalf to prevent abuse of information such as this? plugin-SocialRedirection-1.pdf

I made a claim for PPI through a company, I was claiming against one loan only. I filled out the claim form in my name only and signed the consent/bank authority form. my husband was not mentioned on the claim form, neither did he sign the consent form. When I received the offer from my bank, they had based the amount on all loans dating back to 2003. They sent a breakdown of the amounts awarded for each loan including the loans my husband took out in his name only. Unknown to me, the bank then passed this information to the Claims Management Company. As my husband did not make a claim through this company and did not give his consent for any information regarding his loans to be released to a third party, are the bank guily of breaching the Data Protection Act? In addition to this the company are now expecting me to pay them a fee based on the total amount and not just against the one item I had claimed for, are they allowed to do this as my husband did not give his consent?

Hi, There are similar answers in this forum but they were all before the Localism Act 2011 came into force this April which brought significant ammendments to the Tenancy Deposit Scheme under Housing Act 2004. I was wondering if anyone has advice or experience with the following issue post Localism Act 2011. The claim: My tenancy ends in 2 weeks (10 July). I am planning to file a claim in county court on the grounds that my landlord did not inform me about the protection of my deposit within 30 days of me paying the deposit, did not inform me by 6 May 2012 as required after the leeway given by the Localism Act 2011, and did not give me the information even after I wrote a formal letter to him. The questions: 1. Will my landlord still be subject to the fine even after he returned my deposit at the end of my tenancy? If I file a claim to county court within this week, and if the court hearing takes place after he has returned my deposit when my tenancy ends, will the LL still be subject to the fine? 2. Will there even be a court hearing now that the Localism Act 2011 made the 30 day time limit absolute? From my research, it seems that a tenant can automatically make a claim if the landlord did not protect or provide the information required by law within 30 days, and if the judge is satisfied that the landlord did not do so, the court can make the landlord liable to fine. I am deciding on whether to file the claim now, or if I should file the claim only if my landlord refuses to return my full deposit. Thank you for your time and I would be most grateful for any comments on the issue.

I recently had a CCJ against me for a credit card debt and I recieved a letter from In control debt solutions ltd telling me that they had been advised by the courts that I had a judgement against me and offering advise see details below . I can not believe that the court passed my details on to a debt management service that charge without my permission, What can I do about this surely they can not just pass out my details who do I complain to "We have been advised by HM courts that the above county court judgement has enterend against you. It is very improtant that this matter is dealt with without delay otherwise the court may dcie that judgement should be paide off in full or instalements which you cannot afford" It then goes on to explain what services they offering stating advice is free and in very very small writing that there will be a charge depending on which debt service i take. I am currently with Payplan so not needed. Others however could be duped and belive it is advise from the courts. they have all reference numbers etc and the amount of the debt Janes

Firstly, apologies for harping on about this (as i've already posted on the general issue), but this is a related issue Does anyone have any case law for data protection breach by a UK employer ? I am aware that the majority of data protection complaints are probably settled out of court, (so therefore not public knowledge), but i am struggling to find any case law verdicts that actually were decided in court, and what if any compensation was awarded. To be specific, my employer dismissed me without warning, prior arrangement, representation, or records of minutes taken at 'the hearing'. This is being dealt with by my trade union legal team, so it isn't necessary to gain any further advice at this time. The issue at hand is that my employer sent an email to the entire UK network telling them that they had immediately dismissed me, and naming me in the email within 15 mins of the event, then to prevent any possible defence to this issue they deleted my entire company email account, and all of the emails contained within it within 15 minutes of the event also. The company didn't have my authorisation to release this data, and it was released prior to any dismissal letter, or invitation to appeal. Considering the size of the company, and the nature of the business (welfare to work), i feel that i will have major issues attempting to gain employment in this sector for the forseeable futue owing to the sheer amount of people in the industry that now know about my instant dismissal. So how would a court even quantify this and translate this into a compensation award ? What kind of compensation awards are awarded for breaches of this nature ? And, where would i find case law of a similar nature for cases that have actually been won in court ?

I hope I've posted in the correct section as most of the Data Protection issues seem to be about Defaults. Recently a pony which was stolen from me some time ago has been found wandering loose. RSPCA scanned it and luckily the chip was still in my name. They called me and left a message. I called them four times to finally get a reply. I was then told the pony had escaped from a garden which it had been put it My issue is this. I fianally traced the lady who's garden the pony had been in and she told me that an RSPCA Officer had told her she could keep it or give it away as they would rather it didn't come back to me! They told her I was 'known' to them. This has caused huge problems with the lady thinking I'm some kind of monster and she won't let me have access. Cut a long story short the pony is coming back now, but I'm fuming. Yesterday I called the RSPCA and got the Inspector to call me back....which she did. She told me that there was no way they would have said anything about me and it would have been a breach of Data Protection. She seemed genuine. I have also found out that another Inspector was involved and it was him who'd come out with all of this. I haven't yet spoken to him. To summarise: The lady RSPCA Inspector called both myself and the lady holding my pony yesterday and confirmed that yes, I was on file with absolutely no cause for concern and that the pony should be returned. My problem is that the lady holding my pony cannot be lying as the RSPCA had also told her I'd moved from the address they had. Someone is lying to me and I know they have discussed me with this lady. Yes, the RSPCA were called out after I rescued a pony last year. When they came out they were amazed with how well I'd done. I made sure I gave them all the photos and contact details of where I'd got him from. So, an Officer who has said to someone 'Keep the pony as we don't want it going back to the owner as she's known' is surely breaching data protection? I want to make a SAR today, but am also going to leave a message for this second Inspector to call me as I'd like to question him. Am I doing the right thing? Could someone then remove anything that may be on file before I receive a copy? I hope my post makes sense as I'm so angry.

Hi Another Grandma reclaim! Just received SAR reply... Barclays have given my grandma statements starting from Jan 1998 !!! There is Overdraft Protection on the first few statements: O/D PROTECTION 150 @ £0.80 /100 -- £1.20 However it's only appearing on: Statement 1 - 02 Feb 98 Statement 2 - 02 March 98 Statement 3 - 01 Apr 98 Statement 4 - 01 May 98 Statement 5 - 01 Jun 98 Statement 6 - 01 Jul 98 Statement 7 - 03 Aug 98 Statement 8 - 01 Sep 98 Nothing then from Statement 8 to 2012. Because barclays have only produced evidence for 8 statements, does that mean we cannot prove overdraft protection was added to the account before 02 Feb 98 ? Therefore my grandma does not have claim? I know she can claim back what is evident, but I don't see much point in claiming back £9.60 + interest. Any help please Thanks

Hello, Last Tuesday I moved out of my flat, my tenancy ended on Thursday. I have paid a deposit of £250. When I first moved in on Saturday 24th September the heavy glass shower door was not attached to the shower, so in order to wash it had to be lifted across. This resulted in someone dropping the door and cracking the floor of the shower (I don't know who did this- could have been anyone). This happened on the Thursday after I moved in. I remember one of my housemates telling me that she believed the land lady was going to charge us all for it but this was never said to me so I thought they must be mistaken. The shower wasn't fixed for about 3 weeks and we also didn't have a cooker since I moved in for about a month. After moving out, I called to ask about my deposit. She told me she hadn't checked the flat but was charging me £120 for damages to the shower. I said I didn't think this was fair as she should have fixed the shower door and she told me that my housemates said it was my boyfriend who had broken it and she was doing me a favour by not fining me £600. Since speaking to her I have found out that my deposit isn't under a protection scheme but now that I have moved out I don't know if this is relevant. I checked my tenancy agreement and it's one from 2007- the year I believed the law was introduced. I would really appreciate if somebody could tell me where I stand legally and what I can claim. I heard that if she hasn't entered my deposit into a scheme she has to pay me my deposit back but now I've moved out this might not be the case. The thing is she hasn't checked the flat yet and as I took no photos she could charge me for anything. I left my room in pristine condition- when my mum came up to help clear it we discovered the hoover had broken and the land lady wouldn't lend us one from her shop (which was downstairs) so we had to buy a new one. I'm fine with her taking up to fifty pounds for anything damaged in the communal area/ cleaning, but I don't think it's fair that she charges me or any of my housemates for the shower. I'm also concerned that she mentioned my boyfriend breaking the shower. He wasn't actually back at university when it happened but he has stayed over before- although nothing in my contract says that I'm not allowed to have guests stay over. I would really appreciate any advice you could give me!

Hello everyone, I wonder if I might seek some advice from some of the knowlegeable people here, because I don't know very much about any of this stuff! I recently set up online banking for the first time and discovered a direct debit on my account from MBNA which had been there since 2003. I didn't know what it was and so I cancelled it, but I was a bit concerned and it caused me to go looking through my statements. I was alarmed to see that it had been making approximately twice-yearly charges to my account for a long time. I had never noticed before (I know it wasn't smart of me not to read my statements thoroughly). I took out a credit card with Santander in 2003, which was managed by MBNA, and cancelled it in 2007. When I cancelled it I specifically asked Santander if I needed to cancel anything else and they said no, so I never thought about it again. While trying to find out what is going on, I have just discovered that cancelling a credit card is not the same as cancelling a credit card account and things can still be charged to the account - no one ever informed me of this, but I was still confused because to my knowledge I had never signed up for any recurring charges on the card. However, I managed to find some of my old credit card statements, and discovered there were some recurring charges after all. One of them was "card protection" which seemed to charge me around £30 several times a year. The other was PPI. I don't recall signing up for either of these things - I don't even know what they are - and interestingly PPI was not on the earlier statements but appears on them around 2005. I know for certain that I did NOT initiate that. And it would appear that since cancelling my card they have continued to charge me for either one or both of these things on a card that does not exist! The PPI is for small amounts and probably doesn't add up to a significant amount, but the "card protection" charges (is this the same thing as PPI, and if so why was I being charged for both?) add up to a lot over so many years. I'm quite bemused because up until a few days ago I didn't even know I had an account with MBNA. I am currently writing to them to ask for a full summary of all charges made to the account in the last six years. I'm also confused because I don't know if I would be issuing the complaint to Santander (who apparently mis-sold/misinformed me both when I took out the card and when I cancelled it), MBNA (who have the account and were taking the money) and/or a third party (I don't know yet if the card protection is with MBNA or a third party company, since I didn't even know I had it). It doesn't seem fair that I could be penalised for not cancelling something I didn't know existed. I can prove that I couldn't have used the account or used an associated card beyond 2007 because I changed my full name in that year, both first name and surname, and cancelled the card rather than request a new one with new details because I didn't need it. So I couldn't possibly have legally used the account beyond that point. I wanted to know if there was a likelihood of receiving a refund under these circumstances, and if so if I would be able to claim going all the way back to 2003 or just to 2007? And do any of you have any advice regarding how to go about claiming it? I know I need to request the details of the charges but I'm lost beyond that! Thanks in advance (and also for reading this rather lengthy post), James

Hi everyone, In July 2010 I became unemployed having been made redundant. I stared claiming Contribution based JSA straight away and after just over 6 month I found a job on 6 month contract. (my contribution-based JSA ran out a couple of weeks before I started the job). I also had a private mortgage protection policy, so I was receiving insurance money while I was unemployed. 6 months on, I finished my contract and I became unemployed again. So I recently applied for Income based JSA - within the form, I had to tell them that I had a mortgage protection policy and provide info about the premium, and about my mortgage lender. I provided all the info requested, and was waiting for the decision for a couple of weeks, I now received a letter yesterday from JSA Mortgage Team asking for more info about the insurance and my mortgage, to help them decide how much JSA that they can pay me. Note: [in this letter, it asked me to contact my Insurance company and make a claim - however I had already contacted my insurance company previously and I was told that I'd have to send a confirmation letter from JSA to make another claim (or resuming the claim I made about a year ago - which pays up to 12 months, temporary work of no more than 6 month can be dealt as one claim) - this is a catch 22 situation and a bit of a problem but I've sent a copy of the letter to my insurance company so I'm relatively happy to wait for their reply at the moment.] Anyway, I checked my bank statement today, and noticed that JSA had paid 2 weeks of allowance (around £130) into my account!! So what I want to know now is, 1. Do I still have to send them all the document? - I'd rather not, if I don't have to, I'm pretty happy with what I'm receiving. 2. Do I need to contact JSA and tell them that I'm receiving the allowance even though they had sent me a letter to say they're still deciding? If anyone here has any idea what might have happened here I'd appreciate your comments/advice. Thank you! Hellomiffy

Hi, I rented a residential property for 6 months under an AST via a letting agent. Upon vacating the property the landlord / agent claimed there was some damage and withheld my deposit. I agreed that there was some minor decorative damage and agreed that I would accept responsibilty however the landlords list of damage has since spiralled and includes items I am not responsible for. I wished to use the deposit protection schemes resolution service however it transpires that my deposit was never protected. I am willing to return the property to the condition it was in which would cost about a third of my deposit (according to the landlords own estimate) but I am not willing to let them use the rest of my deposit to redecorate their house to a standard above its original condition. The agency has been unhelpful, skirting around the deposit issue and failing to reply to specific questions. I received no inventory when I took up the tenancy and and the property was in poor condition in terms of cleanliness when I moved in. I am now considering small claims court action but I'm unclear how the damage I am responsible for affects things. I believe that I am entitled to take the agency and landlord to court if we cannot reach a settlement between us. If we manage to agree a figure for the agreed damage (which appears unlikely given the attitude of the landlord) do I still have the right to go to court over the failure to protect the deposit or would I only be able to go to court if the landlord persists in witholding my full deposit? Many Thanks, Lan.

Hi. I'm renting on an AST in Scotland. My landlord (agency) is in England. I heard nothing from them about my deposit protection scheme after moving in a year ago, and have enquired again recently but received no reply. I have read that landlords in England and Wales must protect the deposit by law, but have been trying to find out if this still applies if the property is in Scotland. All information I can find is vaguely worded. Anybody understand the true situation here? Thanks