Originally I had accounts with Egg, Barclaycard and Goldfish which had all become Barclaycard by the time I defaulted sometime around 2009. These accounts have since been bought by Cabot and one has been farmed out by them to Westcott. It turns out that 2 of these 3 accounts have the wrong date of birth for me. The month and year are correct but the day date is not. I know that at some time in the past all three accounts had the right date of birth as it was used as a security question in any telephone conversation - of which there were many. One of the accounts is the one with Westcott and was the first to become noticed when I failed security. The other is direct with Cabot. To cut a long story short Westcott DEMANDED my birth certificate which after some protest I duly provided Their action was to change the date of birth on the account About year ago the account with Cabot reared its head too and in that time they have been trying to obtain the original agreement from Barclaycard. They have recently responded that Barclaycard are unable to supply the original agreement so they have also changed the date of birth on my account and as far as they are concerned the complaint is closed. My contention is that the one unchangeable event in ones life is the date you were born and that if these are my accounts the data is corrupted or they are simply not my accounts at all. Unfortunately I can't verify any of the history as during a house move 6 years ago the box containing all my financial records was lost. I am tempted the contact both the Data Protection registrar and the Financial Ombudsman and to tell Cabot that this is the action I am about to take. Should I be doing this or is there some other action I should take. The sums on the 2 accounts together exceed £20,000 and I have been paying £1 per month on each for the last 8 years or so Thank you for your advice in advance

Looking for some advice, Wife works in a primary school and has been late on a number of occasions 15 in total since Nov 15. most of this has been due to our daughter now 2 having problems with nursery attached to the school she works in. Headteacher pulled her into the office about it and gave her a management instruction and told her if she was late again it would go to a disciplinary. She explained to the headteacher that she was actually waiting to speak to him about the times. she said someone had been altering her signing in times on the fire register giving and example of 9.01am being changed to 9.07am with someone altering the 1 to a 7 making it appear she was later than it actually was. She also pointed out that some times had been altered showing she signed in before 9am her starting time to show after 9am. At first she thought it was a mistake but after seeing a few of these she though she better speak to the head as the office staff didn't seem to know anything about it. She stated to the Headteacher that this was possibly fraud and he said well that is a bit harsh I wouldn't put it like that. But I think I know who has been doing it, it was the office manager but in any event the management instruction still stands and that's the end of it. My wife is thinking if getting her union in for a meeting as the head seems to think it's acceptable for someone to alter a legal document?

Hello, I’m looking for some help. Please. Here’s a brief run-down of my issue – as a sole trader I carried out some work for a large company. We only had a verbal discussion of rates (nothing in writing) and my understanding of the amount discussed was a day rate and the companies understanding that it was a completed installation rate (there were a number of installations that took more than one day). We have been in discussions for over a year and I have sent the company an invoice and a Letter Before Action. The original invoice was made up of day rates, but this was rejected by the company and they offered a without prejudice amount based on completed installations, which was less then my invoiced amount and therefore did not accept. I have recently dropped my rates by a small amount and sent a new invoice to the company in an attempt to reach a settlement – they have also rejected this. My question – would this be classed as altering a legal document and if so, would this affect my position when court proceedings are issued, which I intend doing soon? If it does affect my position could I instruct the company to ignore or destroy the new invoice and revert to the original invoice? Many thanks in advance.

I have received a letter from First Capital Connect saying that they intend to take me to court for travelling without a valid ticket AND allegedly altering my ticket with intent. My ticket was in very poor condition and approaching its expiry date (so I thought!). The magnetic stripe no longer worked and the print on the front had become smudged and worn out. Glancing at it in my travel wallet I genuinely thought that the expiry date was the 18 March - however FCC staff urged me to look more closely and said they believed that it expire on 10 March. I explained that this was an honest mistake on my part and that I would pay any fare required for my journey that day. However, this offer was not accepted and I was asked to give a statement and told I might receive a letter at a later date. I now plan to write back to FCC to reject the allegations and explain that the age and condition of the ticket meant that I made a reasonable and honest mistake. However, is this going to be enough to avoid a court case? Should I repeat my offer to pay a fine out of court or hold off? Is it worth contacting them by phone at this stage to try and come to a settlement? Any help or advice gratefully received!

I dont know if this is the right forum but I hope some one can help. My employer was approached by a catalogue to feature their product range of shelving systems. The company offered them the chance to feature video "demonstrations" that would run under a minute and show potential buyers what they were getting. I freelance as a videographer, and regularly shot such clips for my employer out of work hours and was then paid via invoice. I was engaged to shoot the videos and delivered them and an invoice stating until paid for the videos remained my intellectual and physical property (as I had done with around 30 other clips) About two weeks later, my employer went bust and was bough by a third party and I was told I would not be paid as the work was for the original employer not the new buyer. The catalogue company was told that we would not advertise the new company with them. I got a better offer and left in May 2012 (some six weeks after the business went bust) I have discovered that the catalogue company has now reedited the product videos and is selling them to a number of resellers who display them on their own websites. The catalogue company has edited off the company name and my name at the end and added their own. I contacted the catalogue company and explained that the videos belonged to me not to the employer and provided dated electronic proof of the invoice stating the caveats and asked for them not to sell my videos (Two resellers have shown me proof that they paid £300 for the 9 videos to be part of their site). So far I have been told that the MD is unavailable, in Australia or not wishing to take my calls. He has ignored recorded letters and emails. I contacted FACT who said unless I subscribed they would not act and so I am considering taking the company to small claims court. What should I do ?

Hello everyone In 2005 I signed a Mortgage of freehold or leasehold property to secure own liabilities to raise business funds. The letter from the bank states that if the signing was witnessed by legal secretary it must have the words "a fellow of the institute of legal executives" under the witnesses signature. A copy of this document that the bank have sent me has these words on BUT the original which i have had from the solicitors does not. Its obviously been altered by the bank. This can't be right surely? Thanks...

How far are companies allowed to change their terms and conditions of a contract without informing their customers that a change has taken place – and are they allowed to do this retrospectively? I am asking as my fiancé and I both have mobile phone contracts with Orange – taken out in August 2011 and September 2012 respectively, on terms and conditions which included a clause that could be used to stop customers cancelling their contracts (without fee) if Orange put up their prices, providing this increase was less than a certain measure of inflation. The issue I have is that in the original Ts&Cs this clause was very likely faulty and unenforceable as it referred to a government agency that has not existed since 1996 and to a document that no government agency has published since September 2011. It appears that Orange updated their Ts&Cs for policies taken out after October 31st 2012 – with a replacement clause giving a broader range of measures and bodies that they can rely on to justify their price increases. However, they also appear to have altered their Ts&Cs for contracts taken out between February 2011 and October 2012 to include the new clause, and the original February 2011 Ts&Cs have been removed from their site - luckily though, I have a copy of the original. Orange were not able to tell me when this change took place (although the altered Ts&Cs on their site are dated October 2012). They were also unable to tell me what steps they had taken to inform their customers of this change – and in a phone call to their call centre I have been told categorically that they have not told anyone of any updates to their terms. We have no record (on my bills or in any other correspondence) of being informed of these changes to the terms of our contracts – so do not accept that we are bound by the new terms. Are Orange allowed to change the wording of their terms without telling anyone that they have done so? Is it legal that they can just quietly alter the documents on their site and back-date the changes? This change in wording is significant as they are now relying on the new clause to increase the monthly cost for hundreds of thousands of customers who might reasonably have grounds to cancel their contracts - they have refused me the right to cancel mine without a hefty cancellation fee. Thanks in advance for any advice. The old wording of the clause (February 2011): 4.3.1 we have increased the Charges by an amount equal to or less than the percentage increase in the All Items Index of Retail Prices published by the Central Statistical Office in the Monthly Digest of Statistics in any 12 month period;” The new wording (October 2012 – backdated secretly to February 2011): “4.3.1 we give you written notice to increase the Charges (as a percentage) by an amount equal to or less than the percentage increase in the All Items Index of Retail Prices or any other statistical measure of inflation published by any government body authorised to publish measures of inflation from time to time, and published on a date as close as reasonably possible before the date on which we send you written notice; “