Hello all. First of all thank you very much for supporting this website. It has given me some hope in what to me appears to be a very dishonest situation. Summary PCN received after stopping for 12 mins at the entrance to a P&D car park in which ALL 4 Spaces were blocked by a wooden pallet each with a notice saying the road was too narrow for parking and emergency access. Details Broadwater Street West in Worthing, West Sussex is a short, narrow L-shaped side street running along the side of Starbucks and to the left behind it and other buildings, giving access to lock-up garages and waste bins. It has 4 parking spaces nose to tail running from the entrance of the road. My passenger had a painful case of cystitis and needed to use the loo. Thankfully we saw a Starbucks and from the main road it looked like there were parking spaces free in the side street next to it. After turning into the street and letting my passenger out, I saw that each of the parking bays had a wooden pallet in them preventing their use. In addition there was a sheet of paper on the wall to the side of each space saying that access was required at all times in case of emergency, bin collection and deliveries and that the road is too narrow for parking cars and through traffic. This is certainly the case. Having entered this narrow street the only way out was too drive to the end of the L where there is just enough space to turn around and then drive back to the entrance. Unable to park I waited just short of the main road for my passenger to return. Although I had fully intended to pay, with it not being physically possible to park let alone legal, the whole place gave the appearance that parking was at least suspended if not cancelled. Hence it never crossed my mind that I would be penalised for stopping there. There is of course no one supervising to tell you. My passenger could have just run in to Starbucks, used the toilet and run out but being polite she chose to buy some tea. We had just left the vet after having spent an hour talking to one of their very kind nurses about the loss of our dog which has been heartbreaking. It was a very emotional time and with the cystitis as well I couldn't drive off and leave them; stopped by the entrance I could at least clear the road if for example an emergency vehicle required access. They returned after approx 10 mins and we left. What Happened PCN received for "Failing to Park Within a Marked Bay". Given the situation described above where I was physically unable to park in a marked bay, let alone do so without blocking emergency access I thought it was a [problem] and a quite ludicrous one at that. And for this reason I have not contacted One Parking Solutions. I have since received a letter from ZZPS Limited saying my unpaid PCN has been passed to them to resolve. The balance owed has now increased to £170. They have quoted Parking Eye v Beavis as a recent Supreme Court Ruling. I have spoken to them and they said I was parked for 12 mins. If I do nothing the matter will be passed to their solicitors.

I have an issue with a drain that floods the area outside the front door of a property I rent. The drain is in a private road, owned by a local church. Every time there is a heavy storm, the drain overflows and creates a large puddle up to 4" deep outside my front door. As cars come down the road to attend the church, water is pushed over the door stop and floods into the basement. I spoke to Thames Water last year and they informed me that the ownership and responsibility laid with the church. I contacted the church but no action was taken so Thames Water agreed to send someone to try to deal with it. The upshot is that the drain is not blocked but is badly constructed, so is unable to cope with large volumes of water. Both myself and the Landlord have repeatedly contacted the church but nothing is being done to fix the problem. Is there any legal action that can be taken to force them to address the problem?

My neighbour has parked their 2 cars as per the attached photo so that I can not access my garage or park outside my own garage. I own the garage. Legally what can be done about this please?

I opened a Club Lloyds account prior to Xmas, primarily for the benefits it advertised. Under doctor’s orders, I am currently abroad to reduce my stress levels. I have a large sum of money in my account, and have been trying to use the time to move this to other accounts I have that it will earn interest on. Each time I try to make a transaction, either using online banking or via debit card, to other accounts in my name which are already set up with my online banking, Lloyds block them and make me call their Fraud Team. I am making the calls from abroad, I think the shortest call to date has been around 30 minutes, each time I am made to answer questions from my credit file and a trace is left on my file each time they make me do this. Yesterday, at circa 3pm, I tried for the second time to move a large sum to an account I hold with RCI bank, the payment, for the second time was blocked. The call time I made to the Fraud team was in excess of 1 hour. The end result of the call was that my account is totally blocked and Lloyds are forcing me to return to the UK to present myself and ID to a Lloyds branch before I can access my money. This is my normal day-to-day banking account which I can no longer access, check that payments are being made into it, or make ad hoc bill payments or move money. The guy I spoke to in the fraud team, his attitude towards me inflamed the situation, he refused to let me speak to a manager, pass the call to a manager, or get a manager to call me back. He lied to me and told me he would put me through to customer services to make a complaint, he didn’t he put me back into the long queue to wait again for the Fraud team. Directly after this, I called the Complaints team. again a long wait to speak to someone., before starting on a 2-hour call with them. After they liaised with Fraud I was told that there was no block on my online banking (with me accessing my account while they were still on the line to ensure this was the case) that all I had to do was call Fraud again to go through more credit file checks to get the payment authorised. The complaint I had changed from initially being about the block on my account and enforced return to the UK, to about the conduct and attitude with ....., the Fraud team member. I was offered compensation of £160 to cover the cost of in excess of 3 hours of international mobile calls. I did not accept this to close the complaint, I elevated the complaint to a higher level (.......), where we went over everything, double-checked everything, and it was left in his hands to investigate further while I was left to go through the rigmarole regarding my transfer with the Fraud team again. This whole scenario which started at 3pm, concluded with the termination of this call after 6pm. 9 am this morning I went online to check my bank account before getting up the courage to tackle another call with the Fraud dept…..my online access was blocked. The start of many phone calls was to the complaints department to speak to either of the two people from the day before, this was not possible and I was put into the ‘care’ of a lady called ..... informed me that my account was blocked and that I would have to return to the UK, etc, before it would be unblocked. To cut a long story short, she confirmed with me the address of 3 branches in Edinburgh that I could do so, with me informing her that I wanted to make face-to-face contact with the manager of the branch to address my issues, and that I would be pursing costs for flights, transfers, accom, time off work etc. She refused my request to speak with someone senior and she terminated the call with me. started to look at flights to find the first available one is not until next Saturday, a week away. started to try to get contact details for the branch so I could phone to ensure a manager would be there, to make sure they could do everything that had to be done (from their side and from mine), and to make an appointment. You would think this would be easy, but being Lloyds, no it is not… .there is only an 0845 no provided, extortionate to call from abroad, and I was forced to call the call center. On doing so I was informed that there are in fact no Lloyds branches in Scotland, that the branch we were looking at was a Bank of Scotland one, with no telephone number for customers, as are all branches apparently, that I cannot talk to anyone in branch directly and that if I wished to make contact I had to do it via an agent in the call center, who then tried to call it for me with no joy. This call terminated after 1pm today, another 4 hours of my life wasted.

Hi all, Looking for advice... National Grid dug up the pavement outside my and my neighbours house last Thursday to replace gas pipes (scheduled work, not emergency). Unfortunately my car was trapped on the drive and they made no effort prior to notify me of works and ask for the car to be moved. The hole was open for 5 days, after which (with warning to them) I took it into my own hands and filled it in. I lost a days work (Saturday), and invoiced them for half a days labour on the Monday (this is confirmed in a recorded phone call). Just wondering what the forum think my next steps should be? It's clearly illegal to block a car on a driveway (New Roads & Street Work Act 1991 / Traffic Management Act 2004) but what and how do I proceed? Thanks in anticipation, Chris

We will no longer be able to give advice or to comment on the Npower Nightmare Facebook group because we have been blocked. If you are a member of one of the other groups – Npower Boycott, Nasty Npower, Consumers Against NPower, etc and you see comments which are posted on this forum or in one of those groups and which you feel might be useful to the people who are on the Npower Nightmare Facebook group, then you might think to relay those comments to those people because we will be unable to do so directly. Some of you might also feel inclined to let the members of the Npower Nightmare Facebook group know that the Consumer Action Group has been blocked because I expect that most of them don't realise it. The way that the Npower Nightmare group is being conducted would almost lead you to believe that it is a shill group of Npower – but of course that is just being fanciful, isn't it?

I guess my employer has the upper hand on this but I thought I would check with forum members. I was recently passed over for promotion despite being the longest serving and most experienced member of the team and a younger guy got the post. It was all done quite secretly and when I found out, it had already happened. I complained but was told that it was the decision of our division's big boss in the US, so basically tough luck. Feeling quite cheesed off by this episode I applied for and got a good position within another division of the same company. Everything appeared to be going well for my transfer, then at the last minute I was told that the same guy in the US has blocked me leaving his department. So blocked from promotion and blocked from transferring to another post - even though the other department fought quite hard to get me. I guess this is commonplace in the US with their relaxed employment laws, but I was wondering whether I have got any legal claim to this being unfair in the UK? Obviously we have no union Thanks

Lloyds recently blocked my account for 7 days, first saying this was due to fraud investigation, but then formally confessing that was due to bank's "processing error". The block caused enourmous problems for me, resulted in declined direct debits, canceled meetings (I just did not have cash (!) as this is my primary bank account), simply ruined my plans and caused unnecessary stress. All this time they kept saying we do not know when your account will be opened. I beleive the Bank should be accountable for the damage it caused me and my family. They offered ridiculous compensation for this which is not worth the emotional stress that I had to go through. Does anyone have any suggestions on how should I take the matter forward? Thanks Charlie

In July, I lost my phone. We phoned up Virgin, the phone and sim were then blocked and I was sent a new working phone + sim. I've now found my old phone. I understand that because it's blocked, I can't do anything with it, really. So, what can I do with it? Can I recycle it? Or is that a problem because the phone is blocked?

Hi I live in N.London (Haringey Council) on top of a 3 floor apartment block. There are 3 car parking spaces allocated - 1 to each flat - and comprise 1 at the front which is accessible via dropped kerb from the main road and 2 at the rear in a side-by-side configuration that form part of what was the garden. The property is Freehold and all the spaces are marked on the deeds Access to these rear spaces can only be achieved via a single lane access road that runs down the side of our block. The road extends further down and links into a private road. Our part of this road is unadopted by the council up to where our rear parking spaces end with the rest being private as it provides access to some cottages. The owners of the private part of the road have posted notices stating they have employed private contractors to ensure only those with a valid parking tag displayed can park on their road with fines for non-compliance which now has effectively "pushed" all those wanting to avoid paying any parking charge onto our access road. A row of shops (with upstairs accommodation) have rear exits that also back onto our access road so any trades or employees of those shop businesses who drive and don't want to / cant afford to pay for parking have cottoned onto the fact that our access road is unadopted so park (and effectively block) the single lane road. At times - if our spaces are free - they are used by these same people so a free-for-all develops at least daily. The only way I can access my space is to drive down this access road but in order to travel the 30 feet can sometimes take 30 minutes as I have to find out who the blocking car(s) belong to & get them moved. They allow me access but then return to the same blocking positions as before so if I have to go out again, I have to do everything again. My view is that I should be allowed unrestricted access to my parking space. I understand shops need deliveries but a loading bay is available on the main road some 40 feet away. As the road is unadopted, there are no signs, no road markings and the council is not thinking about adoption anytime soon after I made a recent phone call. What - legally - am I allowed to do? I can easily beef up securing our spaces (chain & padlock) but all people then do is park in front of our spaces (occupied or not) or park in the access lane. It seems like everyone involved is getting what they want and seem to care less at the hassle they cause but it frustrates me deeply. Also, some tend to use their horn as a way of telling people to move their cars so the noise level can grate! Thanks for any/all advice Jay

Hi All Just a quick and mild incident but would be interested in comment and opinion. I was parked in a family member's drive when a bailiff called to collect unpaid business rates from another property which the council is not going to get as the business is bust (ironically by the same council). My brother opened the door and when he found out who it was he called me to the door to sort it out as I have a bit more confidence in these matters. I told the bailiff we would not sign anything, would not give him any money and would not be granting him legal entry. He was a bit unhappy but could not do much about it. As it happened I was leaving so I went out to my car. When I tried to move it he said he was seizing it to pay the debt. I told him it was mine and not my brothers and attempted to drive away. He reversed his car to block my path and said he was going to clamp it. I told him he could do so but I would take on his company for obstructing my lawful movement of my property. He said since I knew so much of the law I should know he has a right to seize the car. If I could prove it was mine he would let me go. I pointed out that the log book was elsewhere but that would not conclusively prove the car was mine, just that I was the keeper. In the end he pulled away and I was able to get on with things at a cost of no more than five minutes of time. Clearly the guy was bluffing. He was in a car so un-likley to be carrying a clamp and was going to have to stay there for quite a while if a clamper was being sent for. So other CAGers should note that. Clearly he did not want to hang around. My question is though, what rights does he have to detain my car and what rights do I have to stop him detaining the car? Also, do I have any claim against his firm? Has he committed any criminal offence by obstructing me? All comments, anecdotes, opinion and such like welcome.

Hi there Gulls & guys!! My account has been blocked by Santander as I've deposited £15,000 in small denomination of 1,000's but with in 2 weeks duration. Now its more than 3 weeks & they've blocked my account totally. I've gone to my main branch & a smaller branch & found them all very unhelpful. They keep on telling me that someone in the FRAUD DEPARTMENT will contact me but basically they haven't made any effort to contact me. I've launched an official complaint as well & got the reply that there is no time limit for the fraud department to contact me. I'm in a big fix as from that account my monthly mortgage goes out which now I've to pay manually. My standing order for credit card payment hasn't been honoured. The big amounts of money were my savings & commission spanning over a period of 2 years but am sick of them not contacting me at all. I need advice on how to deal with it as am sick of the bank's sick attitude. I hope to hear from you soon.

Hi The external drain which deals with waste from the kitchen is totally blocked and flooding our front garden. My husband attempted to clear it by putting rods down but cannot open to cover as a key is needed. The Landlord doesn't have anything to open it and informed us that as he's away on business we'll have to sort this ourselves! I'm far from happy about this as I don't believe it to be our responsibility as it's an external drain plus we cannot afford to get anyone out to clear it for us. It is really badly blocked, any water going down the sink or from the washing machine is flooding straight onto the path and quite frankly I'm sick of my kids having to wade through it everyday dragging all sorts of mess into the house with them. We live in a detached house and the drain isn't shared with anyone else. Any advice appreciated Lisa

with the recent heavy rain our rear service lane 'filled up' and flooded my garage. the cause of this was 2 blocked road drains. the council had been told they were full on many occasions, they ignored the calls, even from their own workers. i have contents cover on the garage but it will not cover the full damage. can i make a claim against the councils insurer's?

Hi all, haven`t the foggiest where to ask this but our water is high in the outside drain and loo going down slowly. Problem happened before but I can`t remember which way the flow went and who was the end of line before the waste went into main sewer in the road? I suspect my neighbour is last in line so the blockage must be from her to main sewer so is she responsible? last time, I am informed, due to my bad memory, that the problem was in the main sewer way down the road?