This concerns someone I know. They have been subject to bullying and victimisation by supervisor and line manager over a period of months. This was flagged up to department managers, who have recognised the issues. They have witnessed some of behaviours and others have reported incidents that have happened. Department Managers have now had half a dozen complaints about the behaviour of the supervisor and line manager concerned. The departments managers have said that unless my friend makes a formal complaint using the grievance procedures that exist, that they can't do anything. My friend has health/vulnerability issues that make this difficult, as the process involved may cause additional stress they want to avoid. The question is whether Department Managers with HR responsibilities can hide behind having a grievance procedure, to avoid taking actions, when they have enough evidence of a pattern of behaviour that should be sufficient to act upon. My HR training as a Manager was that I did not need to receive a complaint under the grievance procedure to act. That I could commence disciplinary procedures based on information I had received or bevaviours I had witnessed. What is the correct legal position in such situations ? What are the consequences for Managers that fail to act, once they are made aware of conduct that could be considered bullying or victimisation ?

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news/144/144.html 144/3 – Mr A complains that his home insurance is too expensive Mr A, in his eighties, had been living with dementia for a few years. He didn’t use a computer, and his wife, who’d always taken care of the home expenses, had died about seven years before. So after this he’d asked the insurer to send things to him by post. Mr A’s nephew got in touch with us when helping his uncle out with his household finances. He’d noticed the home insurance for his uncle’s two-bedroom terraced home was £1,400. He’d found similar policies online for as little as £150. Indeed his existing insurer was quoting £300 for more comprehensive cover. He’d been with the same insurer for 15 years, originally taking out the policy for £200. The policy had automatically renewed every year and Mr A had never made a claim. Mr A’s nephew complained on his uncle’s behalf that the price of the policy wasn’t fair. He told us his uncle was very upset to think his insurer had taken advantage of his loyalty. In response to Mr A’s complaint, the insurer said the price was correct and that the quotes on their website were lower because of “online discounts”. Mr A’s nephew asked for our help to sort things out. how we helped When considering whether Mr A was treated fairly, we looked at whether he’d been given clear information when his insurance was due to be renewed. He needed to have been able to make an informed decision about accepting the price and cover offered. Mr A’s renewal documents were sent to him by post. And for the first four years the price had increased very little. In the fifth year, it went up by 15% and by similar amounts after that. The insurer’s renewal letters told Mr A that as a valued customer he’d received a number of discounts for making no claims and staying with them. But we thought the difference in price between Mr A’s policy and the online policies couldn’t be explained by the online discounts alone. The renewal letters also referred to other policies being available, but said that unless his circumstances had changed, Mr A didn’t need to do anything. Overall, we thought that the information he’d had at renewal could have been misleading. From what Mr A’s nephew told us about his personal circumstances and his lack of direct engagement, we thought it should have been clear to the insurer that Mr A might need additional help in making an informed choice about whether to renew his policy. We didn’t think the insurer had done enough to let him know there were other, potentially cheaper, options available. Increasing his price each year without taking into account Mr A’s needs had left him potentially susceptible to detriment. We thought that his vulnerability should have been apparent from the fifth policy year onwards. That was also when the price of his policy had begun to increase significantly, the original new customer discount having been recouped by then too. We told the insurer to refund the difference in premiums, with interest, for each year between the price paid after five years and the subsequent renewal offers. The insurer also accepted our recommendation to pay £150 for the upset they caused Mr A.

Today, was a day where I was in Court with a friend who had two parking tickets to contest. UK Car Park Management Sent a Local Solicitor. both of the tickets were for UK Car Park Management both obtained on different days. one was originally set aside following after failing to submit a defence on time, at that time the case was set aside, the judge said UKCPM are known for not paying fees or turning up. A phone call was placed to the court last week to be told that UKCPM hadnt paid their court fee for one of the claims and as a result, the case was struck out, Well at least we thought, it turned out Gladsones phoned this morning and paid the court fee, and the case was allowed to be heard.....1 nil to UKCPM. Pofa was used as part of the defence and who was driving Judge concluded that the defendant was the driver and that POFA 2012 was not relevent ......2 Nill to UKCPM Signage - the claimants witness statment showed a google earth pic of the area and yellow dots where put where the signs were. 5 in total, the defendant showed photos of just the one sign ( which was high up) and across a path, meaning the driver had to get out of the car to read it.. .also showed where there was no signs that the claimants said there was..... JUdge ruled saying the one sign was adequate. .....3 nil to UKCPM tenacy agreement produced by defendant showing that there was no mention of the need to display permits, Judge dismissed this piece of evidence as it said the resident must park in a designated space. ..........4 nil to UKCPM Roache v Loake, the judge allowed that piece of evidence from claimants saying it is relevant same as the beavis case with regards to parking on private land, even though Beavis was about the fee and pay and display....................6 nil to UKCPM the argument that the LBC did not comply was also argued but the judge said as the LBC was issued before september 2017 the argument could not be used as the new rules didnt apply at the time the LBC was issued ............ 7 Nil to UKCPM in all the judge pretty much decided before the case to grant UKCPM a win the defendant has 21 days to submit new evidence with regards to the second case and then the judge will do a paper ruling. even though no full particulars of claim has been received, not even by their solicitor any thoughts

Council refuses to pay gran after breaking her windscreen http://dailym.ai/2qomwbu A council lawnmower propelled a stone into a car owners back windscreen smashing it. The car owner issued a court claim and the council are defending it next week, saying their employee was not negligent. You can understand why the council are defending the claim, as a lawnmower operator in this situation would not be negligent, if they were operating the lawnmower in accordance with its operating manual. It is not possible to check every little bit of grass to see whether there might be a stone.

I think things are about to become very interesting following this leak of data. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3521830/Tax-havens-world-s-rich-famous-revealed-huge-data-leak.html There is an estimate of there being up to $50 trillion held in the various tax havens, which is almost enough to completly wipe out worldwide government debts. I wonder how much of this money has involved criminality in some form.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-34172701

i'll try and keep this as concise as possible, one of my employees went to meet a client in his apartment and parked in the residents car park in what he thought was the clients parking space. The client is one of a few people who actually live there all year and the rest of the apartments are on short holiday lets. to gain access to the car park you need to take a ticket and then the resident uses a pass card to allow exit. It appears that my employee parked in another person allocated parking space and although the car park was almost empty the other person took a photograph of his number plate and sent it to Vinci Parking who then sent to the car lease company. No PCN was fixed to the car. The lease company did nothing for a month and we then informed Vinci not to contact them again as they were charging £25 admin fee. The company then received a letter and demand from a debt collector which we duly ignored and this week we received a letter from a genuine solicitor notifying us that they intend to start legal action. I would be grateful for any advice on what to do.

Whilst helping a friend sort out their PPI claim I was glad to find a link regarding the FOS and what they do/have done in the past here is the link http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/technical_notes/ppi.html It maybe of use to others but I must warn you that the reading in this link is very long winded and this also links to the decision/s that the FOS have taken to date. see the section on "case studies" then you may want to read about the Court case in the section marked "legal challenge".... I hope this is of use to those wanting to reclaim PPI....

All, This may help some folks if this is actually the company in question's process but I wanted to check first if it was above board or not. The scenario is 2 defaults from the same creditor, which were taken over by a 3rd party, however the earlier defaults were left on file and new ones added. 2 defaults for the same account. This has been sorted but it showed some quite interesting discrepancies. The accounts had the same start start date but different default dates and amounts. I put this to the original creditor and received the following response, with account numbers removed to protect the innocent: The MMF reported default gave default dates of 2 weeks after the NoD was issued and the balances reflected those on the default notices. Credit file reports 3 missed payments then account into default, which is interesting given that one account went into default status on 2nd September, showing 3 monthly payments missed, having been opened on 5th July, less than 2 months previously. I have a suspicion that this reporting process is a big no-no. I also have a suspicion that they register a default with the CRAs promptly for the amount on the default notice then change the details on said default when they sell it on. The technical guidance the ICO supply regarding report of defaults seems to bear this out. It's also fairly interesting to note that between 2nd September and 30th January isn't 180 days. It looks like this creditor plays extremely fast and loose with the reports they provide to CRAs. The 'reporting procedure' I've been given also appears to at very least not be followed. I have presented this to the main CRA, they previously asked this creditor if the data was correct which they have, of course, confirmed. I have supplied the additional information to them and suggested they should perhaps take proactive action given the creditor has told me that they, as a matter of procedure, don't follow proper process. I would welcome the thoughts of those more knowledgeable.

1) Is there a remit within the DPA of 1998 where you can request all the stuff to be put on a USB drive? Saves cutting down 30 Trees! 2) With the FCA's clampdown on PDL Companies, If you had a loan pre the enforcement date, does it fall under the new rules for charges etc?

http://nicholaswilson.com/intervention-at-public-accounts-committee-hearing/

This is a good FOI reply I found on Whatdotheyknow site; https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/sanctions_comprehensive_monitori#comment-57627 The FOI 108 DMA Checklist.xls file (click on 'View HTML' to see it) is particularly interesting as it contains a list of all the checks the adviser has to do if they want to raise a valid sanction doubt - there's LOTS of little things that we can catch them out on if they fail to do it Well worth printing out and keeping. Should your adviser ever try to raise a doubt you can produce it and at least make sure they go through every step while you argue it with them.

Approx a year ago I asked Arrow Global to "prove" a debt they alleged against me. A year on they were still applying default notices and data on my credit file. For months I had been asking them to remove this data all of which was refused and met with "we are still investigating" As this was not getting any anywhere I emailed the CEO [email protected] who passed it on to someone else and I got a reply within 48hrs. So here is the reply in all its glory To be clear they are not chasing the debt at this time, I am requesting they remove data form my credit file as they can't prove any debt is owed. Comments and opinons please

http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/1539.html&query=El+and+Makdessi+and+v+and+Cavendish+and+Square+and+Holdings+and+BV&method=Boolean search google for Court of Appeal ruling: El Makdessi v Cavendish Square Holdings BV the judgement which is quite recent, analysis penalty clauses and commercial justification which I think goes a long way to show that commercial justification as regards parking charge notices, which are penal by their very nature, cannot apply to these penalty charges in my opinion. Also commercial justification can only be taken into account where the terms of the contract have been freely negotiated between parties of equal bargaining power. also an appraisal of the judgement: http://www.allenovery.com/publications/en-gb/Pages/Court-of-appeal-rules-on-penalty-clauses.aspx But suppose it will all be decided in the upcoming Beavis appeal.

Had a letter recently from WetCloth/WetScroat thanking me for my offer of repayment.. Can't see anywhere on my laptop that I offered them anything. Last time I made an offer on this debt was to Uncle Bryan and it was for £1.25 per month for three months. That was 12 months ago and dearest Uncle Bryan never replied. How can one goon DCA accept and offer made to another goon DCA?

Edited as a bad post sorry

You guys will love this; Sent an email to Active Securities Ltd who trade as 24/7 Moneybox asking them to confirm information about a debt they've posted on my credit file (Attached) This is their response... I gave them a lot of information and they cant find it... What is my next step? [ATTACH=CONFIG]50397[/ATTACH]

The FCA sent me this link so I can check on what DCA is what and if they have any complaints and much more hope it is of help to anyone http://fca-consumer-credit-interim.force.com/CS_RegisterSearchPageNew Or this one http://www.fsa.gov.uk/register/firmSearchForm.do MM

Apologies if this has been posted already but I noticed this statement and linked adjudication on POPLA http://www.popla.org.uk/statement_28-01-14.htm It seems that the adjudicator has been slightly annoyed by the decision of the PPC involved (redacted but almost certainly Parking Eye) and the BPA to use the transcript in a private section of the BPA website to (according to some suggestions) provide instruction to other PPCs in order to combat the 'no genuine pre-estimate of loss' argument. The Adjudicator is concerned that in doing so the impartiality of POPLA may be compromised so has published the redacted transcript of the adjudication - the transcript also refers to this point. The transcript gives not only a useful insight into how POPLA will view applications on the basis of No GPEOL, and the hurdles to be overcome on either side of an appeal on that basis, but it also makes a mockery of the carp souted on the PE website about the majority of POPLA decisions on GPEOL being awarded in favour of PE. Whilst the adjudication may indeed give PPCs some ideas as to how to make charges fall in line with a GPEOL, there is also a degree of clarity over what cannot be included in the mind of POPLA - management and running costs of the car park cannot be for example, however staffing time (which could be shown to be expensive) and administration in chasing charge notices might well be accepted as a 'loss'. I would therefore see that point as stressing the importance of early communication and appeal to the PPC being important so that they cannot claim to have incurred the losses which might go along with an uncommunicative victim. Of course this is all notwithstanding the fact that this is just a POPLA adjudication rather than a binding legal precedent, and ignores the various and many other reasons why a charge on private land might be unlawful, but I found it interesting nevertheless! UPDATE - It appears that this case has already been featured on the Parking Prankster site but the above is for those who may not have already seen this

Hi, I was just wondering if TVL applies to streams which aren't TV broadcasts over the web? Two examples are: 1) NASA Solar Dynamics Observatories feeds, which are the exact feeds which NASA staff use to monitor the suns dynamics. 2) Various live webcams around the internet i.e. traffic-cams etc They aren't broadcasts for TV purposes, but they certainly are live, if not maybe a 30 minute lag time but still theoretically live. It'd be interesting to know how instances like this would apply. Cheers, Ade

Hi Guys Very interesting programme from the other night; HERE Synopsis; Young, British, and Broke - The truth about "Payday loans" Payday loans documentary about the effects on society the multi-million pound industry has.

Ello, What's the penalty issued to a business using the full electoral register (i.e. non commercial) one for gaining personal details for fishing expeditions? they deny ever fishing, but I've got their first ever letter to my address, which read something to the order of : Thats not the exact wording as I don't have it at hand, but it's just to give you an idea of what the fishing letter looked like. When I get a chance tomorrow, I'll get a scanned copy of it and transcribe it. But the example I gave above is pretty much the same as whats on the letter, just worded differently. 1) Can they use the full register? As it's rather clear on my local councils website that it's only used for Voting, Crime Prevention and checking applications for credit. 2) Can they go on fishing expeditions like that blurting my FULL name, account details etc... out to any old address like that? I would have thought that it should have been an anonymous 'please call us' letter as opposed to listing everything 3) Dependent on 1 and 2 above, what action can I take against these guys? If any? Cheers A

Account background: Account fell in arrears, defaulted in July of 2012 and was passed to Cougar Financial Services. Was paid off in full by early September 2013. I had moved house during the time I fell in to arrears. I'm looking to claim back charges, although I think removal of the default is going to be impossible. A few interesting things from the SAR though... 1. Payment Protection Insurance. Incredibly, they haven't even tried to hide their conduct here. On the CCA they sent as part of my SAR I noticed that the PPI checkbox was not ticked. I then dug in to their screen dumps and saw one that clearly had: PPI Required? [ No ] PPI2 Required? [ Unanswered ] 2. The CCA itself Doh! If I had requested this before paying the balance off in full I may have had some luck. It's unsigned - not a signature, nor a tick on the whole document. If I'm right this means there was no legally binding agreement, but I'm fairly certain that by paying it off I've entered some form of legally binding agreement. So this couldn't even help with the removal of the default.. which, I think I'm out of luck here. 3. The Default Notice, Statement of Default They had also included several documents regarding the default itself, only one is readable though (Statement of Default), the other two documents (Notice of Sums in Arrears and a letter dated 5 days previous) are unreadable due to huge font sizing, small lineheight and text overflowing off the page.. I was surprised to see they had actually sent me a copy of the default notice however! Although they had sent it to an address which I no longer resided at.. 4. Sum of charges with Interest Still got to do the good stuff and the calculations.. So with regards to PPI - banged to rights and no defence there? The CCA - could it be argued I didn't actually give them permission to contact the Credit Reference Agencies due to lack of valid CCA? I doubt it though, but surely an unsigned CCA could be of some use even now the debt has been settled? As for the default notice, not a lot to be said I guess!

I know this is a good few years old now but does contain some interesting ideas on contesting an L/O with cases cited. http://z2k.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/council-tax-liability-order-hearing_justice-of-the-peace-310503_AM.pdf

Hi All, Please bear with me. I have just received a stat demand from a debt collection company on behalf of their client. AN OLD FRIEND OF MINE. They first sent letters in December stating that I owed their client £90,000. In the letter it stated if they did not receive the monies within 7 days they will commence legal action. The next night at 20:30 someone from the debt collect company knocked on my door. He used very threatening behaviour. He said I had one hour to find some money "Or else'. I ignored him and called the police. The next morning I sent their company the letter template that I did not wish for them to come again without an appointment. 2 days after they received the letter they came knocking again. This time he saw me in the window and starting shouting at me. Calling me names and kicking the door. I called the police and they responded within an hour. By this time they had gone. I was so scared to live in my own rented house, that I moved home. I have redirected my mail to my new address. 6 months later In MY REDIRECTED mail I've received a Stat Demand from them for £42,000. So the Stat Demand was sent to my incorrect address. I'm afraid I binned the envelope and did not expect it to have any importance. The money owed is not owed. 90% of the debt to this person was over 6 years ago and most of the money that I did borrow was drip feed. I have made several payments to these loans but only to the original sum and not to the several that followed. I have not worked for 3 years due to a severe anxiety/depression disorder. This company is really pushing me over the edge. I made them aware of my illness straight away and they said they don't care. Not only that but the stat demand court is over 200 miles away from my current home. Please, please please could someone help me. I am absolutely desperate. Thank you all very much in advance. P.S I must add that I never signed any agreements to this debt. They have enclosed a typed letter that I apparently signed in 2006 admitting to the debt. The letter was not dated and the signature does not look like mine. What are my chances of having tis set aside?