No doubt this could be mentioned in most forums on this site but chose this one as they regularly crop up with regard to both Equita and Ross & Roberts. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43862732

The UK's biggest payday lender - Wonga - saw its losses double last year as tougher regulation in the industry continued to bite. The short-term lender saw pre-tax losses grow from £38.1m in 2014 to £80.2m last year. It has overhauled the way it assesses applications for credit, and extended the repayment term for some loans. However, it suggested 2016 would be a "turning point" in its financial performance. The company, along with other payday lenders, faces tougher rules from the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which has ruled that customers must go through stricter affordability checks. The regulator's main weapon is a cap on the cost of payday loans of 0.8% of the amount borrowed per day, which came into force in January 2015. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36201486

Hi All, I will set the scene with a brief timeline of events.... 1. Purchased a 62 plate car for 10k on a HP agreement with a £300 deposit, picked the car up from the dealers on the 2nd March 2016. 2. I made the first payment on the HP agreement on the 2nd April 2016. 3. On the 8th April 2016, the car was written off in an accident. The other party pleaded no contest and their insurers have admitted full liability for the claim. I spoke with my finance company yesterday after receiving a letter from my insurer declaring the car a write off. Naturally as the legal owner of the vehicle, the finance company are insisting that they deal with the insurers themselves. I fully expect however that the finance company will be acting solely in their own interests and not mine. I should also state that I have GAP insurance so I am not bothered about clearing the existing finance, but what does bother me is that it leaves me personally out of pocket, I believe (and this is where I need advice) that I should be able to claim.... 1. My £300 deposit which was paid to the dealer at the start of March. 2. As mentioned above, I paid my monthly installment at the start of the month and only had 7 days use out of the car before the accident, so I believe I should be able to claim at least part of this back? 3. My next payment is due on the 1st May, I am concerned that if things don't move swiftly and the finance isn't settled before the end of this month then I will end up paying another month's payment for a car that I no longer have the use of! My main question is... what route should I take to attempt to claim back these losses?? Should I wait for the insurer and finance company to conclude the settlement of the finance first? I am thinking of waiting for the dust to settle and then issuing a court claim to the other driver for any remaining losses, can I do this?? I am concerned that once the finance company has settled with the insurer then that will prevent any further claims being made?? Many thanks for any assistance given.

I don't know if anyone can help be I am doing my self assessment last minute as usual, I am self employed as a foster carer on which my profit was around 9,000 and catalogue business which I made a loss of around 800. I have filled in the box to offset my loss to the previous year as I had to pay some tax last year which is unusual for me. Does this mean that I should get a rebate from last year? Because the calculation is coming up as I have to pay around £80 National Insurance as I am over the threshold for that and there is no rebate from last year included in the calculation. How does it work? Alternatively can someone tell me how to get the help chat box to come up when you are logged into your account? It popped up yesterday and I managed to ask a couple of questions, but I then closed it and now I can't find it. Sorry to sound so stupid but I have been struggling with these tax returns for the past 4 years and I'm pretty sure I am doing myself out of money by not knowing what I am doing.

Can I claim consequential loss following a garage damaging my car? I took my car into a garage for routine brake pad replacement (& tyres), following a 'brake check' the previous day. My car has automatic handbraking, so required use of specialist equipment to replace the pads. They were aware of this (was asked to go to a different branch where they had the right kit to do the replacement) It was a sit & wait appointment, and was told it would take them about 90 mins. By the time they closed 4 hours later, although they had replaced the pads & tyres, they were struggling to get the hand-braking to work. They had to give me a lift home, and was told they'd update me the following day. By the end of the following day, they'd still not been able to resolve the issue, and had to take the car to Hyundai. Hyundai did some diagnostics, and confirmed that the rear callipers required replacement. This would take approx 4 weeks (due to availability of parts). (For those curious - Hyundai tell me the rear callipers have small servo motors within them holding the pads, which have to be controlled by specialist kit when replacing the pads. If that kit isn't used / used correctly / designed for use with that car, it can damage these servos - that's what appears to have happened. The car is only ~2 years old) The garage accepted responsibility for the repairs needed, and even have their insurer involved. By the end of day 3, they provided me with a courtesy car. As a result, I had to take 2 days off work, and been without my car for 3 weeks (and counting) whilst they sort out the problem. Do I have an option to claim from them the time I've lost from work and/or loss of use of the car? (latter is difficult to quantify, I'm sure - but the depreciation value over 4 weeks would probably be a start if i could work it out!). Especially given the car they've given my is not comparable with my own car - not even close.

For all the people that has been harassed by HFO Services Limited and Turnbull Rutherford Solicitors, this is good news. This culled from the OFT website and the link posted below http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2014/08-14#.Uvvum8uPPIV OFT finds three debt businesses unfit and excludes a solicitor from undertaking licensable activities 08/14 5 February 2014 The OFT has refused to renew the consumer credit licences of debt purchaser HFO Capital Limited, and two associated debt collectors, HFO Services Limited and Roxburghe (UK) Limited. Alasdair Turnbull, a solicitor who acted for the group of firms, has also today been excluded from the group consumer credit licence held by the Law Society for England and Wales. The OFT found evidence of misleading and unfair practices in the businesses' operations, including: sending debt collection letters which misrepresented debtors' legal position misleading and otherwise inappropriate behaviour by HFO and Roxburghe agents during phone calls to debtors failing to properly investigate disputed debts failure to respond appropriately to the concerns of regulators, including the OFT. David Fisher, OFT Senior Director for Consumer Credit, said: 'We expect businesses in the debt collection sector to behave with integrity and treat their customers fairly and transparently. We will not hesitate to refuse to license debt collection businesses that fail to do so.' The parties have until 24 February 2014 to appeal the decision. NOTES The Consumer Credit Act 1974 requires businesses that offer goods or services on credit, or lend money, or are involved in activities relating to credit or hire, to be licensed by the OFT. The OFT has a statutory duty under the Act to administer the consumer credit licensing regime, and must be satisfied that a licensee is fit to hold a consumer credit licence. Trading without a licence in such cases is a criminal offence and can result in a fine and/or imprisonment. The OFT's consumer credit team currently has 32 investigations open into firms which intelligence suggests are engaged in unfair practices or may be otherwise unfit to hold a licence. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will take over regulation of consumer credit from the OFT on 1 April 2014. The transfer of regulation is part of the Government's programme of regulatory changes for financial services and brings conduct of business regulation under a single financial services regulator. See the FCA's website for more information. Businesses seeking a consumer credit licence should see the Consumer credit changes page for more information.

A few days ago I complained to the BPA about Parking Eye's letters which try to justify they so-called pre-estimate of loss by including all their day-to-day running expenses and fixed costs. Believe it or not, this is the idiotic reply I received back:- Thank you for your e-mail. Please be advised Parking Eye are within their rights in regards to their parking charge notices and their pre-estimate of loss. Parking Eye would have calculated the sum as a genuine pre-estimate of their losses as they incur significant costs in managing the parking location to ensure compliance to the stated terms and conditions and to follow up on any breaches of these identified, including but not restricted to the following examples: · Employment of parking attendants to patrol the parking location to include supervisory staff and vehicles, training, uniforms, etc. · Ad-hoc mobile patrols of the parking location · Supply & installation ANPR equipment, monitoring and maintenance · Erection and maintenance of the site signage · Parking payment and enforcement equipment to include the pay & display machines, hand held devices, cameras, etc. · Membership and other fees requiring payment in order to manage the business effectively including those paid to BPA, DVLA and ICO · General costs including stationery, postage etc · Employment of office based administrative staff along with systems and software · Contribution to Head Office overheads Please note that this sum will be clearly laid out on the signage at the parking location which offers the parking contract to the motorist, and by remaining at the site, Parking Eye will contend that the motorist has accepted all of the prevailing terms and conditions of that contract including the charges for breach of contract, and furthermore accepts that they are reasonable. We do not feel it is right to seek to change the terms of an established contract after it has been breached. If the motorist was unhappy with the contract terms, then the motorist should not have remained at the location. Parking Eye’s breakdown of costs does not breach our code of practice and therefore we are unable to investigate the matter further. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Kind regards, AOS Investigations Team I think somebody needs some basic education on company finance and the difference between losses and costs.

Hi All - seeking advice from those in the know. Brief background, or as brief as i can be. Sold my conservatory on ebay auction for £1300. Inthe following days the buyer arranged to come and look at logisitcs of taking it down. There were some mails and texts to say about timing, they were trying to pay a deposit of £300 but were having some isses, agreed they would pay when they came to visit. 10 days later they came to the house and for an hour and we discussed how to take it down, size of van needed for transport etc. The reason for saying all this is that this was not an impulse buy, bid on wrong item etc - they gave every indication of going through with it. After an hour they made an exscuse to go to their car and a few mins later drove off. I waited 30mins and texted them to see if they were coming back - no answer. Sent text to his wife and she said they needed to think about it then later got text to say sorry for wasting time but not going ahead. I contacted several other bidders and as 10 days had past they had purchased other conservatories and so i could not sell to them either I mailed the buyer and told them i intended to relist and that any difference i would treat as my loss as they had a contract with me to buy and i with them to sell and that due to their delays i could not go to other buyers and so i would hold them responsible for any difference Re-sold conservatory for £485 so significantly less !! We are having an extension built and so there is a time constraint on the sale and removal I have mailed the buyer and told them if they pay me the deposit as agreed i will take no further action (they were clealry going to pay this amount and they would have lost this anyway), if they do not pay or do not reply i will go to the small claims court to recover the difference as a loss attribuatable to their actions So my questions: Did we have a contract in place either real or implied? They delayed thier change of mind for 10 days so this lost me the option to go to other buyers in a timely way and in this 10 days they clearly indicated their intention to go ahead and to pay a deposit of £300 which i would have been able to retain - does this count for anything? Can i go to court for the difference between what they had agreed to pay and the actual second selling price i.e. can i claim this as my LOSS as well as any other directly attribuatable costs? I understnad i can only claim for my loss, no penalties etc when talking about breach of contract - got a lot of info on this when i was looking into clamping and car parking tickets !. My opinion is i had a contract to sell and they had one to buy for £1300, they clearly indicated over a number of days they would go ahead (i have every mail and text ...), i then had to resell due to time constraints and it went for less and so my loss is the difference - right? So can i do this or am i just frustrated at people who go back on deals but its ok to do that, no problem? Would i get anywhere with this other than the satisfaction of making them think long and hard about not backing out on a deal and thinking its ok and that there are no consequences to such actions? there seems to be very little info about people who have done this despite all the statements on ebay about auction bids forming legal contracts ...... I hope thats clear but please ask questions if anything needs to be clarified Any input welcome - the more qualified the better

US bank JP Morgan Chase has been accused of hiding its huge trading losses by a US Senate panel. The bank lost $6.2bn (£4.1bn) in trades last year by an employee nicknamed the London Whale. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that the bank misled investors and ignored risks. In response, the bank said: "While we have repeatedly acknowledged mistakes, our senior management acted in good faith." JP Morgan added that the management "never had any intent to mislead anyone". Bruno Iksil, the trader at the heart of the incident, was dubbed the London Whale because the positions taken were big enough to move markets. Mr Iksil lost his job as a result. "We found a trading operation that piled on risk, ignored limits on risk-taking, hid losses, dodged oversight and misinformed the public," said Carl Levin, the subcommittee chairman, who is a Democrat. The report suggested that senior executives, including chief executive Jamie Dimon, were aware of huge losses at the bank, downplaying the risks in public, but also blamed federal regulators for a lack of oversight that allowed the country's largest bank to take on levels of risk. The bank "gambled away billions of dollars through risky and exotic trades, then intentionally hid its losses from investors and the public, showing complete disregard for risk management procedures and regulatory oversight," Republican Senator John McCain said.The committee will question bank officials and regulators on Friday aboutthe trading loss. Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21795662

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20624552

JP Morgan is facing an investigation into its near $6bn (£3.7bn) trading loss by the same Congressional committee that grilled HSBC over violations of anti-money-laundering rules. The Senate’s permanent sub-committee on investigations is said to be seeking testimony from those involved in the trades that stemmed largely from JP Morgan's London office. An investigation by the committee, chaired by Democratic senator Carl Levin, will once again focus the attention of US politicians and the public on regulation in the City of London. The trades in the credit derivatives market were made by those who worked in the London arm of the chief investment office (CIO), the division tasked with investing the more than $300bn of surplus deposits JP Morgan has from customers. London-based trader Bruno Iksil, who has left the bank, was dubbed the “London Whale” because of the size of the bets he made. JP Morgan is seeking to claw back the bonuses and pay of those responsible for the trading loss, which stunned Wall Street when it was disclosed in May. More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9529326/US-senators-to-grill-JP-Morgan-over-6bn-losses.html