Hi i have been following this site for years and know you have given some great help and advice. So here I am asking for help for my daughter. Background is she over the last 2 years she has earned around £1300 a month and in this time she has managed to get herself in a right mess. She started with catalogues from Fashion world, Littlewoods, very and studio who have all been increasing her limit until they reached around £1500 to £2000 then came along credit cards Barclaycard, marbles and capital one with about £500 limit on each then a 118118 loan of around £5000 To be fair she was managing all these payments but then she started on Payday loans which have completely messed her up. She has been trying to make payments but she hasn't got a penny to her name. Since august she has moved into her own property so things are even tighter now plus her work place has messed up her sept and oct pay so she is still waiting for payment from them for £1200 She has also from Monday started a new job with a slight drop of pay she will now be bringing home around £1100 a month. My daughter is very depressed and I am quite worried about her to be honest I am sick of seeing her cry over money. No 21 year old should be going through this. My question is I want to help her and get some letters sent to her creditors offering token payments (she has agreed a payment plan with some but at silly amounts she can't afford.) Where do i need to start? Her contract phone has been cut off so the phone calls have stopped but she is consistently getting emails and letters. (letters come to my address as ive told her not to change the address yet) Does the irresponsible lending work? as I am gobsmacked on how easy she could get a payday loan in 3 minutes from lots of different companies.

Defence Secretary announces massive £2.5bn investment in UK nuclear submarines READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-secretary-announces-massive-25bn-investment-in-uk-nuclear-submarines

Hi All, I have a massive debt, from JD Williams, from 2011/12/13 totalling nearly £5500, spread over six accounts. At the time, they let me open constant new accounts on their partner sites, and kept increasing the limit when I reached the limit I had on each one. I have not complained to them, but still it strikes me as irresponsible. I made payments for as long as I could, but then it all just became far too much for me, hundreds of pounds a month in interest and that was without all my other massive debts. This was from a period of massive debt issues, payday loans and numerous other personal problems. I have since sorted all the payday loans, credit card and other debts, and this is pretty much the last of what I have on my credit file. I get about 12 letters a week from Lowell who it seems now own the debt, sometimes more. I have been getting these letters for a year or so but need to sort my credit file as this is six constant red defaults staring me in the face. Lowell send me letters offering 50% off each account regularly, if I had the money I would pay it in an instant just to be rid of it. Does anybody have any advice for tackling this? I just want to sort it all out. I do not have much spare a month, but would be willing to pay it.

F-Secure is warning computer users about a significant increase in sightings of the Locky ransomware, typically spammed out posing as invoices or profiles for positions at your company. Here is how researcher Päivi Tynninen described the scale of the malware campaign: Yesterday, Tuesday, we saw two new campaigns with a totally different magnitude: more than 120,000 spam hits per hour. In other words, over 200 times more than on normal days, and 4 times more than on last week’s campaigns. If you make the mistake of opening one of the ZIP files attached to the spammed out messages, you will find a JavaScript file inside. Clicking on it would be a big mistake and lead to your computer being hit by the notorious Locky ransomware. Before you know it, you may have lost access to your files and find yourself being blackmailed for their safe return. Stay safe folks. Always be suspicious of unsolicited attachments.

Why am i putting this on. Well as i walk about and chat to different people,some who work for councils there is fear and worry and many stressed out people out there.Worried about their security,families,mortgages,rents. And also people in their local communities.Things like that if things go pear shaped. Is this if true anyway to live in these modern times. Now it is a bit late for me to look about,do a little research.But will as time goes on.A little tired.Soft,i know. And if you have a view and are looking in and want to have your say how you are feeling about things. Austerity State: how has your council’s budget changed? Between 2009/10 and 2014/15 spending by England’s local authorities was cut by a fifth — more than twice the rate of spending cuts to the rest of the UK public sector. Our Local Cuts Checker database brings together a myriad of data to allow readers to explore the impact of those cuts in their areas. Check it out.Take a look at the link. http://ig.ft.com/sites/2015/local-cuts-checker/#E06000009ZZE06000009 And if you are outside looking in and want your say,a link,we are a friendly lot. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/register.php

Hi I had a Santander account a few years ago. I stopped using the account in 2012 at a zero balance and notified them of such an action in branch. They said they'd keep it open for me unless I chose to close it. Fast-forward to today and I have accrued thousands of pounds of bank charges as the account was 'under-funded'. £5 a day was added in debt and this happened for two years. We even, now I know stupidly, paid off a lot of these charges - and that's all they were, bank charges, not a single penny was for any purchase of mine. This totals £2500. I attempted to notify them by writing, phone and in branch that I felt these charges were unfair and asked for the account to be closed. They wouldn't do it until the balance was zero. Finally, last year, they agreed to cease the £5 a day charge and I stopped paying them. I now have debt collectors letters for the final £1k-ish. That's £3500. Would anyone be kind enough to give me a step-by-step guide to reclaiming with template letters, etc? I've recently been made redundant and cannot even claim JSA as, working on a zero hours contract for the past three years, apparently I've not made enough NI contributions. Thanks for any help.

first I will describe the problem, I am paying for gas by prepayment meter , the prepayment screen on the meter is blank and it will not except payment by the card, the meter gas reading still works and there is gas supplied even without payment via the card, it's been like this for at least two years. I recently transferred to another supplier for both gas and electricity. I was sent a final estimated bill for nearly two and a half thousand pounds from my former supplier, assuming that I will have to pay them something my questions are: 1 can they calculate an arbituary estimate which I must pay or should it be based on actual readings from meter, I have noticed on some of my previous statements that they indicate that I have submitted readings to them which I haven't done. 2 can I make them send me documentation of the period that they are charging for and the calculation of the fee for that period. 3 with the rules of them not being able to back charge beyond the last twelve months, how could they accuratly calculate how much was used during that period. 4 The point of being on a prepayment meter is not to get into debt, is part or all of the fault down to the former supplier and should they have to accept all or some of the the losses incurred 5 if I have to pay would they except payment by installments niyaman

i've recently moved out of a flat i shared with a friend we passed on our final meter readings and we have now received our final bill. To my absolute shock the electricity bill read £628! Immediately i rung up saying there must be some mistake the woman on the phone said it is correct as it was part of the monthly payment plan. Never once when being signed up by someone who works for Utility Warehouse was i told about or explained what the payment plan was. Apparently to keep your monthly bills low they will only charge you a little amount of your electric bill (£7 in my case) but then when you decide to leave you get hit with this massive bill of all the electricity charges you actually owe. When asked why i wasn't told about this and why we weren't just charged for it at the time each month i was unable to get a proper answer. i was just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar or know what i should do next ?

Fees for some courts could double under plans revealed by the Ministry of Justice today – the day after the House of Commons adjourned for the summer recess. Under a consultation announced by justice minister Shailesh Vara , the maximum fee for money claims would rise from £10,000 to £20,000. Fees are currently payable on 5% of the value of a claim up to a maximum fee of £10,000. Personal injury and clinical negligence claims will be excluded from the higher cap and fee remissions for those ‘of limited means’ will still apply. Fees would be introduced to the property, tax and general regulatory chambers. Fees for general applications in civil proceedings will increase from £50 to £100 for an application by consent, and from £155 to £255 for a contested application. Fees for divorce proceedings will increase from £410 to £550. http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/moj-proposes-new-round-of-court-fee-rises/law/uk-litigants-taking-higher-share-of-commercial-court-cases/law/action-day-22-legal-aid-practitioners-rally-in-london/law/moj-proposes-new-round-of-court-fee-rises/5050176.article

Imposing fines of up to £500,000 on the companies behind cold calls and nuisance text messages is to become easier under changes to the law being made by the government. The move follows tens of thousands of complaints about cold calling. Currently, firms can only be punished if the Information Commissioner can prove a call caused "substantial damage or substantial distress". But from 6 April, that legal requirement is to be removed. More than 175,000 complaints were made to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) last year about nuisance calls and text messages. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31616523

Good evening everyone. Nearly six months ago my Jaguar X-Type 03' has been involved in an accident with a HGV. No one was present in my car at this time, lorry was reversing and third party insurer accepted liability. Seems like a fairly easy case. I had a lot of bad experiences with insurance repairs as very often they do fairly good work with visual and cosmetic damages, but when it comes to more advanced / mechanical repairs it becomes a struggle. My insurer, Allianz, sent my car to the first garage who fixed rear driver's side wheel, mudguard and rear driver's side door. I started complaning about quality of repairs pretty much straight away, so my insurer decided to send it to another garage. Paint started coming off and door was fitted ridiculously bad. Second garage, Jaguar approved fixed the door, paintwork is still due to be repaired by the first garage. Same day I picked my car up from the first garage I noticed horrible juderring to my steering wheel. With no word of a lie, when going 70mph it's like working with a pneumatic tool! Can supply a video. I reported that to the insurance company, and now the problem begins that is still not resolved six months after the accident. Car was taken to second garage (mentioned earlier) that is Jaguar approved, they fixed the door but couldn't find a problem for juderring. First garage said that juderring is caused by ABS sensor, and even though most garages like ATS, KwikFit or Helfords said it's definitely not true, I replaced ABS sensor and when problem was still there I contacted Allianz to see what they say. All they said is that in their opinion car is perfectly fine as their engineer says so! As a European national I had to make a trip back home, to Poland to be precise, it's approximately 1800 miles in just a week. Now we came back and juderring got even worse. I decided to to go a random garage myself, pay 150 pound for stripping rear axle and see what the problem is. What was revealed is a nightmare. After stripping mechanic pointed out at bent break disc which was constantly holding vehicle, caliper is also damaged, however it is now not known whether capiler has been damaged during impact or during all that time car was running on applied rear break. There is also 1mm (apparently that's a lot!) space in gearbox adapter to rear axle that is also responsible for juderring. To put this all together. My insurer sent my car to two garages and none of those could be bothered to look properly at the car. That is on it's own quite strange, I rang three garages and just asked what should be done when car is hit in a wheel by a lorry, answer was always the same, strip the axle and investigate if there's any physical damage to the axle or other components. I was then allowed by my insurer to drive unroadworthy car for more than 1800 miles, and all together since the accident I am pretty sure I covered more than 2000 miles constantly risking my life, my family and other road users. Each garage stated that this is definitely a life-threatning fault. Disc and caliper due to this work could easily catch a fire, especially on a longer run. Summing up all I wrote in this 'essay'. Can I sue my insurer for that?

Hi there, I have accumulated over 85k in loans and credit cards and have just lost my job and no way to pay back. Is it possible for me to make myself bankrupt? I live in Scotland. Any help very much appreciated. I don't see any other way out... Many thanks,

Carphone Warehouse - on 12th September myself and my Partner pre-ordered the Iphone 6+ 64GB from CPW on the O2 Network. both orders was for the 64GB on 4G Tariff with 20GB Data Issues 1. Due to a system error at CPW, they placed the order with O2 but with only 5GB of Data and this effected a large amount of customers. We both received a text message saying they are aware of the error and are working with O2 to resolve this and would be resolved on Monday 22ed September. however this has not been resolved, near imposable to get hold of any one at CPW and when you do the phone goes dead mid call or they keep transferring you form person to person with no one aware of the issue. Contact O2 of which refused to deal with the issue as they are not point of sale. 2. my partners phone never turned up and not even an email or update. Contacted CPW of which keep passing us around again and said it would now be 13th October before the phone would arrive of which we then told them to cancel this order and went into store this sunday to order directly in store and walked out with a phone. 3. my brother placed an upgrade over the phone via CPW - however they made a mistake and instead of doing an upgrade they did the order as a new phone contract and O2 are now refusing to transfer the existing number over. the existing number is out of contract. again O2 Referred them to CPW as they are point of sale. Am i going mad here, O2 are the service provider and doing the billing and therefore are jointly responsible for dealing with issues? O2 said we can cancel under the cooling off period and then do a new contract. are they serious? if that was the case, i would not go back to CPW or O2 as both have let us down.

Several months ago my father-in-laws broken and no longer used mobile phone was stolen. As the sim was still active a large bill was ran up by the thief and his associates. The police were informed and an individual confessed to running up the bill. Despite the confession and this being an open police case Vodafone are still perusing my father-in-law for the bill and have passed the debt to a debt collection agency. Can anyone please offer advice or help with this issue?

Hi was wondering whether someone could advise me please. Below may be long but bear with me. I moved into my rental property back in Sept 12. After contacting NPower to carry on supplying the property they informed us that it wasn't them previously. After contact Southern Power they informed us to check the suppliers website and low and behold NPower supplied the property. We contacted NPower again to then be told it was them. We set up the account for Dual Fuel and the Direct Debit to what we normally pay which was £120 pcm. Thought nothing of it and a DD went out for only £40 but thought this was a part payment. During this period we still received mail from NPower for the previous tenant after contacting them on numerous occasions i was told to return the letters back to them and after a month they would stop. . It wasn't until December that i noticed no payment for Nov was taken and none for December itself. Contacted NPower to find out the account hadn't been created correctly and that it still appeared in the previous tenants name. I was told they would correct it. On the 27 Dec i received a letter from Debt Collectors for the previous occupiers. I again contacted NPower to verbally complain about the service received. I was told that the account still hadn't been recreated correctly and that it would be corrected. I spent a fair amount of this day discussing this issue. Again in Jan 13 no payment went out so contacted them again. I spoke to the Customer Services Onwatch Manager who apologised and assured me that the direct debit would be set up for £120 as discussed. I also discussed the outstanding amount from Oct 12 and was told that my account was currently not showing this amount. I waited until Feb 13 and no payment was taken this time i contacted the Complaints Dept and spoke with them. I discussed my concerns about a large bill due to there incompetence and was basically told to suck it up!! The DD was created but i was told it would be Apr 13 before the first payment would be taken. Low and behold a week later a payment of £120 was taken which crippled me for the next month. I contacted Ofgem who told me to write a complaint before they would it involved. I wrote my letter and received a response to contact them. This i did and got a slightly different response to last time contacted them. They apologised stated that the amount from Sep 12 - Feb 13 was not showing on the account and offered £40 as compensation for my trouble. I received a few bills and all was normal until today when i received a bill for nearly £900. I contacted them today and the initial response was "and what do you want me to do about it" however after giving them new readings i was told there was nothing they could do until a new bill was generated. I also informed them that my husband was about to lose his job on the 16 Jul 13. What can I do?? I begrudge pay these clowns as i feel they are at least 75% responsible for this. I was the one doing all the chasing after all.

Hi all, This doesnt seem right to me: I had an LO for £1095. Chandlers dropped of a letter without knocking and left a mobile number. I tried numerous times and left messages and even managed to speak to the Bailiff who said he was with a client and would call me back. He never did. Then on a saturday morning at 06:30 i was up getting ready to go fishing when i noticed someone walking away from my house down the path, he hadnt knocked as the 2 dogs would have woken the street!! I opened the door and asked him what he was doing? He said who he was from and said he had put a letter in the box (I have an outside one due to the dogs) I told him to go away and i'll call him when i'm ready. As it was Bank hol weekend he said he'll be back Tuesday from 6am! I said good luck and shut the door! I opened the letter to find a letter of distress. The fees he had listed were as follows: Amount due: £1095.56 Levy fee: £57.00 Attendance £292.50 Total: £1445.06 He had scribbled a description of my car and number plate in the box on the back. Is this all correct as it sounds excessive? Thanks

Hey guys I am 21 year old male. I am a good guy. I help grannies cross the street. I step in if someone is doing something wrong. I do the right thing. But I am a gambling addict. My father before me was a gambling addict and he got me down the same path. It has been a long and painful path. I cant think of a day of my life i have enjoyed the past 2 years. This is where I stand currently: I have £50 to survive to the end of next month ( live with parents ) I have about 6 payday loan companies expecting to take about £300 from my account in a few days. Nothing will be in there. I also have 2 loans of £5000 with santander & nationwide. I feel that both the above companies destroyed their duty of care when they gave me a loan, when I applied I didnt think I had a cat in hell's chance... I already had at least 4 outstanding payday loans, I barely ever paid my phone bill on time, I was on gamblers anonymous forums, I was in contact with gambling charities... if these companies spent 30 seconds looking into me I am certain they would not have given this loan. I also have my car insurance due to come out - I can find a way to pay this - But i may have to pay someone else and get them to pay the car insurance for me - as if i put the money in my bank one of these companies is sure to take it back out? I am seeking help for my gambling, I have quit cannabis but I can never quit gambling... I wanted to go to a rehab, but can only go if i have £10k to spare. LOL! I am so depressed. I am making plans for when I become homeless. I have a car and a job, but nothing else. What should i do? God bless you for reading this

Hi, In 2009, I went slightly over my agreed overdraft with HSBC and they slammed me with a £100 charge. On 17 November 2009, HSBC called me to let me know I'd gone over the agreed limit. I could not afford to repay the enitre amount until I got my student loan (which was running late, due to the Student Loans Company needing medical evidence to let me repeat the year). HSBC were okay with all of this, and we agreed I would make a small payment of £15 on 3rd December 2009. I made the payment as agreed. In a separate savings account, I was collecting money from my housemates to pay utility bills. HSBC decided, on the 8th December, to use their right to set off and take £240 from this other account. 1. I informed HSBC of my financial difficulty while I was waiting for my student loan 2. We both agreed on a £15 payment 3. They gave the impression that £15 would prevent further action, but I may need to make another small payment later Considering these facts, were they wrong to use the right to set off?

Read more: http://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk/latest-news/which-urges-bank-of-ireland-mortgage-customers-to-lodge-complaints-about-rate-hike/1070312.article

A bailiff called today but didn't explain who he was properly so hubby let him in, the man then said who he was and hubby quickly escorted him back out the front door. Hubby told him he wasn't going to be coming in and doors and windows would be locked. The man wrote a few things down and left. Is this now seen as allowing him in and I wonder if what he wrote down was a list of things he had seen. He also came at 6.30am I didn't think they were allowed to come that early. Can anyone help please

I really need some help with this one if possible. On 27th December 2012 I applied for a contract ipad whereby I had to pay a deposit of £99 once the contract had gone through after a initial credit check, I put my debit details in assuming they would only use this for the credit check nothing more I waited and the next morning my credit was declined and I was informed via a generic email that no money would be removed from my account. Looking at my statements £99 was removed so that weekend I emailed Vodafone CS asking when this would be returned I have no less than 20 emails from CS advising the same unhelpful, generic rubbish. They keep advising me on how I can appeal the decision (which is not something I intend to do) and stating a average waiting time of 8-14 working days before the money is returned but giving no satisfactory answer as to why they hold my money for so long and why they do not advise this during the application process or on the declined email. I have been extremely patient and have been struggling to make ends meet because I have been waiting for so long for this money to be returned to me and it has been extremely upsetting, today Vodafone stated for me to wait another 3-5 working days to see if this money will magically appear but I find this unacceptable as I have been more than patient and would like my money back which they are not entitled too. Can anyone help me with this? Kind Regards

Hi, I went through the whole investigation process earlier last year with regards to my claim for child and working tax credits for the years 10-11 and 11-12. Basically during those 2 years my partner and i werent together and he lived away from the family home. However i was flagged up as his name was still on mortgage and some of the bills. The whole process made me ill and there was no way i could prove he wasnt living at our home amd had another address as he was working away staying in hotels. they needed concrete evidence such as him paying council tax or rent elsewhere. They told me i could appeal but i didnt have it in me to do it and just had to take it on the chin. They calculated that i owed them £29,000 for the 2 years (yes OUCH!!) and as i am in hardship they have agreed for me to pay back £10 a week for now. I will be 98 when its all paid! I have asked in the past, but have not had an answer as to whether this can be reduced according to what he actually earned during those 2 years. For example, during one of those years he was out of work for a few months but did not claim benefits, so that year he didnt earn a great deal and we would have been entitled to some tax credits. HMRC have not taken his earnings for those 2 years into account and i think that if they did, it would reduce my debt by at least £10,000 if not more. We are now back together and have been advised to put in a fresh joint claim which we have and i am still entitled to some money per week. I am wondering whether there is anyone i can speak to regarding this who would know if it can be looked into. Thanks for any help!

hi, ive come home today to a letter from scotcall, for a debt of £10276!!! eeek was hoping that one wouldnt find me! ive checked my credit file. this loan was taken in jan 2007 as a consolidation loan. it paid off a credit card, paid for a new car and also paid off another hsbc loan. now the loan that scotcall are wanting me to pay doesnt seem to appear anywhere on my credit file. the one i paid off with this loan does, hence why i know when the loan was taken out. . so this loan started jan 2007, i paid it for 6 months until i had big probs and couldnt afford the repayments. in september 07 i moved house and didnt hear anymore about thios loan until i got this letter today. they want payment in 7 days or they will send someone round. im just after some advice on what to do? ive heard about some 6 year thing? its almost 6 years since i have heard anything about the loan so would it be wise to just sit on it and hope for the best or should i try and arrange some kind of payment with them. ive been doing so bloody well in clearing my debts and then this turns up!!! any advice gratefully recieved

Hi I have just received a bill from E.On for just around £3000 because THEY have been reading my meter wrong, + we have supplied several reading both bu email and leavin the card out. Do I have any obligation to pay this? As I said it has been their error in reading it wrong for goodnes knows how long. Thanks

Hello all, I am not really sure about this post but I will give it a go! I have not sought help on this matter before as I didn't even know this website existed. If there is anyone out there who could give me a little advice it would be great ! I have done some reading, but it would be great if some people could just explain a little about exactly what to do, and whether its worthwhile etc. I am in major debt, of around 15k-ish I think. Sadly my parents were never good with money and always had things on finance etc - (and paid all the time in full etc. but they had a good business going at the time, until it went wrong). So when I hit 18, I thought finance was completely normal and rinsed everything I could, so I took out a £10k loan about 3 days after my birthday and brought fancy cars and was completely careless. I have now learnt my lesson!!!!! I paid everything fine all the time, until I lost my job. Since then, I have had a nightmare between jobs all the time and its gone wrong, and for the last two years its completely messed up being self employed with no regular income. I really need to get this sorted because it is completely hindering my life, and stopping me from saving up etc. My debts are as follows - Natwest Loan (with wescot credit services - not spoke to these about the debt yet) - £10700 - latest was taken out 04/2008, defaulted on 07/2011 Natwest Overdraft (also with wescot as above) - £950 - defaulted on 08/2011 HFC Hire Purchase - £450 - Defaulted 04/2010 Vodafone (with capquest) - £107 - Defaulted 07/2009 I also have a credit card with MBNA (balance of £1800), which went to experto credite. I have spoken with them on the phone and have an agreement to pay £10 a month now. HOWEVER, this account does not show up on my credit file report from Equifax, how strange? It mentions nothing about a credit card from them at all. Is that normal? I now have a job (employed, with a salary + commission). My partner and I have just got a house (through her parents etc.) and now we have monthly bills to contend with aswell. I have no idea where to go from here, I don't know what all this CCA or SAR is, or whether using them will benefit, or whether I should let some debts go, I don't know! One thing I cannot have on my credit file is a CCJ, insolvency, or becoming bankrupt (the line of work I want to go into won't let me). Is there anything I should be doing, or should start to do ? Dear me =(