I bought a pair of unnecessarily expensive sunglasses because I felt like treating myself. At first, I put my order in and my available balance updated from 254 pounds to 74 pounds. I wait a couple of days, after contacting customer support about an issue I had involving the status of my order, and if I could amend it, and my balance is still the same as above. There was no record of my payment being refunded in the message from customer support. 1 Day after this contact, and now after receiving my purchase, my current balance had not changed from 254, but my available balance had went back up to 254 pounds. Does this mean I have not been charged? Have I been refunded? I'm writing this because I have no knowledge of delayed payments, and am worried that I'll have to keep a close eye for a random payment. There is also no notification of a transaction taking place in my transaction history for my online banking page. I'm 17, and this was a gift to myself, and I'm now worried that I'll be charged a couple of months down the line and forced into overdraft. Any help or knowledge on this kind of situation would be extremely appreciated. I have no general knowledge on consumer rights or whatever this whole situation involves. I just want to know if I'll be charged sometime soon because this has never happened before. Edit: Also, almost every transaction I've done that was done straight through the bank and not Paypal, was removed instantly. This purchase was made with my debit card, not through paypal.

Hi-I hope I've found the right forum for my question which is onbehalf of my daughter.I am trying to help her in this matter but it is an area that I know nothing about. My daughter is in receipt of benefits and is a mother of 2 young children.She has recently been a victim of domestic violence & her partener/ex partener is now in custody. During the height of the violence,my daughter was moved into temporary acomodation (a B&B) for 10 days.This has completely messed her housing benefit up and the housing association are now demanding £300 in rent arrears for the 10 days she was absent. Both the council who issue the rent allowance & the housing association are passing the buck,saying it is up to the other to sort it out. Are there any bodies that I can ask to intervene?I am considering asking the Local Government Ombudsman for help regarding the council,I just wondered if there were any support groups out there or governing bodies for the housing associations? Any help will be very much appreciated. Mark

Currently I am on ESA and am constantly reassesed. My condition is fluctuating and leaves me in a great deal of pain about half the days out of the month and I cannot predict when I will fall ill. There are some days when I am well enough to work and I am happy to do so but so far no employer as been willing to take me on given the unpredictable nature of my condition and indeed a Work Porgramme advisor was the person who told me to apply for ESA as he said I had no hope of finding a job. The only option I see is self employment working from home as that would allow me to manage my condition but while I do have some skills I am not confident that I can make a living at least not for sometime on self employed homework. I have looked into WTC and I believe I would be entitled to the disability WTC if I lived alone but if I were living with a working partner his income and anything I made would be put together and considered jointly. I don't live with my partner yet but I would like to move in with him and he with me. He does work and makes a good income of around £30,000 a year before tax etc. However I wouldn' be able to live with him unless I made a say around £500 a month. He is understanding about my situation but with the cost of living so high and being that his elderly mother still relies on him financially to a degree I don't think he would take me on unless I was bringing something to the pot to help with my own living costs. From what I understand if I was living with him any claim for WTC would account for his income and I would recieve nothing even if my personal income was very small. I find this difficult as there is no guarantee that a disabled persons partner would be willing to support them financially. It is hard enough to find and maintain a relationship if you have health problems never mind the added financial concerns. I am getting older and worry that this might be my last chance at having a relationship and I want to keep it but I don't feel that I can ask him for so much. I don't know what my options are if I suspect that I will be removed from ESA sooner rather than later with no consideration give to how likely it is that I will find a job. I could stay as I am with family and try to build up self employment while getting Disability WTC and trying to earn more but I run the real risk of my partner losing interest and moving on. It also means that yet again my illness is preventing me from living my life. I already put up with so much that it would be nice to think that love isn't totally out of my reach. Is there anything which might allow me to do some work and get some support while living with my parnter?

Hello, First time poster here. About two years ago I asked a graphic designer to design some logo's for me. He advised that the fee would be £380 and £100 would need to be paid as a deposit before work could start, the invoice sent said that the designs would be completed in three weeks, I agreed and paid the £100 for work to commence. This was at the end of July/beginning of August 2010. By the second week of September I hadn't received anything so I wrote to the designer and asked for my money back as nothing had been done. He quickly apologised and said that he had broken his leg and was in hospital so hadn't been able to start. He also said that he wanted to get the designs added to t shirts and modeled before sending them to me, so I agreed to wait. I received the first proofs on the 29th September and wasn't really happy with them only one design was modeled and for about two months I was emailing and calling back and forth with him to get them to a satisfactory level. I wasn't 100% happy with the designs but by the beginning of December realised they weren't going to get any better so agreed that the last set of proofs would be the final designs. He sent the invoice on the 15th December and then asked when I would be able to pay. I said it wouldn't be until after Christmas, and he said that as soon as he received payment the designs would be sent to me. He said it would need to be by the 15th Jan for tax purposes, I said that was fine. Unfortunately in the first week of January I was made redundant from a temporary contract and no longer had the means to pay I was then on JSA. When the designer contacted me I informed him of my situation and advised that I didn't have the means to pay, but when i was back in work I would make payment. I then attempted to keep him informed of my situation by email. A little while later a lady who said she was calling on behalf of him but gave no company name, asked me when I could make payment, I advised her of my situation that I was no longer working and had extensive priority debts but offered to pay £5 per month towards the outstanding balance; her response was that a judge would not accept that against the outstanding amount to which i replied i cant afford anymore, she then replied we will have to take you to court, I then didn't hear anymore from either of them. I was unemployed for 10 months and faced repossession as well as a load of other financial problems, so when I got a job the designs were not a priority. However it was never my intention not to pay for the designs even if i didn't like them, so when I was a bit more financially stable I contacted him in August of this year asking for his details to pay the outstanding balance. 5 weeks later he sent me an email asking for £500 as opposed to the £280 outstanding stating late payment charge and the cost of debt recovery, he also stated he will no longer be chasing me for the balance. I have now also received a pre action letter from him and money claims UK for almost £500. He claims that he has tried various mediation methods but he has not I had contacted him to make payment and even offered to make payment when I was on JSA which he rejected. I never received any letters from him or anything else. When I asked him to send his details for payment he didn't, he just asked for £500. I actually don't want the designs anymore My question is can he chase me for money when I have not received the goods? Sorry for the long winded story but any help would be appreciated