Hi there, I am new to this and would kindly welcome some advice if anyone could help? I'll keep it brief and to the point. Work for global corporation, my head office based in UK. Employed by this company for nine years, no complaints at all. Had various directors, regional managers and line managers over these 9 years. Company was restructured late December 2014, I inherited a different regional manager and line manager in January (both who work in a different division and have no knowledge of the job I do, regional manger been there for at least 7 years, line manager only promoted to line manager in January 2015, previously same job spec as mine only different division). Was given a complete new territory in January unannounced (had been consultant for a different territory for over three years and built up good trust and sales with these customers). Regardless, went out and done my job, hit my sales target in January despite the whole territory being new. Two weeks into February had a conversation with my new line manager who was enquiring why the mood was so low in our team ( a team of ten consultants) and I had offered a suggestion that "maybe the constant negativity wasn't helping" . I said this as we had all received a barrage of negative emails and phonecalls from said line manager, and everyone was moaning about it, seen as we were a new team that had been put together in January, me being the longest serving employee out of the whole team said what I said. The day after, at 7.30pm I received a friendly txt from line manager asking if I could meet him the following day to have a chat about figures, I agreed as didn't think anything of it, went to the meeting location the next day, was invited into a room by line manager, next thing regional manager walks in (unannounced) asks me "do you know what youre here for" when I replied "it was my understanding I was here to have a chat about figures with line manager, he said "no, youre going to pick your way to leave this company". He said "you can either resign, or I will make your life hell and make you leave". You have until Tuesday the following week to decide. I told him after a barrage of abuse from him, I wasn't resigning. The next morning the abuse continued, wont go into detail just now but will if anyone wants to know the details, just want to get the main points out just now. The next day I met with HR as I was disgusted at what had happened and told HR everything that had been said and proposed etc. HR (after hearing my side of the story), two days later, they wrote back saying they had spoke to both concerned and that they had all agreed that they would all meet with me to have a discussion. I was horrified at this, I had been duped into a meeting were it was a 2 vs 1 scenario, no witnesses, was totally bullied and intimidated, no witnesses, and HR wanted me to meet with them again under the same set up, ( HR are supposed to be impartial but in our company they are not). Before this week came around I was that ill after the original meeting, had nearly crashed my car on a busy motorway after suffering a severe panic attack, more followed, that my GP signed me off work and prescribed anti anxiety medication. To cut a long story short, I raised a grievance, it was heard by same HR I had spoken to initially and another manager who offered me a "new position" when accompanying me down in the lift out of the meeting room once the grievance had been heard, I said nothing. It took them 5 months to conclude the grievance stating time out of office and work commitments. When the notes came out it was clear that both managers had colluded, also my notes were missing, when I asked about these, they then sent a diluted version of my notes, when I asked them that I wished them to be amended to what I actually said, they thanked me for the ammendum but stated it wouldn't change anything. They also added parts to my grievance which were not included, to absolve themselves I guess. My post was on a recruitment site straight after (I know this is not against the law but trying to give an insight). None of it was upheld. The two investigating, made the conclusion. In between the grievance conclusion and me stating I wished to appeal, the person I raised the grievance about was promoted. The Grievance appeal was heard by same HR person and finance director, was cut short as they had a flight to catch. I was then sent the notes of said meeting, it was so heavily diluted that anyone who didn't know about it would have a hard time working out what all of the fuss was about, my witness emailed their notes, after that, although a conclusion was promised by the end of last week, straight after my witness submitted their notes I received a "without prejudice" email asking me to accept a paltry amount of money. I would gratefully accept any advice on what to do next, if anyone has any questions please ask, I just tried to keep this post short (ish) and to the point. Thanking you all in advance.

I ordered a Three Piece Suite from Sofaworks Thurrock Essex on 29/12/2013 to be delivered in approx 16 weeks from the date. I paid the first Deposit of £100.00 on 29/12/2013 + another £200.00 on this same day. On the 28/12/2014 I paid the Full Remaining Payment of £1.641.95. The suite was delivered on 11/03/2014. Within 2 weeks there was a problem with a cushion on the 3 seater Settee and I attempted to contact the Company and eventually got through to express my concern after such a short space of time! On 16/04/2014 a man came and looked at the problem stating that he would "pack" the faulty cushion, but realised in the end that this was not going to work and decided to order 1 Inch foam for under the LHF 3 seat. 8 Weeks later he returned with the replacement cushion. We were told not to "Sit" so long in one particular place and that "We" *must Rotate and change seating every 2 hours because continually sitting in one place will make the cushions collapse* ,which beggars belief really as a Suite is for sitting on and not just for show surely. This time the newly replaced Cushion lasted less than 2 weeks and after attempting to make contact again and awaited their response from Head Office about this issue! By 01/08/14 still no word from them and I decided to go to the Store personally and visited them on 07/01/2015 voiced my concerns and once again I waited with nothing forthcoming at all from this company. I returned to the Store again on 21/01/2015 & was told that I would hear from them before the end of the month which didn't happen. While I was sat in a Hospital waiting room I received a phone call on 09/02/2015 to say that they would send someone on 23/02/2015 not giving a time. The man came and sat on the "Bad" seat and decided there was nothing structurally wrong with the suite ,it's *simply* the fact that it's sat on too long once again. The end result is this Suite is Not Fit for Purpose at less than 1 year old and the only thing the company will do is replace the cushion at my own cost. I have told them I will take this further which I am doing now. We have been told again not to "Sit" in one place too long as this will "degrade" the suite and we have to rotate cushions which we can't rotate because of the suites design. They will replace the Cushion at a fee to me but I am not willing to pay anything more to this company. The Suite is "Not Fit for Purpose" and as you can imagine we are at the end of our tether. The goods are shoddy rubbish.

Network Rails has said it will review it’s plans during development of the Thameslink programme at London Bridge after a short closure last night caused “Life Threatening Chaos” for rush hour commuters. Lines were shut down for 45 minutes from 4.20pm because of a person on the tracks at Streatham, the operator said. The knock-on delays saw huge numbers of people stranded on platforms and some forced to jump closed barriers to avoid the crush, while onlookers posted dramatic images online. The London Mayor, Boris Johnson said: “This chaos must end now. The scenes at London Bridge last night were completely unacceptable.“ It is a disgrace that Network Rail and the train operating companies have failed once again to get a grip of the situation at London Bridge. Mick Cash, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union said last night’s scenes were ‘horrific’, adding: “RMT is sick and tired of the excuses about the continuing chaos at London Bridge which led to horrific scenes at the station last night. I wonder if those that jumped the barrier are being prosecuted.

Hi All. I was recently travelling home from London on a Southeastern train after a few drinks with my work colleagues. Due to the onboard toilet being out of use and me bumping into an old friend on the train we decided to exit the train and use the station toilet in the knowledge that the train may depart and we'd have to get the next one. As i left the toilet the train was about to depart, and although i can't remember exactly what happened due to the drinks id consumed, i may have swore a few times asking them to hold the train. My friend, however, was still in the toilet long after the train had left the platform. Next thing we knew a policeman grabbed my friend as we stood on the platform and started to drag him out of the station, all the while accusing him of kicking the train and swearing at it (later changed to swearing at the rail staff). My friend denied this completely but the officer insisted it was all captured on cctv - somehow? When we got to the station entrance another officer joined the party as well as a rail staff worker. The story then changed to it being me who'd sworn at the rail staff as well as apparently banging on the the doors and the windows. Since my friend was with me (we'd bumped into each other two seconds before we got to the station as we were both looking for the onboard toilet) he was being ejected/ and also they still insisted they had us both on cctv committing the offence. In the end we gave up arguing after the threat of an arrest on the basis of Bylaw 6 - Unacceptable behaviour on the railway. I am now in the process of making a formal complaint as I don't feel the actions of the officers on the night was appropriate. I accept that my case is weakened by the fact that I don't have a perfect memory of all the events that happened BUT my friend does and whilst i admit i may have sworn as the train left, I strenuously deny doing it in anything other than jest based on the mood i was (and that we'd already preempted this the train leaving) and i certainly am not one for kicking inanimate objects, drunk or not. Furthermore, when the rail staff who i'd supposedly sworn at arrived at the exit I had never seen him before so I really think it's a case of mistaken identity - which is evident from the fact they originally grabbed hold of my friend (who is tall, skinny and SriLankan) mistaking him for me (I'm shortish and I'm told my Irish heritage is clear to see!). The investigating police officer has assured me that if the cctv evidence proves a crime was committed they will prosecute - which feels like they are trying to blackmail me into not pursuing it. I'm now stuck needing advice as to what to do next. Ordinarily i'd leave it and put it down to a bad experience but being stuck 40 miles from home after midnight and then having to pay £100 in taxi fares means I feel I should pursue it. Even if i did swear, I feel it would be totally reasonable given that we'd left the train to use the toilet, when most other people on the train were just using the bins or the seats! I don't feel they'd have sufficient evidence to prosecute me or if there is even a prosecutable offence for that matter? but they may try and use this as a way to ban me from using the train services in the future, which will be much more costly than £100 when i have to find other means for getting to and from work. However, ignoring my issue, my friend has clearly been picked on for absolutely no reason, other than maybe his ethnic appearance and anything they said about having cctv of him is an absolute lie. I don't think it is reasonable that someone can make a wild accusation and the police simply side with them without first checking the supposed evidence themselves. Any thoughts appreciated!

Hello Friends, Will landlord's reference always be considered truthful ? That gives the landlord a good way to blackmail tenants. My old LL did not protect my deposit. Isn't that good enough a reason to ignore such landlord's reference. What is the validity of reference from a person who himself is on wrong side of law? Are there any regulations/directives around this? Any pointers will be appreciated.

I have today within my probationery period been informed that my references were unacceptable. The company applied to a previous employer and said that they sent a "basic" reference and that that usually meant that there was a problem. Do I have any redress on this because I have no detrimental record against me. They just said dismissed with 1 weeks lieu of notice. How do I find out what is the matter with the reference? What do they mean "basic" please

Hi there, I registered on here today after nearly a year of enduring pc world's service. I purchased an Acer Aspire X1301 desktop PC from this store on the 16th of January 2010. I also purchased the Whatever Happens Club warranty service they offered - now known as the KNOWHOW service. Right off from the start we had a problem; the first unit we received and took home would not start up. Now it's clear that this must have been some sort of sign for the troubles that would arise in the next years. We returned the first unit and got another unit. This unit we have had for nearly 2 years now. The pc wouldn't start and had the blue screen of death frequently, and general power issues such as the pc booting but no fan running despite the blue led light on the front turning on. This was in March 2010, and an engineer came to our house to replace the case due to "power issues to do with the pc case". Next, in October 2011 the SAME PROBLEM OCCURRED. We sent the pc in for repair, and the fault was diagnosed by pc world as "boot fault", bsod and powers off". They had, this time, not even TOLD US WHAT REPAIRS HAD BEEN MADE. The desktop, being so unpredictable, ran fine after this again, until the 15th of March 2012. The SAME PROBLEM HAPPENED - YET AGAIN! Again the pc was sent in for repair and this time we were told on paper that during the repair the Hard Drive had been replaced - WHY HAD THEY NOT DONE THIS BEFORE? IS THIS SIMPLY THEM LYING, or replacing things because they do not know the real fault with the pc? I'm not sure. Then we received the pc back from the 'KNOWHOW' team. Then, just 3 DAYS LATER , the PC started acting up again - WITH THE SAME PROBLEM of turning off randomly. This time, I'd had enough of this terrible treatment PC world had given us - CLEARLY, they HAD NOT FIXED THE ISSUE THAT HAD STARTED IN 2010 with the "faulty case", and again, we took the PC to our local PC WORLD store. The 'KNOWHOW expert' at the store was very sympathetic and told us that the pc would be sent in for a write-off request - When we were at the store howeer, he opened up the pc, checked some things, didnt even bother booting it up, and just phoned the 'repair team' and talked about getting a write off. However, we were finally glad that we could just get a new pc that would just work - and not one that would have to be sent in for repair every few months - or even days at one point! We were told by the KNOWHOW member that we would be able to get vouchers to get a new pc at PC World. We were happy with this, and he said that it would take around a week for the whole procedure normally. Just three days later however, another KNOWHOW member called us up informing us that the write-off cannot continue. Apparently, the pc was working fine at that moment, and for this reason they could not send it off to the write off team - THE PROBLEM IS, I EXPLAINED TO HIM, THAT THIS IS WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS - THE PC IS FINE FOR ONE MOMENT AND THE NEXT IT DOES THE WHOLE TURNING OFF THING AGAIN! ! I told him this, but as ever, the KNOWHOW team say they understand our situation as customers but do not do anything to help us. He told us that the pc would be cleaned, sent back and that was it. I was very frustrated at this terrible service, and he also told me that when the problem happens again, i should phone up the call centre and ask for "second level TSA support" - this, he said, was a higher form of authority which would be able to push for a write -off stronger and thus would help us get a replacement pc. At this point, if you have read all this, I hope you can see what I am so frustrated about. This pc has been sent in 4 times (5 if you include the exchange of pc on the very day we bought it), and the same problem occurs all the time. The pc world KNOWHOW person who was there had even told us that since it had occured 4 times, with the same problem, we were entitled to a write-off and replacement, but he unfortunately did not tell us that after 4 times we were only eligible to a write- off. This is not that much of a problem however as this is in the warranty contract. The problem is that the pc turns off randomly, so at times it will seemingly work fine and then gradually it gets worse until we send it in for repair. Then the same cycle would happen again! I would really appreciate some help with dealing with this ridiculous service I have received over the past 2 years - I just want a working PC. Add on top of that that the warranty runs out in January 2013 - it seems to me as if they are delaying replacements until the warranty finishes and then they will do nothing about it at all. I really would like some help with this ordeal - sorry for the long post but I wanted to make it really clear how bad I feel I have been treated as a customer who has paid over £500 for the PC and the warranty service.