Classic case of no assets to protect, was told that this was a quick way of getting out of debt and was foolish enough to believe it. Wasn't told of the consequences of the IVA and how devestating it would be. Have now defaulted on it as I couldn't keep it going.

Hi I desperately need some help with a mis-sold IVA, can anyone put my in touch with someone that could help me please? Thanks

Can anyone help me on an insurance question please? Briefly the tale is as follows....I was due to go on holiday and bought travel insurance from the travel agent. A week before I travelled I had an accident and was unable to go. So I claimed against my travel insurance. I am also in the midst of a personal injury claim in relation to the accident. The travel insurance company has now written to me asking for details of the solicitors dealing with my personal injury claim so that they may 'recover their expenses'. I am extremely surprised at this as I don't see what the personal injury claim has to do with them. I wrote to them stating as such and they basically said that they had a right to recover their costs against any third party? Is this correct? Seems extremely odd to me as surely the contract of insurance is simply between myself and the insurer? Thanks

All I am about to attempt to get some credit card charges, PPI and bank charges back from my bank. I know to hang fire with the bank one following the recent judgement, but I will need details of the charges before I attempt to get them back anyway. So what I want to know please is surely if I DSAR them for the PPI & Bank Charges they will have to send me the CCA anyway? Also do I just need one letter per institution (I had a bank account, loan and credit card with one bank) or will one DSAR quoting three account numbers cover it? Thanks

Right all, this is a long one, so hang on. In 2008 I booked a holiday on lastminute.com (never use these people they are absolutely awful). After discovering that the hotel in the ad was not the one I thought it was (the discription was ambiguous) I cancelled the booking via the lastminute.com website a matter of hours later. The next day the holiday company took the full value of the holiday (over £1K) off my debit card. I was livid but they told me that they never recieved my cancellation instructions from lastminute.com and therefore said that I would have to pay the whole cost of the holiday. To cut a very long story short, I eventually got everything back barring a £200 cancellation fee, which the holiday compnay told me they would help me pusue from lastminute.com. Anyhow, the minute I started to pursue lastminute.com the holiday company turned on me and it transired that they had lied to me about who had entered the holiday description (the ambiguous hotel bit) and it was indeed them. So this eventually ended in the small claims court where I attempted to get my money by via the package holiday regs under clause 4.1 on the grounds that the hotel description was ambiguous and that the cancellation policy was misleading (lastminute.com later said I could only cancel via the operator and not them). The judge to my amazement dismissed the claim as he said the description of the hotel was not misleading (i.e. didn't say it was something it wasn't) but he did not address the cancellation proceedure fiasco. I am furious about this and am not going to let it lie. However, to appeal the decision will cost me £100 and of course I may not win. Alternatively should I be going after lastminute.com now rather than the tour operator and finally if I have already made a claim under the package travel regs can I now go after them under the Sales of Goods and services act? What do you think I should do? Thanks

Is anyone planning a meet in the North west? manchester for instance?

Webferret - I invited them to take me to court for 'breach of contract'. If (and its rather a big if in my view), breach of contract coud be established in their favour then the remedy for the breach would surely be the amount of money which the breach of said contract had cost the company in question? It was a free car park, so no financial loss, no financial remedy.

Yes of course I was joking and if you are talking about the system i think you are talking about then ihave already done it for my own vehicle.

Its a shambles. I have complained to the DVLA and await their response. The BPA weren't interested (quelle suprise) and I don't think the staff at the PPC can read, so no point going there. I am going to register my car to someone else, maybe the CEO of a PPC and see how many PCNs, FPNs private tickets I can get in a week.......

I hear what you are saying Busby, but the main point I was trying to make here is where does the DVLA's 'reasonable cause' excuse fit into this? In this case there was no cause at all so how can they justify this?

Grrrrrrr already typed this once then my server crashed. Bugger, here we go again then. Don't take the telephone call. Email the company / write to them saying 'all future correspondence in writing please, DO NOT CALL ME'. If they persist in calling (they will) email them back saying you have asked them to stop calling, they have ignored your request and this is therefore willful harrassment. CC the financial ombudsman & the OFT into the second email. This will stop them. You must be very firm about the everything in writing stipulation as a) it will stop the 700 calls a day and b) it means you have a record of everything should you ever need it as evidence (which I feel is extremely unlikely). You have every right to request written confirmation of the agreement / details of the account, etc and they HAVE to provide you with it. If not you simply don't pay them. So I would simply do the above, sit back and see what paperwork arrives and take it from there.

Right, I have read the above with interest as I myself have had cause to email the DVLA and ask the 'Reasonable Cause Question'. The story is as follows. I borrowed my mum's car when she was out of the country on holiday. I parked at a local retail park and got a parking ticket. Knowing a bit about parking (thanks to this forum) I had no intentions of paying it. However I knew that they would contact my mother if I did nothing. So.........I wrote to the company in question saying 'Hi there I was the driver at the time so your beef is with me. Here is my name and address, please take me to court etc....'. Then my mum gets a letter from said company saying she owes them £200 and she calls me in a state. I explain the situation and contact the comany again saying I was the driver, its nothing to do with my mum. Stop bothering her. My mum then gets a further letter from said company saying if you don't cough up (about £300 at this stage) we will take you to court and send in the bailiffs. So at this stage (my mum was going to pay it but I went nuts and said over my rotting flesh) I complained to every man and his cat including of course our good friends the DVLA cc-ing in the PPC. Neither my mother nor I have heard from the PPC since (this was about a year ago). However, the DVLA's response really got my goat - what with the whole 'reasonable cause' twaddle. So can someone please explain to me where the cause was in this request. The PPC had the name of the Driver (they responded to my letter saying 'your appeal is dismissed' I wrote back saying 'it wasn't an appeal - I was telling you the only way you are getting money out of me is via the courts) and therefore had no reason WHATSOEVER to approach the DVLA. The did anyway probably because they thought they had more chance of getting the money from my mum than me. Any thoughts folks?

If these are speeding fines then these will be from the magistrates court. If there are any PCN ones then the above is correct go to the Council. In relation to the speeding fines / any other magistrates court fines, I would write two letters, one to the bailiff company copmplaining about the actions of the bailiff in question and explaining that you have all identified yourselves on many occasions. Ask for confirmation of the date and court where he is certified (this will put them on notice that you intend to complain to the court in question about the bailiff himself) and advise that you will complain about them to the OFT if this continues. Next write a similar letter to the court which has issued the warrants and advise them of the same (not the OFT bit). Give them ten working days to respond before you escalate your complaint to the Area Directors office. Also explain that you will hold them responsible for any actions taken by the bailiff in the meantime. Get the letter to the court done ASAP as that will undoubtedly be the best way of calling off the dogs. Good luck.

I am sure that you are correct sammythebest, as this would indeed make logical sense and this is the argument I have used with the banks in the past. However as others have stated this is not what happens in practice and the banks allow this to happen. I had to threaten mine with court action on this very matter. The moral of the tale I am afraid must therefore remain, don't give debit card details to anyone.

Sorry I should have made that more clear - the above is intended to be done AFTER you have cancelled the card. Robjam1969 is quite right the card should be cancelled as a matter of priorty, the rest is your damage limitation plan.

Unfortunately not. Once you give someone your card details they have what I think the banks refer to as 'continuius payment authorisation' which basically means that they can take whatever they like whenever they like. Crazy I know but true (I have argued this point with banks more times than I care to remember) once the arrangement is in place it is up to you to prove that you have cancelled it. So the best thing to do is send the company in question a letter / email immediately expressly revoking any authorisation to use the card with immediate effect. Also advise them that you have sent a copy of this email / letter to your bank so that anything they take will be fraud. Then keep a copy of th letter / email to recalim anything they do take. Having learnt from previous, very bitter experience NEVER give your debit card details to anyone. If you must give card details make sure its a credit card as you then have charge back rights. Hope that helps.

Get a copy of your contract from the gym in question. I can gaurantee you it will either be a pile of garbage and completely unenforceable or it will have unfair contract terms in it. Don't worry these ones are very easily solved and I have sorted David Lloyd out on more occasions than I care to remember!! Feel free to PM me if you need any help / want me to look over the contract for you. meantime write to the DCA and tell them that the account is in dispute and remind them that they are barred from chasing you for money whilst the account is in dispute.

Subbing

Er all, have you CCA'd these guys? they have nothing on you. Its totally unenforceable. I didn't pay them back at all. That wasn't the original intention btw but when I missed one month's payment they got really nasty and I was so horrifed at their antics that I decided to get nasty too. Long and short of it is I called their bluff and reported them to the financial ombudsman. never heard from them again.

Report this person to ebay. This is an abuse of the system and should put this person's account in jeopardy. You are doing all you can to solve the problem and as such shouldn't have to put up with this. If the buyer had paid through paypal it could take months to sort out missing items, so they are lucky they are getting it solved so quickly. As for the threats, ignore them, there is absolutely nothing they can do. Please don't be put off ebay, I have been using it for years and only come across a couple of bad apples. Most ebayers are pretty good. Good luck.

Hi there Thanks for the response the 'fine' in brackets meant 'OK I know they can ask for this so I'll pay it', I didn't think it was a further fine but thanks for the clarification anyway The £135 is a court fine for failing to provide them with 'requested' information following their obtaining a liability order, but I haven't seen the liability order they claim to have sent, or the request for info which they also claim to have sent. The info they are after is I believe standard stuff e.g. employer info etc presumably so they can wack an attachment of earning sorder on me. They are not getting this info as I will pay off whatever is outstanding before they get chance, the only problem is I have to wait for them to issue a new bill as the last one is incorrect. They have ignored all of my requests for copy correspondence and I don't therefore know how much the liabiliy order is for, there is also therefore no evidence to say that they actually requested the information in the first place! One of their letters said £90 the other said it was for ober £200, but at no stage I have seen the actual order.

Hi I hope some one can help as I have trawled the web for this but got nowhere. My local council has fined me £135 for not providing them with information. This is true, I didn't provide it.........cos they didn't ask for it!!!! I asked them for copies of the requests for information (they state there are three letters) but they won't send me them. On my second request I stated that they should retain copies under the Data Protection Act, they replied that they don't have to keep copies of letters to me (even though they contain both personal and financial information - Really???) and if I want to SAR them I can for a £10 fee (fine), but the information they will send me back will be encoded computer information which will be meaningless to me. Well I knw they can't do that as it has to be legible info and they have to expalin codes, but what I want to know is surely they have to keep records of things like court summons and liability orders? How the hell can I be fined in court with out them? If they do have to keep these surely they have to send them me following a SAR? The long and short of it is, I know fine well that either a) they didn't send this correspondence or if they did it went to my old address. For info they know fine well when I moved as this was the date opf my new council tax bill!! Can anyone help? Thanks

Forgot to say I lodged a complaint with trading standards, these must be mounting up now so add yours to the collection please!!

I have just had this same problem with my sisters next gen membership. The contract was a pile of poo and I told them to get knotted on this basis. Feel free to pm me if you need anything, but get a copy of your contract sharpish chances are the same error applies.

Hi hope you can help. I am about to issue a 'Letter before action' to a retailer who I may take to small claims court. There is a third party involved in the form if the items manufacturer (the item is a watch) who holds information on the matter which would be of use to me in the case. Now obvioulsy I want to get my mitts on this info so was going to SAR them. However, I am not sure that every piece of paper (repair receipts mainly) have personal info on them, although some definiately do. So what I want to know is will a SAR get me all of the info I need, i.e. they have to send me the whole file on my item or will they just weed out the stuff with personal info on it and sent me that? Finally if the later is the case is there any other way I can get them to give me the info I want? Thanks!!