Hi,Not sure if posting this in the first place so apologies if I'm not.2 catalogue companies have written to advise that they are putting the interest rates up to just over 40%. Is this legal? Its daylight robbery!

I can understand the need to take holidays at the same time when there are just the 2 of them working, but not when his bosses wife has a child, and not to be told a month later that that was your holiday, one of the days he text him to say they were working for 2 hours...now if thats supposed to be your leave you should be left in peace.

Thanks for advise so far. Re further help with leave. Last month his bosses wife had a baby, as a result the boss wanted to be with her so they did not work for 4 days, my son told me last night that he has been told that will come off his holiday, surely that can't be legal? How can he be made to use his holiday entitlement because his boss had a new child. Last night there was further disagreement because my son is 17 on Saturday. originally he had asked for the weekend off but was told he could either choose Saturady or Sunday, he choose Sat, then this week his boss said they would have Weds,Thurs off, he said in that case can we work Thurs and have Sunday off instead (Sat is leave), his boss said he would see. Then last night he sent my son a text saying be in at 8am, my son text him back and said does that mean we have Sunday off. His boss text back NO in capitals, he then left him a voicemail telling him he was the boss and he would decide when they were having off and if he didn't come in on Sunday then not to bother coming in again. I am certainly going to advise my son to look for work on his 'forced' holiday in 2 weeks, I am also going to seek legal advise I think. Are all employers like this, I'm a Civil Servant so its seems unreal to me as I pretty much please myself.

First of all Hi, I'm new to the forum as a poster although I have read loads of good advise on here over the months, so perhaps someone can help me. I'm unsure of the law here,and would appreciate advise from someone that has expereience of employment law. I have a son under 18, he has worked for a sole trader since September, part of his job involves getting on roofs. After the really strong winds a couple of months ago he was unsettled, his employer came to see us, told us he was completely satisfied with all other aspects of his work but was worried about this sudden not wanting to go on roofes.He said he had told him he would dock £100 off his wage each week if he didn't do it. He said to us he was going to do it for 2 weeks to see if it made a difference.We agreed to this as he said he didn't really want to do it but it might shock him into realising he had to do it. It did, the very next day my son got on the roofes and has done so since, only refusing when the employer leant a ladder up a chimney stack, and expected him to walk abot 6 foot past the top of the stack, he told him it was unsafe so refused to climb. Its now 8 weeks since he reduced his pay,and he still hasn't raised it back to the agreed £250 a week my son took the job on. I contacted him and he said he was still abit concerned he was still on reduced wages, he said he was OK on roofs but not on 3 storeys(my son said that was rubbish and he had been on 3 storeys fine) and would re-access in 1 month. I think this employer is totally taking the p***. Any ideas? Just to add, apart from this he is breaking loads of working time regs, they worked about 20 days straight before christmas, no extra money. He hasn't given him a contract, and although he worked 3 weeks in hand at the beginning of his employer he told him he could sack him at any time because he hasn't gort a contract.He has to work bank holidays and he told him 16 year olds aren't allowed bank holidays. I would seriously like to tell him were to shove his job, but its my sons first job, he was earning good money and needs to save for his car insurance,phone etc, so can't just walk away, and as he just works for this man and not a company I want to be careful not to cause bad feeling towards my son. He is employed, gets a wage slip, pays tax etc. Also re holidays, his employer is taking a week off next week, obviously my son cannot work whilst he is off so his boss said that is one of his weeks holidays, my son doesn't really want this week off as he has nothing to do, can he force him to use a weeks holiday in this instance? Thanks