Dear all, I would appreciate some advice. My friend holds a current account with Barclays. She has an arranged overdraft of £130. Her balance at the time of these problems was around the £0 mark. Her direct debit was due to come out of her account for car insurance: £78. The debit came out and was returned the same day, even though this did not bring her to her overdraft limit. The insurance company then charged her £20 and redebited 6 days later for £98. This was again returned, and again the overdraft was available for use. The insurance company has now levied another £20 charge and are now demanding £118 within 14 days. They have also added a default to her credit record. The bank have also made two returned transaction charges on to her account, more money. What can she do? Can we claim the £40 of charges the insurance company has levied back from the bank, as they should have payed these DDs. Thanks!

Hello all, Got myself in a bit of credit debt, had 3 credit cards on the limit along with a store card on the limit. 2 x cards @ £1000 limit. 1 x card @ £800 limit. 1 x card @ £400 limit. Missed a few payments and only met minimum payments for a while which has caused by credit score to go into the poor range. I have now payed every card off in full, so i owe NOTHING (wooo!). I have heard before once cards have been payed, not to close the account. Elsewhere, I have heard I should. But I'm not sure what the best thing to do is. I want to keep one card really and keep pushing the provider for limit decreases over time, etc. Should I just use the best one and ignore the others....or close the ones I don't need? Thanks.

I sent the insurance company a letter stating why I did not think the amount was due, reminded them they had not sent me T&Cs and requested they do so, asked for a detailed breakdown of how the balance was calculated. Received a letter back telling me they would be considering my complaint. Couple of weeks afterwards they sent me a letter confirming the advisor did state I would receive a refund and that they had given me incorrect information. As I was quoted this by the advisor, they have removed the outstanding balance and honoured the refund I was originally due. They also supplied a detailed breakdown and the T&Cs. They also gave me £25 as a good will gesture. Good result!

Thanks guys, I will start with the letter and see what they have to say. Keep you posted. Any other input is appreciated and welcome

Thank you for both your replies. I'm definately going to get some stuff in writing, that's definately important! What is an SAR? Information request isn't it?

Nope. I can't remember them ever actually sending me any. I'm unsure, I may just have lost them though.

Hey all, Here's the story. Bought a years motorbike insurance from a large high street insurance company. Rode for around 1 to 2 months. Cancelled insurance - guy on the phone told me I would receive an approx £33 refund due to what i'd paid against the amount of time I'd been insured. He told me that this was after they had taken the £30 cancellation charge and I would receive it upon returning my insurance certificate. Had a couple of letters from them a few weeks after demanding £33 to be paid TO them. Upon ringing and asking why, they said it was in my terms and conditions but would say little more about it. I'm not prepared to pay something I shouldn't have to and that means I will have paid around £60 for two months insurance - the premium was £112 for a year. I told him I wouldn't pay when I didn't see what is is for and all the guy would do was put a note on my account saying I had refused to pay. Now had this letter from the debt collectors and have already missed their deadline due to being away. What do I do from here? Thanks!

No I haven't but I'm going to try that before I take it back again. Also, phones4u are refusing to provide a courtesy phone to me whilst they repair my phone. I thought that they are required to provide me with a like for like replacement? Especially as they sold me a product that was already broken

Hi all, My friend walked out of his job the other day. He wrote a letter and gave it to them, then left straight away without giving any notice more than allowing the store to phone someone to come straight in and cover him. Payday has come as he hasn't been paid for the last 2 weeks before he left. Surely, even though he broke his contract terms and left instantly, they still have to pay him?

This is an old post you can now close. I did win against my employer - they weren't able to let me go and I got off scott free after presenting all the evidence, relevent employment legislation (ROA act), etc.

Yes thats right, this is the problem I have. I find it deeply unnacceptable because its been like this for so long and nothing has been done about it. As it happens, it will hopefully no longer be an issue for me soon due to major shift changes. But until then, I can't push any more arrangements out of the way becuase of this. It seems like employers are allowed to literally dictate exactly when they want you there regardless of why you can't be. As long as they keep to the 48hours, it seems to be perfectly acceptable and they don't seem to have to give you any notice. Does this mean that they could call you up in the morning one day and say be here in 2 hours on your week off whilst your 100 miles away from work or your fired for breaching the contract? Clearly, thats ridiculous and unreasonable and I'd hope no-one would ever try that - but would there even be any protection for the employee....even when it's that ridiculous?

Ok - update to this situation.(I'm aware I can't take back the contract by the way). Went in there 13 days after purchasing the contract. Said I was fed up with the phone and gave them a written list of the problems. The tech guy went through them and fiddled around with the phone and managed to solve the main issues - massive lag, freezing and crashing. But this fix only helped for a while and has been getting worse and worse since. This is a list of all the problems I now get on a daily basis (there are more but I've forgotten!): -Battery life shockingly poor (worse than 3 other people's EXACT same model) -Lags regularly when doing anything. That means even turning the screen on or scrolling through the menu. Once it starts doing it, you have to reset the phone. -Button presses register on the screen but nothing appears in the text box. This happens on texting and internet text boxes, etc. You have to close it, open it again multiple times until it decides it will start registering the text into the box. -Signal literally flickers up and down like a wave (not daily) -Internet turns itself on but is still even off in connection settings - can't get rid of it. It then disappears again when it feels like it. -When actually trying to turn the internet on, it 'refuses' around 75% of the time and states that it will only 'Use phone for data connection when Wi-Fi is unavailable'. It does this when the wifi is unavailable and fiddling with the wifi makes no difference. Solution? Keep turning it on and off until it works. Resetting the phone does not help. -Applications crash regularly including the whole OS system - thus everything disappears off the screen for a number of seconds while it 'starts up' again (not daily) There are other problems - I just don't have them on the top of my head. Please note, I do use and have correctly set up Advanced Task Killer. It helps to a certain point but is then rendered completely useless and has no effect. So, I take it back to Phones4u. Now 3 months down the line. They say that all they can do is send it off for repair. If it comes back faulty, do it again. If it's still faulty, do it again. If still faulty, then they will replace it. I could understand that - but the phone has been faulty since day 1. They say that they can't replace it outright after 2 weeks. I informed them that I complained in store and had it fiddled with in under 2 weeks of purchase. They said their guy should have done a service query, now too late. I'm sorry - but because they're guy didn't do the job properly, I now have to be messed around and go in and out because they sold me something that was broken WHEN I BOUGHT IT? Surely not......?

Why on earth is a company able to refuse to supply you with a copy of the contract? How can that in any sense be fair when the contract is what sets the rights of both parties - if you can't see it, how can you comply by it?

Hi there, I've sent a couple of the site team a PM now (one of them was quite a long time ago) and received no response. I'd like to change my forum name, for good reason, but I'm not getting any reply. So how should I go about it? Thanks.

Thanks for the reply sidewinder. That sounds like a sensible option and I have all the necessary paperwork for the last 6 months to check my finish times. I am paid for the extra time and I like to do it. What I don't like is when I have a plan to do something for 2 weeks in advance (regardless of whether it is extremely important or a trivial night out at the pub) and the day comes and I'm lumped with masses of work that are completely impossible to complete in the given time.