I'd love to know how much she's clocked up in fees between me posting here and that particular bailiff turning up, though. She said he wasn't the usual Bailiff, which tells me that she's had a few visits before now.

I do feel extremely sorry for the advisers. They've been dumped on the front-line of all these changes with no resources, and from what I can tell, a series of emails and memos in place of adequate training. Not very fair at all.

Going by my experience today, under-staffing at my local JCP is becoming a serious problem. It was, basically, like a cattle market in there. My adviser rattled through my conditions, didn't look at my job search record, almost forgot to ask me to sign and called the next person while I was still in the process of gathering my bits and pieces together.

In fact, I would say that there were more security guards in there than actual JCP staff.

Thanks Seanamarts. I shall be back with bells on if there's any mischief, but I think it's down to her sorting herself out and making sure she keeps up with any arrangement she makes.

Quick update on this thread, because I have an ear infection and being upright doesn't agree with me at the minute.

I happened to be at this neighbour's house when a B&S Bailiff attended today. I'm shocked to say this, but he was genuinely very decent. He took one look at her account and said that her payments were set at a ridiculously high level, and went on to say 'I'm not even leaving you a letter - it would just rack up more charges and that's not getting you anywhere. I'm going to send your account back to the council, and you can come to a sensible arrangement with them rather than having to worry about us knocking on your door all the time', wished her luck and told her not to worry too much as there are people with far higher arrears than her!

So there you go, that's the Annual Decent Bailiff Story. Normal service can now resume.

Hi Fabeo.

I noticed that you mentioned you already have an existing thread on this issue, so I have merged the two - it helps the people advising you if all of the information you give is in the same place.

I'm afraid we can't recommend a specific solicitor for you, but hopefully someone with Brighthouse experience will be along to help you shortly.

so say for intstance i applied for 40 job's and had evidence i had applied for all of them i'd get sanctioned just because i didn't use UJM to apply for any of them?

I'm not speaking from a position of knowledge at all, but I can't see it being workable to sanction people for not applying through UJM if there are other alternatives, and they've provided a record of their applications through other sites. What if there are no jobs advertised in your area of experience on UJM for a week?

Someone may well be along shortly to tell me otherwise, though.

Oh, I'm not working for them any more, San.

That's great news, Danielle.

Thanks again Lee - I'll re-title this thread to show that it's been resolved now.

Oops...I see Ims has already sorted the title out, think our posts crossed.

LOL - my friend has just told me she is off today to rehab a human aggressive male ST Bernard! Try as I might, I can't take this seriously right now. I mean, what does he do? Smother people? Drown them in slobber? Well jolly good luck to her she's only 5ft 2"!

My MIL used to rescue Great Danes and she's 5' 1". It was all fun and games until one of them decided to try to chase something in the woods while it was on the lead.

Thanks for getting back to Damon, much appreciated.

Further update: I spoke to one of the ladies who stayed on (God alone knows why) yesterday. In the least shocking twist ever, nobody (including my replacement) has been paid again this month, and the payment is 7 days overdue so far.

It's not looking good for my £283.00.

Hi Damon.

Welsome to CAG.

I've started a new thread for you, as you'll get more responses than you would from posting on a thread marked 'resolved'.

There is a Vodaphone rep on the forums - I'll find out how to alert him to your problem.

EDIT: Hi again Damon. I've found the following advice on how to contact Lee, the Vodaphone rep.

Please follow the following instructions from the vodafone Team on this site:-

 

We thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves and to assure you all that our presence on CAG is with the very best of intentions.

vodafone UK has recently introduced a dedicated Web Relations Team which is keen to seek out customers who’re having difficulties with their accounts and feel that they have no other place to turn to than CAG and other consumer forums and blogs.

Naturally, it’s not possible for us to help directly with account specific queries on CAG and as such we would encourage those members who feel we can help them to contact us privately at customer.care@help.vodafo ne.co.uk quoting ‘WRT135 – CAG Forum’ in the subject line to ensure that it reaches the Web Relations Team.

 

When emailing us we would also ask that you either provide us with a link to your post or thread – if you’ve posted in another member’s thread please also provide your CAG username so that we can check what your query is.

Please let us know how your problem has been resolved, it could help fellow Caggers.

Took me a minute to get there too, Maxx...you did give me a giggle, though. :laughing:

I have to agree with Emmzzi and AB on this, Rachel. I would focus on a very sincere apology, and an offer to make up the time. As Emmzzi has already said, as you've only been there five months, the ball is very much in their court.

I've popped in the link for the legislation surrounding backdated payments below:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/793/regulation/6/made

I have to be honest, I've always been given to believe that it's very, very hard indeed to get JSA backdated. The part of the legislation relevant to your friend would probably be:

the claimant was given information by an officer of the Department of Social Security or of the Department for Education and Employment which led the claimant to believe that a claim for benefit would not succeed;

But I'm not sure if the fact that she didn't appeal the decision at the time would go against her on this.

At the end of the day, it's got to be worth a try though...hope for the best, prepare for the worst, as they say.

What a top idea - I'll have to let my sister know about this, she has a very elderly staffie who doesn't like to 'play' on account of his dodgy hips. He's soft as muck really and has never actually attacked another dog, but people tend to panic when a staffie starts snarling.

Did you apply through your on line banking? I would say that it would be highly unusual, to the point of being unheard of, for them not to ask for financial information.

If you are considering bankruptcy, you will need to take professional advice from somewhere like CAB - it's certainly not something that you should do lightly. Can I ask if you're employed at the minute?

I'm really, really sorry to hear about what's happened to your friend. Rather than go there with a group of friends, I would suggest she contacts the Police and asks them to accompany her to collect her pets and belongings - she can still take her friends if she wants to. They did this for a very close friend of mine who was in the same position in the past. If she goes with the Police, there's far less chance of comeback further down the line (I've known ex-partners accuse the person leaving of theft and criminal damage in the past), and there's also far less chance of the situation escalating and somebody being hurt.

OK, OK...you really need to stop thinking about prison, let alone comparing UK prisons to the prisons in the States!

Well done for getting the GA appointment started, and well done for contacting Step Change. Yes, I do think you should set up a DMP with them. There's no need for you to end up homeless - the next thing you need to do is go to your local housing office and tell them that you are about to lose your home. You should also contact Shelter as they may be able to give you more advice.

Yeah, my last but one employer told me that he nearly didn't ask me for interview because I didn't put my DOB on my CV - he said that he wasn't sure about employing someone to do his admin if they left out what he saw as 'the basics', and he definitely did see it as carelessness on my part. He was genuinely taken aback when I told him that I'd been advised to remove it due to concerns about ageism and identity theft.

I'll be practical and vote tactically for labour - and hope that Ed milliband's left leaning philosophy comes out in government.

 

I do wonder if labour are playing a tactical game. With the Tory propoganda machine at work, the electorate at the moment is mainly centre-right, so they can't go too far to the left, or they won't get elected. I suppose we'll only find out if they win the next election - but quite frankly anything is better than right wing, and a vote for any other party is wasted when it comes to changing the government.

Very sensible. Maybe I'm getting too cynical...

I don't see any of them worth a vote....and that's bad

I feel the same way, Ruby. Not a good thing.

I'm so pleased for you, BlessedGuardian. Thank goodness you found that little bit of fight in you.

I'm sure that the more experienced peeps will be along to advise you if you need it, but seriously, well done to you.

I agree with omitting date of birth from CV's, especially for those of us that have hit our fifties! It's hard enough getting to interview stage without being illegally discriminated against on age grounds.

 

Removing courses and university time leaves large gaps in a CV that have to be covered up, so it's down to lying on a CV which will result in dismissal if caught out, and I believe it's technically fraud anyway, I used to alter CV's about so much that eventually I had about a dozen all slightly different from each other, it got to the stage where I became so confused over which was which that I gave up in the end and went back to my original, warts and all.

I know the feeling. I try to do a CV tailored to each job, particularly if they provide a person specification, but I have so many now that if I bound them all they'd look like a family bible. Plus, I made an absolute clanger when I was copy/pasting once, and sent a CV out that said I'd been unemployed between 2001 and 2011.

I completely agree that it qualifies as lying on a CV, by the way. I just smiled, nodded and carried on sending out CV's with everything on them.