Not swearing. Asterisks. Apologies to the massive number of under 18 subscribers who must've been harmed by my asterisked swear words! Tell you what guys, just delete the thread. I've had enough of this site and its petty rules. I'll leave you to rein supreme over your digital kingdom dx100uk! Ha! Please delete my membership. I'll stick with Facebook if I want opinions from sheepherders with delusions of grandeur! Dunning-Kruger scale of the charts! And the funny thing is you don't even realise it! Haha!

Fair point. Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound quite so brutal, but I've noticed there's certain posters here who will be very high-handed and absolute in their responses, but when drilled down into - just a "bloke in the pub" typing with his knuckles and trying to sound intelligent. This is very important to me, so I was simply trying to say "opinions are like tongues : everyone's got one", does anyone here actually KNOW the answer. I'd sincerely appreciate any response you have, Ms Street. I've read a lot of your Eviction posts, and clearly you are a person of considerable knowledge and skill. I phrased my opening post badly, but can't now edit it.

Any experienced insights or links to legislation appreciated. been in the job for over 10 years. New line manager insisted we all sign up to Whatsapp Group. This has worked fine in the main for the past 12 months, yet he now expects us to answer random messages 24/7. The business operates 24/7 but we are rota'd a week in advance. I understand from time to time there will be emergencies, and in the general goodwill of that I answer when I can. However, recently it's now "X please call me asap" 07:00 or 21:00 on days off. No. If it was in my contract to be "on call" for 24/7 then fair enough. If I was the CEO of British Gas, then also fair enough, because I'd be remunerated as such. I'm just a little minimum-wage cog in the machine! Due to medical complications, I've asked him to leave me alone for a week, (Agreed on rota in advance, not a problem), but due to other co-workers sickness I'm now getting phone calls and messages. The group whatsapp I can obviously set to silent. The personal whatsapp messages and phone-calls, less so. I don't want to go down the Jobsworth "work to rule" route, but I'd love to respond to him politely - "if you message me again on my day off, I will go to my doctor and get signed off with stress for the next month. Any further non-essential contact will be regarded as harassment!" Thoughts on my legal position with this. All goodwill has now been ebbed away on both sides. So I find myself needing to know my exact legal position. I've tried to politely explain, didn't work. Now looking at fighting fire with fire, if possible. Please only respond if you know. I've got enough Facebook groups of bar-room lawyers, but I've always had good advice from here in the past. Ta, SB

Thanks for advice guys. Yep, I ate a massive slice of humble pie and apologised. He accepted apology. Time will tell!

Hello all, In my continuing mission to paint a target on my back at work! A colleague came to me in some distress a few weeks ago - the most lovely Peruvian person who has been working for the company for over 12 years, solidly and without a blemish on his record. He was upset because he had his full 30 days accrued holiday entitlement and requested it as a continuous "all at once" 30 days for a few month's time, plenty of notice. Our immediate Line Manager responded to him saying: (paraphrased): "I only allow 2 weeks at a time, in exceptional circumstances I will allow the full 30 days, but you will only be paid for the first 14 days of your holiday, irrespective of entitlement". I looked at my (our) employment contract and saw nothing about this, so in error I thought HR existed to help us little people. So requested HR director confirmed this in writing. AND as we all know, when someone is chatting bullcrap, it's highly unlikely they'll put it in writing. The upshot is I got my pants pulled down. After a bit of to-and-fro'ing with HR, he sent his final response and cc'd in my line manager, my depot manager, and uncle Tom Cobbly & All, so they could read the whole thread. I felt this SO unprofessional. And even if it isn't, still a very c*n*y thing to have done. The fallout has been such that my immediate boss now hates me. "Why did I go over his head". Well, as it turns out there is NOTHING in the Employment handbook which says an employee can't take all their accrued holiday in one go IF the manager approves. Approve it or don't. Don't become king of the world saying "I will approve it, but I'll only pay you for the first 14 days". Win the battle; lose the war, and all that. However this is really peeing me off. What do I want? I want my Line Manager to take the target off my back by passively-aggressively now giving me the worst rota shifts. Any thoughts welcome. I hate this middle-management world where petty & vindictive people are promoted above their ability and take any opportunity to self-validate themselves by being a sh*t-show to other underlings.

Great. Cheers dudes. I think that answers my question. Many thanks. SB

OK, thanks for info. Do you know if Credit Card companies to regular checking to see if I'm still a good risk? IE/ if I were to default on one card, would the other 2 unrelated card companies eventually get wind of it and cancel or reduce their non-defaulted cards?

Hello all! I've had some stonking good advice here in the past, but I'd be grateful if this could NOT be merged with my previous threads because I'd appreciate objective and factual responses please: I have a credit Barclaycard which has a (in my personal opinion) crazy high credit facility compared to my accurate annual income when I took it out in 2018. However, I now have 3 other credit cards with a much lower limit. All 3 cards, except for the Barclaycard are around 70% of their limit. Recently, due to stupid drunken "hard searches" on my credit file trying to get consolidation loans, or new credit cards with 0% balance, my Credit Score has tanked massively. How does all this work? Will there come a time in the next few months where Barclaycard "get wind of my sudden fall from grace" (for want of a better phrase), and reduce my credit on my Barclaycard? Or does it not work like that? For the record, I'm not in to debt avoidance or getting money I know I can't pay back, however, this Barclaycard has such a ridiculously high limit and I'm only now about 45% into it, I'm kinda relying on it to get me and my family through the next few months. How does all this work in the new age of "computer says no!" TIA. SB

OK, thanks for advice guys.

Thanks for the warm wishes. My boss is quite understanding and has told me not to go back in until I test negative. I don't get paid though!!!!

I've actually got Covid myself at the moment! Had it for about 8 days now. I've had the booster too (as I work in a healthcare setting). I know the plural of anecdote is not data - however for me, and all my compadrés who also have it and have had boosters (Moderna mostly) it is nothing more than an inconvenience - heavy cold vibes. I have two friends who declined the vax (not rabid anti-vaxxers, just didn't trust the government - on the same line as that old quote from Reagan - "there's two things you never want to hear when you get a knock on your front door - 'I'm from the government; I'm here to help!' " Ha! I respect their choices, however they are a sick as dogs right now, unable to walk from one room to t'other without breathlessness, etc. Ideally we should live in a communal society where we look after each other, or at least not do things which deliberately harm others. But we don't. The level of selfishness where I live is unbelievable, but that's what you get when you force 100's of different cultures together in a small space with no common ground. Every "man" for himself! I wear a mask in enclosed public spaces now I know I'm infectious, as a simple human courtesy. However, I also think it's endemic now, so once I test negative I'll get on with it and cease. (There ye go - hopefully a civilized answer with no need for ad hominems?)

Happy New Year everyone, I'd be grateful for opinions on when is the right time to keep servicing debt at a cost to leaving myself with nothing every month; when is the time to contact OC's and ask for a payment plan, or when to simply default and say "take me to court I've got nothing spare, 6 years and you can 'do one mate'? Is there a general rule of thumb? My financial situation will not improve in the foreseeable future due to age, skillset, illness, but hopefully nor should it deteriorate. However due to moments of drunken madness over the last 5 years, I have saddled myself with an unaffordable level of debt. All my own fault, not looking for excuses or get-outs - although I do feel they shouldn't have lent me such large amounts in the first place, given my previous DROs in the noughties. Any thoughts, and non judgemental advice welcome.

Happy New Year one and all! I'd just signed in to ask a question - however as a long-time lurker I really must say @tobyjugg2is there REALLY any need to be quite so abrasive and supercilious in your posts - you seem very angry and rude? Everyone else on this thread seems to enjoy debating and discussing, whereas all your replies are goading and high-handed. I've no "dog in the fight" - I'm sure IRL you are a charming fellow, however here you just seem spoiling for a fight far above your paygrade? PS/ for the record "sic" doesn't mean what you think it does!

Thanks for the reply, but honestly no. I've already painted a target on my back with management. I "took one for the team". It's just not worth the hassle tbh. Especially as I'm not personally a big fan of Unions seeing how their barons waste their members' subscriptions on funding an endless political Tory grudge-match, rather than helping the little man - eg/ us! Thanks anyway.

Posting an update, as it was requested. Well, perhaps foolishly in hindsight, the letter we all agreed to sign and send to Managing Director had to be sent from one of our email addresses, so mine was chosen. I sent the letter. M.D. sent an acknowledgment of receipt and responded today. To be fair, it is a polite and considered email - No. No consideration for any of our requests. Do not join a union or it will not end well for YOU (ie/ ME) in particular. As a minimum wage monkey if I choose to progress this course of action then there are thousands of people waiting behind you on the production line to replace you. Obviously he didn't couch it in those exact words, but the message was clear. A shame really, some of us have been loyal for over a decade. However, we talked amongst ourselves and like the new word "quiet quitting" - doing the minimum required to keep the job, but no overtime or going above and beyond because the goodwill has gone away, and we now know where we stand. Ho hum. Nothing more to say really. I promised to update so have. Just to add - and it's more of a rant than any useful information - what really sticks in our collective craws is that "management" have just spent thousands on those sort of American "inspirational" posters about our business' "Core Values" - the usual mind-numbing and condescending shite about "Integrity" "Caring" etc - a purely tick-box exercise to show they talk the talk. There's probably a whole layer of middle-management paid ££££££ a year to come up with this management speak - money which could be better spent on stripping out the whole pointless lot of them, and giving the actual workers at the coal-face a pay-rise. Moral of my story - don't ever fall for that crap about "one team; one family, all singing from the same hymn sheet" - you are only useful as a drone until you are not, or choose to make a fuss - then they'll drop you so fast your head will spin! Don't fall for it! Take the paycheque and keep your head down. It's one way traffic. Cynical? Yep you betcha SB.

That's great! Thanks for the links. Researching now. SB.

Thanks for such quick responses. I know DX100 goes full on "Rain Man" if people dare to quote individual posts! So I'll limit myself to say, thanks @Emmzzi - I've looked at UB's links, but as you say, we are dealing with real life. In a min wage role, it's too easy to get rid of the one person who sticks their head above the parapet on this. Management are smart enough to find ways to get rid of me for suggesting it, without it having to be explicitly because of it! Dig? I like the analogy that you might win, but you've painted such a target on your back it'll become a matter of time. We sent a letter to Head Office, very softly worded, saying 12% RPI inflation rate, what can you do for us? Answer came there none! Next steps?

Happy to give more information if needed, but it's quite a simple question. I work for a SME company in UK, a subsidiary of a much larger multi-national parent company. None of us are in a Union. Recently due to cost of living crisis we want to negotiate a pay-rise, and management is having none of it. Won't even entertain the idea. Our next collective move is to threaten to join a Union who might be able to bargain on our behalf. Informally it's always been mooted that the "powers that be" look very darkly on unions. Can they legally stop us joining? In the real world even if they can't, could they make life so difficult for the proposer as to send a message to the others not to rock the boat? TIA.

Oh well. Was worth a shot! Thanks for replying. That's that then!

Hello again, I've been with TSB for around 9 years. At the time of opening the account in 2013 it was as a parachute account because I was a few years into a Debt Relief Order. On the very day I was "discharged" from the DRO, TSB phoned me and asked if I'd like a credit card with a 7k limit! Since 2016 my annual salary has been £14,000. Despite recent job changes, my income has remained constant, around the 13/14k level p.a. I have no other sources of income. My wages have always been paid directly into my TSB Bank Account. In 2021 I stupidly took out a loan for £12k with TSB. Long story as to why, but after decades of financial insecurity (DRO's, Gambling Problems, Heavy Drinking, etc), I finally found my credit rating to be good enough to be offered loans again, and wanted to have a "failsafe" if everything went "tits up" in my life again. In Jan 2022 I (even more) compounded my stupidity by requesting ANOTHER £10k loan with TSB - more to see if they'd give it to me one drunken night rather than needing it. Yep, they did. So, that's 22k I now owe TSB (without interest!) I haven't missed a payment on either loan yet. I don't plan to! However, I'm really struggling now to meet my monthly commitments on both loans. I recently phoned them to try to consolidate both loans into a single loan at a much more preferential APR - but they wanted to have a long 2hr Zoom call to discuss everything and I doodoo myself, cancelled it. Because I'd lied on my loan applications and said I earned £22k p.a. my question is - I don't believe they should've lent me this amount of money when it was clear from my account I only had around £250 going in each week. I consider that to be totally irresponsible! HOWEVER! I'm an adult who knew what he was doing, and I lied on my application form. isn't that technically fraud? I can make this month's payments on both loans, but November I'm possibly going to have to default. Any and all advice welcome - even smug judgement because I KNOW I've been a royal idiot here! Ha! *Too late to edit, I just wanted to add that I didn't lie in any other respect on the loan application - Job correct, Address correct, etc. Only about my Salary - surely there's an algorithm that looks at these things and must've seen that my weekly pay in no way added up to what I was stating? I'm not trying to get out of paying - I took the money, I owe the money, I wasted the money. However, I've been a moron and shouldn't have done it - especially as for the first 3 years I operated the account they could see I was in a DRO, and my credit rating was scrapping the financial barrel? Am I just being naive here?

Thanks again for all the contributions. Now I've sobered up, I'll take all viewpoints on board! Ta. SB.

I've read around the forum enough to know none of you would advocate debt avoidance; however I'm thinking I've got about £15k available across 3 credit cards until the end of the month when I can't make my 2 TSB loan repayments. I am fortunate, (unfortunate?) in that I'm late 40's with no dependents. My life has gone wrong about 3 times now. So, I am tempted to withdraw cash from all cards and buy gold to be delivered before I default on my bank account loans. Not cool, not nice, but are DCA's or banks any more honourable lending money to people they know based on their salary could never hope to pay it back. Reading around the forum, banks just write it off on their balance sheet as a tax loss anyway, whilst I might be opening up my wrists trying to pay their interest? I might be sounding a bit melodramatic, but if I can't pay back my existing debt today, is there anything wrong with using up ALL my existing credit and starting again in France? (So long as I advice all creditors of my new French address?) Honest thoughts please - (yes I know it's not cool to basically commit "fraud"; however with the banks and DCA's scumbagness what's the reality here?) SB

I might still question it if I'm given my notice of redundancy (which is only a week for every year of service) lovely - so glad loyalty is still respected in this day and age and I'm not just instantly replaceable by a more compliant robot (anyway, that's another story! ha!) I'll let you know if I go ballistic and ask all the questions of management I've been saving up these past 7 years.... ...once the cheque has cleared!

Unfortunately shortly after I posted this we got told we're all up against the wall for firing line redundancies. Whether we use our phones or not suddenly didn't seem a hill worth dying on! Thanks for all responses though. Appreciated. SB

Thanks for all responses. Been offline for a while thinking about things in general. My innate sense of honour and doing the right thing; is massively conflicted with taking 'em for all they're for and then crying foul. As I've said before, this isn't my first rodeo with DCAs or getting in trouble with over-extending myself with credit. I can honestly say I've never done it intentionally or fraudulently, however this time I am tempted to rinse every credit card and then just pay them £1 a month until they force me to go bankrupt. I don't say this lightly. Every person reaches the end of their tether eventually given enough rope. SB.