Right, this goes as such. Got asked to do the electrical work on a new build house, I knew he was struggling for money so I told him a price of £200 per day for me and an oppo, and it would take about 2 weeks to first fix. As he was a fellow trades person (kitchen fitter) I told him where to go to get all the materials as cheap as possible, so tried to save him some money. So after the first week (4 days) he says he can only get £200 but will get the rest for next week, I don't have a problem with this and go back on the Monday. Gets to Monday and the owner is not about, I think this is a bit strange but get to work with some cable I bought over the weekend. After an hour or so we find all his cable is missing (yet power tools are scattered everywhere, strange), so I ring him up and he says it must have been pinched, the site is not secure anyway. However when he comes back to site we eventually find all the cable piled up behind a barn, it is quite wet and has obviously been outside for a few hours. On Monday evening I get a phone call off him accusing my oppo of trying to steal his cable and says he is not welcome back on site. This is impossible on more than one count, for a start I was there all morning, so was the customers wife, and it had not rained since we got there but the cable was wet through. Anyway I said if he didn't want my oppo back I wasn't going back either, who would to get accused of pinching something else,so we left it at that. What makes me very suspicious is he said from day one he was only interested in getting the upstairs plastered so he could move in, and this we completed on the Monday. I sent him an invoice for the outstanding amount of £800, the invoice was for £1000-200, no response, neither with a reminder or a LBA. So I took him to court a few weeks ago, he has put in a defence saying he has given me £800 cash, also he has counterclaimed saying it cost £1334 to finish by another contractor so wants £134 off me because my quote was £2000. Also he has written as part of his defence statement that he caught us trying to steal his cable. Just on a side note about 5 years ago a plumber was accused of trying to steal a set of his taps and they were later found hidden in a barn, this was on a job where he was fitting a kitchen not his own house. How does anyone think this will go in court, and how do I respond to his defence statement, I intend to see it through to the end. PS the value of cable was only about £250 Sorry for the length and thanks for reading. Oscar.

Thanks for the advice guys, the builder has mediated between us and he has offered £1000, which I am happy with. It means that I worked a day for free but I can live with that. However I have a similar case that I will post up tomorrow that is quite interesting, if you could keep a lookout for it that would be great.

I have heard that once anything is fitted to the fabric of the building then in becomes the property of the householder paid for or not. I did offer to take a lower payment and take some of the stuff back but he immediately said I was trespassing and threatened to call the police and I know that would have ended up with being arrested for breach of the peace. He also made sure his young son was in the room whilst we were arguing over the bill, I think this saved him from getting filled in by my mate as he was ready to smack him. I also showed him my jobsheet that listed exactly what I have paid for the stuff and hours worked, normally the customer doesn't get to see that. I wonder if there is any mileage in asking the court just for my stuff back, I would much prefer to do this and wreck his kitchen than see any money.

I run a one man band electrical company and have been told by a customer that I will not be getting paid. His argument is that we never agreed a price in the first instance and he is not happy with the final bill. I was told what to do by the customer and I did it professionally and as quickly as possible, in fact I recon I went out of my way to help him out. Also we did the job at trade rates as the job was through a builder. The materials cost me £440, there were two of us and the job took about 3 days which he was billed for at £15 per hr each. The total bill came to about £1100. I made no money on the materials and I have other overheads like a van to insure and tax etc. I cant see how he could have expected us to do it any cheaper. This guy also works in the building trade (managing a building suppliers) so knows the labour costs of things. Anyway I know how the small claims process works and I'm ok issuing a claim etc. but I'm not sure how a court would look at a situation where there was no agreement of price at the beginning. Although it is clear (in my view) that I have not ripped him off. PS for what its worth I think his argument was scripted and he never had any intention of paying from day one, but I know I cant use the liar liar pant on fire defense.

Sorry, not very constructive but why would anyone travel by public transport nowadays. What other company treats its customers like the enemy. Best solution would be to rip up the railroads and convert them to motorways.

I think the rent and council tax etc get paid by the social, and gas/elec are on card meters, and I dont think people on the sick are on a bad screw either. I thought just by being on the social automatically qualified you as being a hardship case. On a side note, if you were owed money in charges and run up an overdraft to that amount and then told them to get lost (after getting no joy on a refund) then they took you to court for that amount, what would happen if you counterclaimed for the bank charges amount? they could'nt stay the counterclaim whilst allowing the calim surley.

So it seems the hardship route would be a non starter and the best course of action would be to just carry on the claim with the LBA, and then be prepared to wait.

I would imagine most things get paid for her, she does have 3 kids though and is a single mother. How does the hardship thing work, would a court agree to proceed with the case if hardship can be proved or is there no legislation for this? If its just down to the banks to look into it then its not in their interests to agree to hardship and will obviously rebuf all of them, so whats the point in having a hardship clause.

I am trying to help out a friend with a claim regarding unfair charges. The score is she has a current account with lloyds and has been stung for charges, its one of those £30 per day charges type. Anyway she has paid about £1000 of her own money in charges over the last couple of years and the account is aproximatley £1000 overdrawn entirley due to bank charges. However for the last few years at least she has been recieving sickness benefit and this has been her only income, when the benefit landed in her account most was swallowed up because of the charges. We have done the SAR and sent off the first letter asking for the payment back, mentioning the hardship. They have replied with the usual bumph and refering it to collections etc. What is the next step, as its a clear cut hardship case do we now inform the ombudsman or just continue with the court route. How do you make the court act on a genuine hardship case instead of staying it? Also I take it we are right in asking for the full £2000 or so back, and some of this would pay back the overdraft, after all you cant walk away with what you have never had. Just to say the lady in question would settle for the account just being closed and not be hassled anymore.

My friend is on benefits and had been for the last few years, these show up on her statements as DWP credits, however whe has regulally gone slightly overdrawn (no more than £20) yet has been charged £90 virtually every month. Am I right in saying she is entitled to all these back right away as they had no right to take them in the first place. We have some statements but are missing quite a few so just about to send off the SAR letter to get the rest.

Also I take it the 14 days cooling off period applies under the distance selling regulations.

But no mention of auto renew was made at the start of the policy, this was taken out over the telephone and nothing at all was mentioned, it may be hidden somewhere in the T&C's but How could I possibly agree with them if I had not seen them at the time of taking it out. I agreed to a 12 month policy and as far as I am concerned any connection with them ended after the 12 months. Its like going to the supermarket and paying for your shopping with a credit card, only to find printed on the recipt them saying they will suply me with the same shopping every week and automatically debit my card with the same amount. Its yet another con by yet another rip off company. Also the renewal letter was dated 19/12/08, insurance up 04/01/09, what happened to the required 21 days notice, especially over christmas time. Companies nowadays have such shockingly bad service that they know the only way to get repeat business is to con people, what happened to being good at what they do, thus ensuring continuing custom.

So you are saying that if I send you a letter stating that you owe me £1000 and if you agree to this then dont reply to it, if you then bin the letter you would owe me the £1000 and there is nothing you can do about it.

Got a letter from Kwik-fit insurance which I had a policy with last year, they then send me a renewal letter with a daft price and saying they will auto renew the policy if I dont do anything. My attitude was well you can renew if you want but I wont be paying anything and put it in the bin. Did'nt think it was even worth a phone call as this was'nt even their best price, doing a check on their own site showed much cheaper quotes. I have now been sent a new certificate by express insurance. Last year I did it over the phone and there was never any mention of auto renew (this year I had to tick a box confirming I wanted this option), I would imagine this policy cant be binding as I have never agreed or asked for it. But more concerning is this, last year I paid by direct debit to close premium finance every month, and when the payments were up I cancelled the direct debit with my bank, actually I cancelled it a month too early and close premium threw a fit. And along with the new insurance is confirmation that a new direct debit has been set up and the payments are listed when they will be paid. How can they set up a direct debit on my account without my say so, especially as I cancelled the last one. I have already sent them an email threatening to report them to the police for fraud if any money is taken. (phone lines are shut) Yes I know a phone call to kwik when I got the renewal letter would have saved me any grief, but why should I spend half an hour of my time on hold because some firm or other wants to ripp me off, just because we are in a credit crunch it dosent give firms the right to theft. I was expecting to get a new certificate which would also get bined and let them chase me for any money they thought I owed, if they took me to court I would say I never asked, needed or agreed to any insurance, however the setting up of the DD concerns me, seems very dodgy indeed.

My council tax is aprox £600 per year and I pay it at £60 per month over 10 months. The council demand this on the 1st of every month, I would never pay anything by direct debit and I am self employed, with a lot to do. As a consequence some payments are made a few days late, instead of being grateful that they have a hard working person that contributes to society instead of taking from it they take offence at the payments being a bit late and have cancelled my installments. I had actually paid Decembers payment before they applied to the magistrates court (hearing 18/12), I paid Novembers late and Dec. together (£120). They now want Januarys payment (last one) and £76 court costs. What happens if I just pay the £60 to the council, surley they cant get a liabilty order with no debt outstanding. If they do pursue it they can wait for the rest of it, I know the bailiffs are easily defeated.