Once your Mother reports it to her insurance company, they will issue her with a claim form. She needs to fill this in with all of the details of the accident, including any visible damage, or noting that there was none. Details of witnesses are also very important at this point. It will then be argued between the insurance companies to determine if there is actually a valid claim being made.

Best bet is to take a copy, remove any personal information, scan the document and upload it to somewhere like photobucket or flickr. Post a link and somebody will take a look at it.

Yes, definitely for 'Not Displaying'. Tax was valid at the time.

Out of curiosity, does this also apply to student loans, council tax and income tax debts, or are these covered by some other type of legislation?

Thanks for the comments, Pat. All valid points, just, I suppose, one of those things that you don't think about. Not to worry, it's only money...

You shouldn't have to take them to court as this can generally be sorted out with a little perseverance. What have they provided in the SAR? Is the debt definitely yours?

What time of day did you transfer the larger amount? Generally, when you are transferring from one account to another within the same bank it happens instantly online, although this is not true of all of the banks, but it can depend on when you do it. Lloyds TSB, for example, will do an instant transfer from one of their personal accounts to another immediately, unless it is done after a certain cut-off point in the evening, in which case it will be processed the following morning. If you are transferring from a Lloyds TSB business account to a personal account it will take a few days. What that doesn't explain, though, is why the money is showing up, but not available. It sounds like it has been transferred with clearance, meaning that the money will show up, but will not be available to spend until the bank has cleared that the funds are actually available from the originators account. It seems strange that this has happened online, though. It could be a glitch in the system, or perhaps it's a feature of your account to help prevent fraud. I'd suggest calling you bank's helpline to ask for their advice...

Well, that's good enough for me. You'll get my vote if you ever run for PM... I'm not sure. I'll check with him and see. The trouble is, he's in Glasgow, I work in London and I'm heading to Canada for a couple of weeks tomorrow. I know that if I leave it with him, he'll just pay the fine. Oh well, maybe it will teach him to be more careful in future... Thanks for your input, guys. If anyone else can offer anything on this, I'd appreciate your thoughts...

Hey guys, My Dad received a fine today for not displaying his tax disc. He received a new tax disc yesterday, after waiting almost three weeks for it to arrive from the DVLA and, in fact, it was in the car. However, he damaged the tax disc holder yesterday when removing the old disc, so the new disk was just left on the dash and had fallen off. Has anyone had any experience of contesting these fines? Is it worth doing so? Obviously a simple check with the DVLA will show that the tax was paid for and valid. Thanks in advance for any advice FM

...but if it is settled privately then you probably shouldn't bother.

Did they send you anything to confirm that the payment of £129 would clear the debt? If not, it may just be a case of calling them again, speaking to a supervisor / team leader and stressing your case. They should have put some notes on your file at the time. It's worth a try in the first instance. Also, find out if calls are recorded. if they are, you should be able to submit a Subject Access Request to get hold of a copy of the recording where they agreed that the payment would clear it.

Have you tried escalating this to team leader / manager within the call centre? This often helps, as they have more authority to deal with complaints. If you do, though, make a point of asking for the manager's name and position, as it is common practice to just hand the phone to another team member and just fob the customer off even further. I find that in 90% of cases, these things can be resolved with just a little persistence.

I think this is just a case of negotiation. If the other party is going to save money and keep his NCD, it's a bit of a no-brainer really. Personally I wouldn't tell him that you're planning to keep the money, but just let him know that you're willing to go down this route to get the car fixed as it will save you both a lot of hassle.

I was reading about this last night on your other thread. I'm not really sure what you're asking here, though. You have questioned if the terms and conditions would be valid, but have stated that there were no terms and conditions available. How can they be valid if there are none...?

Personally, judging by the value of your car, the fact that the damage is purely cosmetic and that you don't seem too bothered by it, I would show the chap the quote and suggest he pays you £450 to keep it out of an insurance claim. This way he wins overall and you get to keep the money for your inconvenience. Whether or not you get the car fixed is entirely up to you, but I imagine you would be able to get it done for much less than £450. As the car is valued at only £350, the insurance company will more than likely write it off and pay you that amount. This definitely works out better for the other driver, as he will get to keep any no-claims discount he has accrued and should also work out better for you, as you get a chunk of cash and can decide what to do with it.

Yes, company policy, unfortunately, that I have to go with the cheapest company, which they are...

I mentioned it a few times this morning when the manager chap called and when he told me that they were not prepared to do anything else, I said that I would take it to the small claims court. I don't know what helped more, but I was surprised when he called me back and said that he had made a mistake and that I was covered. I think what surprised me most was the fact that he had finished the call and continued to research the insurance issue, rather than just ignoring it. Massive respect to him for actually calling back and admitting that they had made a mistake...

If you are referring to personal credit, check out Credit Expert or http://www.experian.com. Here you can obtain all of the information that financial institutions have access to when making lending decisions. It will cost you, but if you subscribe to their annual service they normally give you one month free, so if you cancel before the end of the first month it will be free.

Well, apparently they are covered! Alamo have just called back and apologised profusely, stating that, upon further investigation, they have discovered that keys are covered by the MasterCover Plus policy, so they will be refunding my £95. Success!! Thanks, all, for your comments.

Brilliant, thanks for this. It confirms that, assuming the terms were the same when I took out my loan, I was ineligible for unemployment cover, so it is clear that the policy was mis-sold.

Update: Just had a call from the escalations manager reffered to in the previous letter, shown above. He has dug his heels in and stated that they believe that loss of keys is negligent and is, therefore, not covered! Grrr.... Looks like I'm going to have to go all the way on this one. I think I'll try my credit card company first and see if I can suspend that payment. Anyone have any experience of this?

Thanks, Ian. Appreciate the comments, but aren't the keys part of the car? Surely they should be covered by the insurance. That's the point of paying such a ridiculous amount for it! Also, this company is trying to argue that the keys are an accessory. If that is the case, they are covered under the terms and conditions. Please see below for the email I received from the team leader, as well as a pdf showing the terms and conditions of the rental. Sorry, this is such a long post. I have highlighted sections 5-7, which they are using to deny the claim, and section 12, which states that loss or damage to the vehicle and its accessories are covered.

If you have a note of your payments, either through a statement or from old bank accounts, you can use the payments / interest calculator in the bank charges forum. This will calculate the interest on each payment from your payment date and also add the statutory 8% interest on payments to date.

I don't suppose anybody has a copy of the terms and conditions of Lloyds PPI on a Select Loan With Insurance from Nov. 2001? I've found my loan agreement, but have nothing to state what the employment exclusions in the PPI were. The woman I spoke to at my branch seems to be under the impression that people on fixed term contracts have always been covered, so I'd like to make sure before I write to the bank.

I did try calling as somebody else, but nobody seemed to know the answer. They took my details and said they would call back about it, but I never heard anything from them. Thanks for the suggestion about the IO. I hadn't thought of that...