Hi Vanderpelt. I was just wondering if you have been able to check this out with anyone at work yet? Many thanks

I think you might be right about it being a waste of time Vanderpelt but I (and I'm sure anyone else looking into this on here in future) would apprieciate it if you could find out some more details. Many thanks.

Hiya all. I think I know the answer to this but on the off chance I'm wrong I thought I'd ask you knowledgeable lot. Today I received a phone call from a company (I forget thier name) asking if I'd been sold PPI with a loan. I have. I told them thou that the loan and PPI was taken out before I was declared bankrupt about 5 years ago. They seemed to think I could still claim. "Just send us lots of money and we will send you the forms" (unfortunately for them I'm not that stupid, although it is close ;O) Anyway I thought I'd find out a little more about this. In your opinion would I be able to make a claim despite the fact that I've since been declared bankrupt? Would value your thoughts/opinions.

"Your basic working hours are (11.25) per week on (various) day/s. State days or state various. your hours of work will be as directed by your line manager. This necessitate weekend working on a regular basis." The parts in brackets are hand written. I should point out that on the back of the contract under terms and conditions it says... "17. Changes to Terms and Conditions. The company reserves the rirght to amend your terms and conditions of employment and polices from time to time. " However according to the yougov website this is an ambigious statement that would not protect them in court/industrial tribunal.

What happens if they don't have my consent to vary my hours again? I applied for the job on the basis that it was working thursday nights and all day saturdays. Since then they have repeatedly altered my working pattern. The contract does say "various hours" but when does enough become enough? or is this a case where the contract isn't worth the paper its written on when it comes to protecting my rights?

Hiya all. Ok the situation is this as I understand it. My manager is going to offer me sunday working and 15 hours during the weekday evenings which would be flexible. Currently I work sundays and tuesday, wednesday, thursday evenings. For reasons I won't go into I cannot work Monday or friday evenings. Giving me no choice but to take redundancy/resign. Would such a change be considered breach of contract or constuctive dismissal? Especially as the company has been in breach of my contract in the past (is there a statute of limitations on this?). I was originally conracted for 11.25 hours per week. But sometime ago (Novemberish I think) this was reduced to 11 hours. In about February this was then raised back up to 14 hours. However for the interim I was not getting my contracted hours. I know .25 hours may seem petty but it's all part of the bigger picture. As always any help and advise gratefully recieved.

Being on several car related forums myself and having seen a number of these disputes aired over the forums I would say this... Post ONE reply on the thread stating the facts but do not get drawn into a slagging match. In more than one case I've witnessed this tactic seems to work well to resolve the issue. I would also contact the site administrator and ask for them to remove the post/s with your personal details on, threaten legal action if nessicary, although I'd ask politely first. As for the comments about "power of the shoe" this is quite common on these websites as people do tend to big themselves up, I'd just ignore them although I'd advise taking copies of the posts for future reference. As has been previously stated you could also supply the police with copies if you do feel it nessicary.

So this is covered by the working time directive then? Thanks for that

They are not a recent development... they are just much more common now. Also over the last couple of months the attitude of the management has changed (due to a change in management). Before if we had a staff search we would still be out by 10 past closing. Now we are expected to stand around until someone can be bothered to conduct the search hense why we now might not get out till half an hour after closing. Since we are only paid till closing time I'm feel that if they want to keep us back to conduct searches they should be paying us. (if it's just 5 or 10 minutes I'm not bothered... but 30 minutes I feel is taking the mike) Is there any legislation I could quote that would back up my position here?

No we don't have a trade union unfortunately.

Hiya all, I'm hoping someone can give me some advice regarding staff searches. I work for a well known retail chain which have started doing staff searches. This in itself is not a problem (although I do wonder about the invasion of privacy aspect). However myself and other staff are upset that these searches are conducted after hours in front of all our collegues. Tonight for instance my hours of employment were 5pm till 8pm. However after the staff search we finally left the store at 8.29pm... is it possible to claim for the extra half hour and if so how would someone go about doing this? As always any help/advise gratefully received.

The ticket says "city of stoke on trent penalty charge notice" at the top. It then has a PCN number Served on 13/4/2009 By civil enforcement officer 076P

Because I got a ticket. After I saw the ticket I did actually check the road signs (previously had only taken my friends word for it) signs say monday to saturday... Nothing about except bank holidays :O( Having looked into this more I think I'm out of luck on the whole bank holiday thing... but having read a few websites it looks like I might be better off argueing the incorrect details thing. Can anyone confirm or deny that because they got the colour wrong on the ticket the ticket is invalid?

Hiya all, Whilst staying at a friends in Stoke on trent over easter I recieved a parking ticket. What happened was I was parked outside their house (restricted residents parking) easter monday after they told me that it was ok on bank holidays... obviously this is not the case. However they are entitled to and applied some time ago for both a residents pass and a visitors pass but have only recieved a visitors pass. Due to the fact that had they had both passes I wouldn't have received the ticket (since the visitors pass would have been in my car) would I stand a chance of the council writing off the ticket? Also on the ticket it lists all the details of the car, reg, make, etc... and these are all correct... EXCEPT for colour. On the ticket it lists the colour as being SILVER. My car is red... a flat (non metalic) red. There is no way anyone could call my car silver... Does this make the ticket invalid? Finally if I do decide to dispute this ticket on either of these grounds is there a template letter for this kind of discrepacy? Thanks in advance.

Head gasket failer on these engines is not a common fault. I'd take an educated guess at one of the 4 following reasons for this. 1) The coolant systems wasn't correctly bled. (these engines tend to trap bubbles of air in the hoses which could conceivably cause an air lock) 2) Audi specify G12 antifreeze. It's possible that standard antifreeze was used, when mixed with g12 under certain conditions it can turn to a gel which will obviously block the flow of coolant causing overheating. This happened to a friend of mine on his Golf. 3) They anti freeze mix was far too weak... with the cold weather we have been having the water has frozen in the engine. 4) Thermostat failier... however they are designed to fail open so this is unlikely. That said I'd say your best bet is going throu tesco's warrenty. As has already been said Audi will swear it's not their fault, if it wasn't their fault it can't be a pre exsisting condition therefore your warrenty should pay.

Halfords are only passing on the VAT cut on "service items" not on anything else. Despite the fact that it says on the door that the VAT will be taken off at the till. Oh and the "Service Items" have all gone up in price. (Nothing illegal I know.... but immoral/unethical?)

Also would they be in breach of the data protection act for giving out her details to a third company (the debt collectors) when the account is in dispute?

Thanks bankfodder. Since the account is not mine (I'm just helping to handle this on behalf of a friend) I can't honestly remember if the entire amount was charges. As I recall the account was around -£500 of which £480 were charges and the rest was an unauthorised overdraft... However I beleive that that part of it has now been paid leaving only the bank charges. So you are saying that I should write to Equity House (the debt collectors) and then write a complaint letter to Natwest? Also is it the Banking code they are breaching?

UPDATE. Friday (I think) my friend recieved a letter from a company called Equity House. The Bulk of the letter is as follows... Client Reference ********** Their Reference **************** We have been instructed by natwest bank to collect the outsiding balance of your account. One of our debt collectors will be contacting you at your home to arrange payment in full. We require payment in full no later than 12th January 2009. After that it just goes on to say how to pay. What are Natwest playing at? They keep referring this matter to debt collectors despite the fact it's in dispute. Any advise as always gratefully recieved.

At a guess I'd say a worn CV joint. What make model vehicle are we talking about? just out of interest.

If the pads are worn to lets say 1.8mm that is not an MOT failier... however if the car can reasonably assumed that it's a high milage vehicle an advisory should be issued.

If rover replaced the orignal head then they would almost certainly replaced it with one post fix. Lets just hope that when it was then replaced the 2nd time hopefully it'll have been replaced again with a post fix head. Back to the problem at hand... it's sounding more and more like a split/blowing exhaust. Pure speculation here but if a central exhaust mounting rubber has failed and the exhaust is now sagging it's quite possible the seal where the exhaust joins is now split/blowing. Should be a cheap fix. Keep us updated and I'm interested now.

you can get an idea if it's high milage from the clock. If it's 100,000 miles and the car is only 5 years old it can be considered a high milage vehicle. while this isn't perfect (it may have been a reps car for 3 years cover 85,000 then sold to a little old lady who now only drives it to church) it does serve as a guide.

Can I ask what do you mean by "shudder"? can you describe that in more detail?

steam coming from an exhaust when it's cold isn't anything to nessicarily worry about. However it being a rover K-series I was wondering if we were possibly looking at the old rover head gasket issue. A possible indication of this would be excessive water coming from the exhaust. It might be worth checking the coolant and dipstick for signs of mayonesse but from the sounds of things I think the previous poster could be correct in thinking it's just a split/blowing exhaust.