Please help! I'm having major problems with my company at present. I have been on Mat leave since Feb 08 and receive SMP. My company have made me redundant, which is a separate matter, they have done so unfairly, without consultation and without offering me suitable alternative vacancies that are available. I have a solicitor acting on my behalf and we are on our way to tribunal. But entirely separately to that, this month I have not been paid correctly (again)...this is not the first time, 2 months ago they didn't pay me at all because I was removed from payroll due to redundancy, this month they haven't paid me any SMP, only a tax refund.... I have had a wide variety of differing amounts paid to me, I have no idea what it is I am supposed to receive because no two months are ever the same and I don't really know what to do. I have called payroll who are looking into it for me. Any advice on where I stand with this would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, I moved out of a rented property a week and a half ago, it was let through a letting agent on behalf of a private landlord and I paid £800 deposit. The day after moving out I contacted the letting agent to ask what the situation was regarding return of deposit and they told me that it would take 28 days, I questioned why the extensive delay and they told me this was because of them not being able to get out to inspect the property, but it was mentioned in my tenancy agreement. I conceded as they were right and it is in my tenancy agreement that it CAN take up to 28 days. However, yesterday I drove past and the property is already re-let and the new tennants are moved in! I called the agents this morning and checked, they confirmed it was re-let, they confirmed they had done their inspection last week and everything was fine, but they are still not releasing my deposit, apparently they are waiting instructions from the landlord? Can they do this? We took tenancy before the new guidelines came in in April 07, are we protected by these guidelines?

Hi All, I wonder if you can help, my partners account with Barclays Bank is currently in a payment plan scheme to pay back an overdraft which is over it's limit, he had a period of time of being out of work due and Barclays continued to pay direct debits then charge him £30+ for the privilege of paying. This meant that he went over his authorised overdraft level and in order for him to get back into authorised overdraft they set up a payment plan for him. Is it wise at present to make a claim for his charges or is it likely that they will turn around and demand immediate repayment of his overdraft? I have had a successful claim against Halifax and I would like to see him have the same success but not if they demand immediate repayment! Also, one other question, I have started a claim for 3 credit cards, Barclaycard, Halifax Visa and Cap One, the only letter relevant to credit cards on the templates library is LBA, I sent this and now I'm pretty sure that I have done the wrong thing as I didn't make a prelim approach for repayment. Any advice welcome Many thanks Lindsay

Hi, Is anyone out there at all versed in the world of timeshare? To cut a very long story short my Mother has been investing in a timeshare for about 20 years, it has undergone a whole variety of changes during that time including companies going under and it being taken over, her swapping her weeks for other weeks etc. The most recent issue is this: In May last year she went back the original resort in which she bought her timeshare with the intention of handing it back because she was fed up with it, she was persuaded out of this by a company called Points Generation Group (who I have since found out are major con artists and their limited holding company doesn't even exist under Companies House records). This company persuaded her to effectively trade her weeks for a points system, however they have never actually processed the paperwork properly and she is now liable for all of the maintenance fees on her first two weeks and also on the new points system she is a member of, to top this off they also persuaded her to part with nigh on £5000 when they offered her this "fantastic" service.... From what I can tell she got nothing for her two timeshare weeks that she still has to pay for, she had to buy points up front for a cost of £3800 as well as pay £500 for a presentation fee!!!!! If anyone has any legal knowledge, experience of this or any words of wisdom on how to deal with this please please contact me. She is at her wits end, she has worked all her life to earn herself a good retirement and has been royally scammed!! I am happy to provide any additional info that may be needed in order to help you, help me! But as it is a very long and drawn out story I have literally just brushed over the facts that I can gleam from some very unprofessional paperwork!! Any help at all will be appreciated! Many thanks in advance! Lindsay

Hi Ben, You can continue to update and add to your claim up until the day you file in court. I did this with my claim and I received everything back that I asked for. I was lucky with Halifax, I sent my LBA and they made me a full and complete offer of everything I was claiming the day before I was due to file in court, this was 13 days from the LBA, altogether 27 days from the date of my first letter requesting payment. I'm not sure that everyone else has been this lucky but Halifax do appear to be moving a bit faster now as I think they realise it's pointless waiting until a court file is issued, if they do this they have to pay up on the interest but if they settle before you file in court they do not pay interest, just the charges. (Although they did settle mine with £140 over and above my claim!) Good luck Lindsay

After my success with my 2 current accounts, I'm now going to have a go at reclaiming my charges on 3 credit cards. However I'm really confused with what to do about Interest on these, I'm assuming for credit cards you can claim back the interest as well as they obviously charge interest on balances, the thing is i'm not sure what rate of interest to use as there are a few listed on my statements. 12.9% for balance transfers and purchases, 25.4% for cash and 21.9% for cheques. Any ideas anyone??? Please??

Wooooo Hoooooo! I've just called the Halifax back, it was indeed an 0191 number!! She was calling me to make an offer, the offer she made was lower than the charges, having calculated the highest 2 years worth of charges on the accounts and offering me that! She asked how I felt about it and I politely told her I appreciated her offer but I felt it was too low so I would continue with the process and would be putting my claim into the courts tomorrow. She asked me to bear with her so she could see what she could do with that offer, she then offered me a figure, ignoring interest that was over and above what I was claiming by £140.00. She's going to put this in writing to me and it should be in my account in the next 7-10 days!!!!! Yipppppppeeeeee!!!! Time to get on to the credit card companies!!!! Thanks so much to this site, I know it's taken me a while to post but I've been busy reading and it's helped no end! A donation will be whizzing it's way to you as soon as they give me my money back!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Damn Damn Damn, I think I've made a mistake, I've just been reading through another thread and it's made me realise I may have done something wrong! Please can anyone help!!!???? The spreadsheets that I have used have had the interest calculations on them, is this wrong, will it affect my claim??? Please please please help!!! Thank you

Hi everyone, I'm not sure if I'm posting this in the correct place, I've only just found where to post new threads!!! I'm in the process of claiming back against halifax. I sent my SAR to Halifax in November and eventually they managed to fulfill my request. They said they had sent the statements out and I never received them so they resent them!! (I received about 40 separate envelopes, one statement in each - seems Halifax have made so much money on the bank charges we've been paying they don't care about postage costs!!!!) When I had receieved the statements I immediately set about calculating how much I would be claiming back from Halifax for both of my accounts, and came up with a figure of nearly £3000.00...it's no wonder I've been skint for the last 5 years!! I sent my first letter on the 10th December (bad timing on my part since their 14 day deadline was then Christmas Eve, but hey ho!) I quickly received back 3 letters from them in quick succession, 2 were standard letters reminding me of Halifax's banking conditions and making me aware of changes they were making to their conditions, the other was a standard acknowledgement of my complaint telling me how sorry they were to hear I was unhappy blah blah blah and they would get back to me within 4 weeks. I basically ignored this and sent my second letter off as that seems to have been the advice I have read in all the other threads, I was admittedly a few days late sending my second letter as I was away over Christmas but I sent my second letter on the 3rd of Jan. Since then it has just been a waiting game, I am due to file in court this Wednesday the 17th, so I am busy doing my research. Although when I arrived home from work today I did have a message from someone at Halifax asking me to call them back regarding my letter. I didn't get a response when I called this evening, although it was half 6 so perhaps they'd gone home, so I'm going to give them a call tomorrow morning! Does anyone have any ideas at all about what this call may have been concerning? Has anyone had a similar thing happen? I'm really nervous about the prospect of filing in court but I'm gonna fight this one through, the charges that Halifax have been taking have caused me to get in more and more financial difficulties over the years so it will nice if I get something back out of them! I've also just looked at my credit cards and I've got a total of £800 with my 3 credit cards so if I'm successful with Halifax I'll go after those next! I've also got my boyfriend going after his charges as well, I went through all of his statements for him and completed the spreadsheet...so I've got my fingers crossed with him (he's with Barclays, not Halifax and from what I've read, those fighting Barclays have been less successful than most)