Why do you think you've lost out? You paid £1 for an item, sold it for £39.99 which you refunded then Royal Mail will give you back your £1. You are in exactly the same position as you were before the sale & unless the item was the very last one of your bulk purchase, just send your customer a repalcement for the agreed price of £39.99. Royal Mail's terms & conditions are very clear that they don't pay out for consequential losses. You should consider yourself very lucky if you are able to sell items which cost £1 for £40!!!! Especially if you buy in bulk. Anyone in business would be pleased to have such a mark up.

Just going back to the mortage advisor's comment in your first post, I think you need to find out EXACTLY what he meant. What exactly was the purpose of the loan that your husband declared on his mortgage application? Was it " to purchase property for elderly parents to live in rent free" or was it " to purchase main residence". Could it be that the "negative impact" was that the lender is unaware that your husband doesn't live in the property as his main residence & that the property has effectively long term sitting tennats, and that possibly your husband may be in breach of the terms of the loan? You should check this very carefully as this could be a far bigger problem than having unusual circumstances for your tax credit claim.

I have to disagree with the comments about the effectiveness of the FOS, although I realise that not everyone will get the same result Have a read of my thread Elmo & Lucy v Lloyds again!! As I explain in my thread it did take a long time & was stressfull but Lucy ended up with £18,000 & is now debt free. Just think how long it would take to earn £18,000 net of tax, nationa insurance etc etc. The important thing to remember is to prepare well & expalin everything to the Nth degree and provide your own calculations if you think the bank is wrong. Good luck Elmo

Just something for you to think about - you said the tax and National Insurance was unpaid for 2009/10. Have you contacted HM Revenue & Customs to tell them this? If you have proof you suffered deductions, your NAtional insurance contributions can be deeemed to your NI record. Additionally there is a chance that the company owes HMRC far more than just your tax & NI & that they may want to pursue the company & wind them up ( which would save you the cost) or that if HMRC start action, the director may be forced to wind the company up. Additionally if you look at this link on the Employment tribunal website http://www.employmenttribunals.gov.uk/FAQ/faqs.htm you will see that you can go to court to obtain a CCj against the company for your outstanding award - although this would cost, it will reflect on the company's credit record & whoever has lent the business loan would be very interetsed to see this on their credit record. Another thing that occurs to me is that if there is a loan, it must be being paid or the lender would be taking action to take posession of the director's house so the company must have some income. If you obtained aCCj you could also ask for an Oral Examination in Court & the director will have to answer questions & provide evidence about the comapny finances ( under oath if necessary). And finally!! You say there are no assets, but have you gone on to Companies House & obtained copies of the company accounts? They will only cost a couple of pounds but may show there are assets in which case you may have something to secure against. What they may also show is how much money has gone in & out of the company & the director's remuneration. If the director has caused the finacial problems by being reckless, a Receiver will be very interetsed if the company is liquidated & the director may be made persoanally liable for the company debts or forced to repay money they have extracted. Happy hunting. Elmo

Firstly, my condolences on your sad loss. I'm very surprised that no one could help you. You will need an account in the name of the administrators, its quite simple - the account would be in the names "AAAA and BBBB as Administrators of CCCC deceased" - all transactions should be done through this account & there should be no problems at all. I suggest going to the bank where your late sister had her account as this will be simplest. You are quiite correct in thinking the money will not be yours - you would hold it as a trustee on behalf of the beneficiaries of the estate. Can I suggest that it is worth taking some legal advice as this can save you a lot of work and worry in the long run especially as there are absentee beneficiaries & a minor to deal with. The estate will obvioulsy have to pay for this, but my experience is that some of the paperwork which would take you an age is what probate solicitors do day in & day out. i hope everything runs smoothly.

The other thing you may want to do is actually contact HMRC about your National Minimum Wage - if your mileage expenses are reducing your pay below the NMW rate, your employer may be committing an offence by not paying you sufficient.

Honeybee, you are incorrect. National Insurance is not agregated across employments - the lower limit applies to each spearate employment. So in this case Zararh is earning £90 pw from one job - below the lower limit & £177 per fortnight from the other, again below the lower limit. Zararh, you may want to make enquiries about paying voluntary contributions to your NI record. As regards the tax, there is something wrong with this - on your total income you should be liable for tax on about £2100 per anum @20% ie about £8 per week in TOTAL. The easiste thing is to find your nearest HMRC enquiry centre & arrange to go in there to get things sorted out. Also, with the level of your income 2 other things occur to me - firstly are you getting paid at least NAtional Minimum Wage and secondly are you entitled to income based TAx Credits? Again HMRC enquiry centre could help you with this. Elmosouth

I'm very surprised that no one from the union would accompany or represent him. My experience is when union reps are in situations such as this, it is very common for a senior union rep to be sent. One reason is to ensure that the employer is not using the matter as a way to start pushing the union around or to try & show that the union is powerless. Its always best to have another rep present. The employer wouldn't need your OH's permission to advise the union that there was a disciplinary matter involving a union rep. - they would probably need permission to divulge anything more than this, but would expect that the rep had asked for assistance from the union & had already told them everything. Playing devil's avocate: I still find it extremely difficult to beleive that a union is not supporting one of its reps. Has you OH actually asked them for help? And in your post of 3rd August, you also said you were going to "come clean" - to me this means that either the truth hasn't been told or a relevant part of the story hasn't been told. Is there anything else that may be relevant as people can only give advice based on what you say & if there is something missing, the advice may not be of any use or may be counter productive. Being very blunt it means that people who are trying to help are actually wasting their time. Quite simply if I was in your OH's position I would immediately contact he union for assistance & if I got no joy would go to the highest level & ask for a written explanation as to why I was being "thrown to the wolves". Situations like this not only harm the indivdual but also hamper TU reps in any future actions they may take on behalf of their memebers.

Have I missed somerthing in this? You said in your post of 3rd August that your OH was a union rep, but you have not at any point mentioned approaching the union for any assistance, nor has anyone else suggested this. Can he not get any help from his union? There is specific legislation relating to the disciplining of union reps by employers, esepcially if there may be any link to their genuine union activities. As a union rep I would be appaled if my union did not support any of its memebers, let alone its reps, who had these sort of problems.

On the top of your FIL's P45 there will be a reference number for his employer's PAYE scheme. If you need to check who employs him, get him to go to his local tax office & ask them to check their records. Interesting that you also mention about using "agency" doorstaff. I wouldn't mind betting that the reason they may be cheaper is because they are treated as self-employed, This means the agency that engages them will not be paying Employers National insurance it also means the doorstaff aren't entitled to holiday pay, sick pay, or any other employment rights at all - making it much easier & cheaper for the agency. Of course the big problems occur if one of the doorstaff is injured or injures somneone - then claims for liability start flying. I think your FIL is well out of this situation. As for meeting with the employer, my persoanl opinion would be for FIL to go and at least hear what she has to say. I would suggest that he does not go alone, & takes someone who can give him moral support & can also write notes of what is actually said. As for amounts of money -i would see what the employer has to say - there is no reason he can't listen then ask for a day or so to consider, then arrange a second meeting to agree or negotiate.

I have to say, like any organisation, it will depend on who is dealing with your case. i made 2 complaints - one was dealt with poorly, but Lloyds still made an ex-gratia payment. The other was dealt with superbly and ended up with an £18K refund covering a period of over 8 years. What the FOS don't make clear is that they don't operate like a court where both sides put their evidence & someone looks at the balance of probabilities (civil law). The FOS can be asking both sides different things & not telling the other side what was asked or answered. The way I worked my case was to provide all the information and more; My own opinions as to why things were wrong as well as quoting legislation and to do my own calculations for the amouNTS i thought were due back. Yes it took several years & that was 3 years ago when they weren't dealing with so many cases. Be aware, the banks always say they are right; so look for ways to pick holes in their story - if the FOS says they're right & you aren't, query it, put forward your evidence & ask the FOS for a written explanation of why they believe the bank is right - The banks will be doing the same thing in querying everything you say. In my case the bank spent more time critisising me & my actions than defending itself. I was lucky in that the ombudsman got fed up with their behaviour & accepted my calculations. It was very stressful even though I was doing it for a friend - but I got the result i wanted. Elmo & Lucy I'm not sure how to post a link to my thread but have a read as it is a success story.

One tip if you are preparing your own notes is to send them to your manager and ask them to agree the content or, if they disagree, let you have any amendments/comments on a separate sheet of paper, signed & dated by them. This will force them to state their position. You may find there are genuine misunderstandings that need to be resolved - or you may find they agree your notes. Personally I would never agree notes that are read out by someone. I would want to read them in my own time and then either agree them or make my own comments. If you can't get a copy, does your employer have any policies relating to DDA & related matters - if so have they complied with these. If not that may be worth highlighting. Also you could make a Subject Access Request under the Data Protection Act as the notes would preseumably be held in your personnel file. Anything relating to the DDA can be complex and even upsetting. It can also feel humiliating if you aren't being treated in a compassionate way. You may find it best to take a friend/colleauge with you to help in any further meetings; or, are you a member of or have you considered joining a union? They can be a great help (I speak from experience both as a union rep & someone who has conditions that fall under the DDA) The important thing for you to remeber is that the employer has obligations under the DDA & they have to demonstarte they have met these in respect of yourself.

If he is an employee, then that's fine - I just thought it worth checking - I agree with Sidewinder - its a very complex issue and consulting an employment lawyer would be the best thing to do. As regards the terms of the pub's licence, this is information in the public domain. If you ring your local council and ask to speak to the licencing department/officer they should be able to give you all the information. They may also have it on their webiste - a lot of councils do. From this you could check whether its a condition of their licence to have door staff.

Caledfwlch makes a very good point. A lot of companies set up in this way are done so to avoid & evade tax & natioanl insurance. Are you positive your husband was an employee? Does he have a contract of employment - my experience is that most companies operating in this way will provide a contrcat for the worker, but on reading it you may find that it is not what you expect. i have seen many which state that the worker (also possibly called a sub-contractor) and the company specifically have no employee/employer relationship.

You say your F-I-L works as a "doorman" at a pub -A couple of questions based on experience: Does he have an SIA licence? Is he actually an employee of the pub? The reason I ask is that many doorstaff claim to be self-employed in order to avoid PAYE tax & national insurance being deducted from their pay. This also saves the "engager" (the pub) having to pay Employers National Insurance & makes it cheaper to engage them in this way. The problem is, if you claim to be self employed and the enegaer is treating you as such, you don't get any protection from employemt legislation - as obviously you are not employed!! Hopefully your F_I_L will not be in this position & will have evidence that he is an employee. What is the position with other door staff? It would be unusual to have only one doorman as most licenced premises taht have them have the numebr specified in their licence, or have it specified that the must have door staff & there has to be more than one in case one needs to go to the toilet/ is taken ill/ doesn't turn up/ is dealing with an incident etc

Good point about the company not having any money & not getting judgement satisfied, R & J. BUT with regard to the director - if he was aware that the comapny could not pay wages & they keep trading he commits an offence of trading whilst insolvent & the Official Receiver can use insolvency legislation to vest the debts of the company on the director in some circumstances. Additionally, if he is deliberately not paying the wages & the employee is still working on the project, is there a potential for the employee to report to the police that the director is obtaining services by deception (a criminal offence)? Even if its dodgy ground, might not a warning to the director serve some purpose.

Just a couple of things which may help. The fact that the employer has produced a P60 showing the pay and tax deduction triggers 2 things . Firstly it is their acknowledgement of the pay figure, so you can use this as proof in court - they would have to prove the money hadn't been paid if they chose to defend. Secondly they are stating the amount of tax and National Insurance due to HM Revenue & Customs - this would have to be paid irrespective of whether the pay had been paid to your partner. If it hasn't been there are then 2 debts due. If the wages can't be paid it also begs the question what else do they owe? Such as VAT; other unpaid PAYE; corporation (company ) tax; the bank! I would suggest you check this website to see if the comapny has any CCJs - you may need to check the company's registered office address on Companies house website. If there are outstanding CCJs I suggest you get your court action going quickly as the company may be on the way down. www.trustonline.org.uk . The other thing your partner & anyone else who hasn't been paid could consider is making a complaint to HMRC's National Minimum Wage investigators that they haven't been paid Minimum Wage for the period up to now. (see HMRC.gov.uk) I have to say I would be concerned about anyone in a company working on what seems to be almost a private project for the director - especially if it is a completely different type of business. The whole things seems a bit strange to say the least. I agree with the other posts that suggest quick, firm, action - but you may need to be ready to deal with a liquidator or receiver if the comapony does go down.

Hi There, I am a union rep & having just read through this, you need to immediately make contact with your union & get advice from a very senior level. If your local rep didn't have experience they should have sought advice immediately & I have to say that previous advice to represent yourself is appalingly bad - after all, what do you pay your union subs for. As I said, contact your union immediately - check their website to see who you need to speak to - possibly their legal department. If you need to go via a local rep, again do it immediately & get them to contact the Union HQ & tell them you have been dismissed. You need to act quicly if you are going to take this to an employment tribunal. In a large number of cases, the easiest thing to do is to attack the procedures that have been followed (or not followed) by the employer. That's where your union will help you. In your profession they will undoubtedly have great experience of matters like this and will be able to look at it in a detached way; something that you will find very hard to do in the circumstances. I hope things turn out well, but I can't emphasise enough. You MUST act IMMEDIATELY. Elmosouth

No bank is going to be any different to the others - yea they may star off that way but its all smoke & mirrors. Think about it - these are multi BILLION pound businesses, you can't just start up on your own & run a local bank. You need: Money (large amounts of it); and Someone to run the bank. Money will need to come from investors (as the Government doesn't have any) investors will want good returns otherwise they won't invest and experienced directors so they know you won't screw up (too much!!) So you need to make good profits by ripping off the customers - and you get..... .... Someone to run it: That would be someone who knows how to run a bank because they ....... used to run another bank. So you get investors who used to invest in other banks funding directors who ran other banks - all that has changed is the name over the door. The only way to really change this would be to have a Government owned bank accessible to all, with a large numebr of places you could access your money - say, like being able to do it at the Post Office and through the bank clearing or Giro system (anyone see where this is going?????????). It could perhaps be called the "National Giro Bank"!!!!!!!!!!! Or we could have a bank for people who want to save, looked after by Government trustees - called perhaps the "Trustee Savings Bank"!!!! they would have no shareholders, no reason to make excessive profits and could provide a sensible service to all, including simple accounts for those who don't need/want anything more than the basics. For those younger member who don't know what I'm rattling on about, we had both these institutions untill the were sold off by The Governement & were subsequently taken over by Alliance & Leicester and Lloyds BAnk Group respectively. What price re-nationalisation!!!!!!!!!!!!

.............. The bank were, to say the least, not impressed. They described it as " an arbitrary calculation prepared by a third party"; did not provide a calculation of their own & used a typical "lawyer's approach" (apologies to any nice lawyers on our side!!!) to try & rubbish what I'd done rather than providing their own information & calculation. This is a very common approach when the other side haven't actually got anything of substance to argue with. The ombudsman took a completely different view - I had previosuly told him what my job was -(I'm not going to reveal that here, but suffice to say, I examine a lot of financial records to see if they are correct & people are telling the truth) - He told the bank that my calculation was simple, well presented, easy to follow & accurate. If they had any objection they had to provide their own calculations with supporting evidence, otherwise he would accpet my figures. And the bank did............................NOTHING!!!!. I spoke to the ombudsman about the harrassment distress all the banks failings & actions had caused. he agreed to award an amount ( not insubstantial) in respect of this. As my calculations shawed that the loan would have been repaid 2 years early once the PPI had been removed from the capital, I charged interest on any overpaymenst at the same rate that loaninterets had been charged by the bank ( What's sauce for the goose..............!!) The overall result? Overpayments repaid. Interest paid. Compensation paid. Total £18,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Lucy is now totally debt free as the overpayments easily paid off all her other debts. As the money was refuned to her Lloyds current account, which had been left open for this purpose, she immediately went in to withdraw it. When ithe staff sawe the balance, they were very eager to help her "invest" it..... until they were told where it had come form & reminded of their previous attitudes!! Lucy has left the current account open & in credit. She pays in and takes out a few quid each month. As a result of this Lloyds have recently written offering her an overdraft facility!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, for anyone reading this - it is worth complaining. It WILL take a long time; it WILL be stressfull (even i got stressed & it wasn't my money); IT IS WORTH DOING. Luv, Elmo & Lucy

Finally got time to write the next installment!!! The compaliant went to the FOS and was spilt in 2 parts by them. 1 in respect of my compliant that they lent excessively & in the most expensive way and 2 for the mis selling of PPI. The first complaint I do not think was dealt with well be the FOS - i proved that by refinancing the borrowing with smaller amounts & riolling over the loans it was an exxpensive way to lend money & was solely to make the bank additional profit. The Ombudsman did not find in my favour as he said the bank did not have a duty to lend in the cheapest way UNLESS Lucy had specifically asked them to. A clear lesson for everyone - ALWAYS ask your bank what the CHEAPEST alternative is . Despite this adverse decision, Lloyds offered an ex gratia payment bribnging the interest down to equivalent of the cheapest lending option. £620 received. The second part of the complaint went much better. i gave the FOS a full explanation of why I thought the PPI policies had been missold. In brief this was because a new one had been sold each time the loan was refinanced - there were 9 over a period of 13 years of which 3 had been in the latest 3 years - but when Lucy fell ill & was off work she wasn't aware that she could claim iunder thepolicies. I argued that if the full details had been explained each time she would probably know them better than the bank staff. The examiner at the FOS accepted this & the bank continually failed to reply to FOS & did not give full information when they did. The examiner finally wrote to the bank fining in our favour. The bank objected to this & asked for an Ombudsman to review the case as the claimed the examiner had exceeded her authority & used the wrong regulations as part of the matter related to a period when they were the Banking Ombudsman not the FOS. The ombudsman agreed that the wrong regulations had been used; but then using the Banking Regs stated to the bank that they had failed to lend prudently as it was obvious to anyone that Lucy had financial problems as she had to keep re-financing her borrowing on such a regular basis & was actually increasing her debts not reducing them. The bank didn't like this but had been hoist with their own petard. The Ombudsman also agreed with me that the PPI had been mis sold. The bank objected on the grounds that Lucy had made a claim on the policy "which proved she needed it". I argued that she did not "need" the policy- as she was on full pay whilst off sick she was no worse of finacially. Her clqaim on thepolicy was on the grounds that she had a "right" to claim not a need. The Ombudsman agreed with me:D. The Ombudsman's decision was that the PPI premiums & interest should be repaid from the 3rd policy sold onwards. The reason for this was that the first 2 policies could have been correctly sold, but from policy 3 ( the second refinancing), the bank was not lending prudently so fell fould of the BAnking Regs. This covered a period of 10 years. i objected to the amounts being a stqaright repayment & asked taht the loans be rescheduled using the actual repayment (including PPI premium) but with a reduced balance as the PPI capital amount was removed. The effect of this is to pay off the capital quicker & you actually cut down the interest paid so effectively gain interets at the rate you were paying. I spent a long time writing Exel spreadsheets for this (I'm not brilliant with Exel) and working out missing information such as interest rates. My final calculation was sent to the Ombudsman with full explanations. On the morning I sent it , he rang me to tell me the bank had suddenly "found" the missing information I was after. I told him i had caluclated the interest rate from other figure & expaline haw this was done. He was amazed how i had done this & was only 0.1% out on the rate. He wrote to the bank advising that unless they provided an alternative he would accept my calculation.......

You're quite right about the calls being re-routed. The other thing I found was that either: not everyone has access to all your records OR some people don't record contacts with you. My solution was to simply record every call to and from the bank( date, time, duration, name of bank employee & matters discussed & agreed). I know this may seem a bit of a pain at the time, but the more you record, the more you will be able to demonstrate their failings. Oh yes, and ALWAYS ask for detailed written confirmation of anything discussed - & if it doesn't agree with your notes, write back & tell them immediately. :grin: Elmo

I'm not sure how long an individual post can be so this might be in several bits. It is worth reading & I'm not just saying that because I wrote it. This is the story of a battle with Lloyds TSB via a compalint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. This all started with my other half getting in to a bit of a mess with borrowing. In order to sort out the immediate problem of repayment, she contacted the CCCS and with their excellent help agreed a repayment plan, paying reduced amounts to everyone. Everyone stopped interest & charges apart from Lloyds TSB in respect of her personal loan. When I was going through her papers, I noticed that every loan with, originally the TSB then Lloyds TSB, had had Payment Protection Insurance added to it. Furthermore, her borrowing had been regularly refinanced by the bank. When I started to add up the amounts of PPI premiums & interest I soon relised this had probably caused the majority of her financial problems (Is this starting to sound familiar??????????). We complained to the Bank that they had lent her excessive amounts of money & that she had been sold excessively expensive PPI which she didn't really understand. The bank to a long time to look at the complaint & we went through about 18 months exchange of letters before they issued their final decision and basically said - No we haven't done anything wrong at all we're really good people & all our staff do exactly what they should. So that's all right then !!!!! Having received the Final Decision and being far from happy, we then took the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Next post to follow as soon as Ihave a few minutes! Elmo & Lucy :grin: :grin: :grin:

I've just sorted out 2 successful claims for friends. One direct to the bank which resulted in the refund of premium, interest, bank charges & some expenses and a huge reduction in the loan interest rate. The other, which was a complaint to the Ombudsman has just resulted in a payment of £18K and went back well over 6 years!!!! If one of the moderators can point me in the right direction to set up a thread, I've got some interesting tips, experience & arguements to pass on. Elmo :grin: :grin: :grin: ps I don't log on that often so if anyone pm's me or adds to my thread it may take time to reply.

Thanks, we're very pleased to have won. Gary, Travel was 5 minutes walk & we attended court for 15 minutes in our lunch hour. so really no cost. We're pleased Lloyds had the additional cost of a barrister, but it's obviously something that other claimants should be aware of. I did ask the barrister when she was instructed as it would be interesting to know at what point SCM took that decision rather than just ring us to discuss the offer. But she wouldn't say. :D :D :D Elmo