Hi from longtime lurker,first time poster!

hi all i have just joined and am looking for some advice. It might be a little long winded just for a simple answer. I recently separated from the wife and moved to a flat which has private parking enforcement in Rushden Northants. I got 2 parking charges from County Parking Enforcement Agency. I showed these to my letting agent who said ignore and who took a photo copy to be sent off to the landlord to be quashed. This was 5th and 6th of Nov last year. In Jan this year i got letters from them saying that i had failed to pay so the charges had gone up from 50quid each to 100. I again took these letters to letting agent who did the same as previous and said dont worry. Now i have just got a threatening letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd who have added another 50 quid on top saying if they dont receive payment or a proposal for payment then the matter may be passed to the landholders solicitor to commence county court proceedings. County Parking took over managing the car park the month i moved in and on one of their signs it says that car must be parked in assigned bays within the lines. Trouble is their are no lines as they've faded away, just numbers which are quite faded. Add to this they sent me a map of the car park with new numbers or their map that dont correlate with the numbers that are painted onto the car park. Should i send em a snotty letter or just carry on ignoring them. The ex is getting a bit stressed as my car was still registered to her address at the time so she gets all the mail. One thing that really gripes me is i have 2 car passes now and one is for a garage that only i have the key for so how could i possibly need their permission ie a pass to park in it....grrr. Advice please.. .as it stands i am gonna photograph their sign tomorrow and take a couple of pics of the car park showing no lines and the numbers which dont match theirs just in case someone decides to do a paint job.

Hello there I have been renting to a tennant for the last 2 years, they are still within their contract and the other day we got a call from a referencing agency, (they have applied for another property which starts months before their contract with us is due to end) There is no break clause in our contract but I have the feeing that they are just going to leave and post the keys. I told the ref company that I will not supply a reference when I have had no notice to quit from the tennants. The tennant sent me a mssg the other day saying that they have seen a property they like but would like to see us to discuss first, but it is clear that they have already started the ball rolling. The tenent would also want to stay in the house a day over into the following month too...bet i dont get paid for that either!!! This tennant has been no problem to us, and I am very annoyed that they would leave this way. And to date we have not received a formal written request from them. Please advise. thank you all.

I think this is in the rite place as in the long run it will be thrown at the council or a bailiff if need be. This is to do with council tax. If someone has suffered from depression for a long period, 6 years roughly, and has been taking anti-depressants for that length of time, are they classed as vulnerable. They have trouble coping even for one day if they miss there daily dose, and trust me, they have tried to cut down slowly because they want to get off them but there's a big change in them within a couple of days even if they only take half a dose of there medication each day. Would this be enough to throw at the council to get them to stop sticking the boot in.. Thanks for any replies in advance...

Hello i brought a Beko washing machine on 05/10/2010 and decided to take out the Dixons mastercare extended 5 year warranty. Unsurprisingly the machine developed a fault on the 28th june. I called the hotline number and had to wait a week for an engineer to come out and "fix" the problem. He ran a cycle of tests and declared the machine good to use . After trying to do a wash after he had left it became apparent that the fault was still in tact, the engineer had in fact fixed nothing. Back on the phone and a week later a second engineer turns up, tells me he replaced the pump and didn't know why the first engineer hadn't already done this as it was an obvious problem. Off up the road he goes we try to do another wash and this time a different fault has developed, the machine starts it's cycle, fills up with water and then stops! .. ...back on the phone again to take another date for engineer number three who after another five days makes a complete no show!... ..back on the phone again, this time to be told that due to a system "error" our appointment has been cancelled and that the next one available is five days away which currently leaves us (still) three and a half weeks with a washing machine that is still not guaranteed to be repaired .. ...at my wits end and the family can't wash their clothes completely hopeless experience from this company and endless fobbing off from their condescending /patronising customer service, never again, do yourself a favor and avoid it too it's cheaper and less grief to buy a new washer!

Two weeks ago I started work with an employment agency on an agreed rate of £10 per hour,this was agreed over the phone,so I did my weeks work,then into last week finished,I received my wageslip yesterday to find they have paid me £9.50 per hour and also charged me an admin charge of £20 pounds. No one their answering the phones on friday when i tried to call so i just emailed them asking about this,obviously no reply,where do I go from here regards their thievery??

Hello everybody. We are having a bit of a problem, my wife and I. About a year ago my wife signed as Guarantor for her daughter (my stepdaughter's) rent in a shared house. The rent was £1050 for six months, but my wife signed to guarantee the subsequent six months (the first six months was paid in full). My stepdaughter moved out of the accommodation at the end of the six months. A couple of days later the landlady contacted my wife and said she was liable for the next six months rent to the tune of £1050. Following some advice my wife offered to pay the amount in instalments direct to the landlady's bank account. We have thus far paid £500 of the outstanding amount. Unfortunately due to recent changes we haven't been able to continue paying the instalments. I am in receipt of Income Support with a disability premium (or whatever they are calling it now) and my wife receives DLA. Today the landlady telephoned my wife to say she is calling at our house tomorrow to collect the remaining balance of the rent, some £600 in cash. I'm not completely sure but I don't think we are obliged under law to pay this cash money, and in any case we simply don't have it. Please could someone advise us as to what our responsibilities and/or rights might be in this situation? This is a very stressful experience for both of us. Thank you in advance.

Hi, I took my car for MOT 2 weeks ago (19th June) and unfortunately it failed due to play on the nearside track rod end, which would need replacing and a broken clip on a CV boot. I told them that I would have to discuss this with my husband, who usually does most of the mechanical work on our cars when he has time. Unfortunately due to timing and my husbands working commitments, he was unable to do this job himself. The following day I called the garage to book the car in to have the work done and the MOT retest. I also asked them to check the front wheel balancing and asked them to get the car fully 4 wheel laser tracked on the request of my husband, mainly due to the fact that they were going to change a front steering part and because my husband had noticed a slight vibration between 50 & 60 mph coming through the steering wheel. The garage told me that they do not balance or track vehicles inhouse but infact take them to an outside source. That was fine, I didn't care as long as it was done. The car went back to have the work done on 21st June. The garage quoted me £157 all in including VAT to do everything; Supply & Fit nearside track rod end. Supply & Fit CV boot clip Balance both front wheels 4 wheel laser tracking cost of MOT I told them to call me if there were any problems, they didn't. I went to collect the car. I was livid to find that bill was now £206, a £49 rise from the quote. I was told by the mechanic that both the lock nuts on the track rods ends were siezed and that they had to use Oxy Acetylene to heat them up to loosen them, this apparentley accounted for the extra money. I agued the fact that they should have called but basically gave in and paid up. Skip ahead a week until the first day my husband uses the car after this work has been done. You see, I only travel a couple of miles to work and back and this is on my local lanes, whereas my husband travel 30 miles along a nice flat dual carriageway. My husband got home from work and said that the car had to go back to the garage as for one, the steering wheel was no longer level but rather about 10 degrees anticlockwise, there was still vibration between 50-60 mph and more importantly the car would not track straight but if left with no input to the steering wheel, wanders off to the right. This also make the car uncomfortable to drive, i.e. you forever need to put in small corrections to the steering to keep it in a straight line. I called the garage and the first available slot they had was yesterday 4th July. I dropped the car with them in the morning on my way in to work and told them I would be back at lunch time to collect it. At lunch time I went to the garage and they explained to me that they could not find any issues with the car but had noticed that the steering wheel was slightly at a skew. They said they had the balancing rechecked and it was fine so the vibration must be a faulty bush somewhere. They said they had the tracking rechecked and it was perfect, they also said that they had also checked the tracking with their own 2 wheel setup to double check but could not find an issue. Unfortunately they were all going to lunch just then and the boss told me to come back a 2pm either myself or my husband and we would all go out in the car to try it out. Well, on the way home I decided to see for myself what the car was like to drive on an open road and took it along a dual carriageway. Yes, straight away I could see what my husband had been saying, the car wandered to the right on straight and level pieces of road and I was constantly having to make corrections to the steering to keep the car running straight. My husband was not available to go back in the afternoon so I went to the garage myself. The boss of the garage drove my car along the link road and it seemed to track straight but he was putting very small corrections in. Anyhow, he told me that to get the steering wheel lined up straight I would have to take the car to where they had taken it for the laser tracking, which funnily enough turned out to be my local tyre supplier who I know well. I arranged this job for today. I took my car in and the tyre supplier was shocked, he told me the car had been spot on when it had left him almost 2 weeks earlier. The first thing he checked was the tracking, it of course was out, this accounted for the wandering and constant steering inputs. He couldn't adjust it right then because he had to lock the steering wheel in the level postion first, which threw the track out more. So, steering wheel locked level he started to track the car only to find that both the lock nuts were completed 'mullered', his words not mine. He also noted that there was play from the nearside track rod end, the one that was replaced. He did eventually manage to get the car tracked after wrestling with damaged lock nuts but basically told me that they needed sorting and that the faulty track rod end would indeed throw the tracking out again in the near future. Now from when I had the work done on the 21st June until the garage had the car back on 4th July, no one has touched the car, yet my tyre supplier swears blind that when he originally tracked the car the lock nuts were fine. I cannot figure out how the lock nuts are now mangled unless someone has tried to do some work i.e. the garage yesterday 4th July before I took it to my tyre supplier today. If this is the case then my garage lied to me saying that they had had the tracking rechecked but instead had tried in vain to do it themselves causing the damage and throwing it further off track. I obviously will be taking up with my garage tomorrow, basically demanding that the track rod end be replaced yet again and also that the 2 damaged lock nuts be replaced allowing someone in the future a good chance of actually moving them and of course after this the car will yet again need to be tracked professionally. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to get in all the deatil. I just wondered where I actually stand with my garage if they refuse to do the work or if they try to charge me extra for correcting the mistakes? Regards.., DHB

I've had a series of 1 missed payment marks on my credit file by a service provider which I consider to be unfair. The direct debit had been set up but the money had not been taken from the account and then I received a phone call from them when I made the payment after the due date but in the same month. This lead to a series of 1 marks. I was ill at the time and couldn't really attend to things but the direct debit was definitely set up and should have been in place. I complained at the time and have done since but they refuse to listen - I tried taking it to the industry arbitration but they got that thrown out as it was supposedly outside the time limit. Is there anything I can do about it - it was their fault and seems very unfair.