Travelling to Zambia from Heathrow with BA, we decided to 'take advantage of the generous hand luggage allowance' as BA encouraged one to do. We turned up with two sets of hand luggage which were purchased to fall inside the measurement criteria i.e, one large hand luggage and one handbag each. At Heathrow the BA Customer Services Manager!!! denied our handbags with the spurious reason that they were neither briefcases nor laptops and he pointed to a sign which mentioned briefcases and laptops but had no mention of handbags. I objected that online reference is definitely made to handbags but I was flatly refused. There was no opportunity given for us to measure our handbags in a handbag bin (I do not even believe I saw such a bin-only for the large handluggages which our large hand luggage fitted) and a tape measure was certainly not used to dismiss our bags which anyway were within the 45x36x20 cm limit for handbag, briefcase or laptop. On complaining to BA I have merely been told they will not refund me but their reply did state that hand luggages included hand bags!!! Big deal! How can I take BA to court since they wrongly charged me 270 pounds for these hand bags which were within all the criteria of weight and size and type. I still have the handbags and the recent ebay purchase information of our hand luggage/hand bags as proof of sorts. The maddening thing is that the reason for rejection was so spurious!!!!

Here is my experince with dealing with Swinton's and a copy of my complaint that I have sent to them today. My advice is always check prices online and never deal with a Swinton's branch offices where there main aim is try and get as much money out of the customer as possible. I took out car insurance for my Citroen C3 on 2nd Dec2012. I am now taking delivery of a newChevrolet Spark 1000cc on 01/03/2013 and called my local branch to change thecar details. I asked your representative David to change the policy andwas informed that I couldn't and would have to take out a new policy costing£348.16 an increase of £217.51 on my existing policy despite the fact that theCitroen is insurance group 6 and the Chevrolet is insurance group 3. I checked on line and found that Swintons quote for 12months insurance for the Chevrolet was only £132.17 which is £215.99 less thanDavid had quoted me. I then calledSwinton's quote line to ask if I could amend a policy when buying a new car andwas told that I could for a fee of £25 which is not what David told me. I then called in to the Cannock office and asked why I hadbeen told that I couldn't amend my policy and was told that I could and thecharge was £25, I asked why I was quoted £348.16 and was informed that thecharge was £25 + any extra that the insurance cost for the particular car. I then checked on line to get an up to date quote for theCitroen and Swinton's price was £178.56 which confirms what I already new thatthe Chevrolet wouldn't cost more to cover than the Citroen. My complaint is that I was misinformed by David about beingable to amend my policy and asked to pay £348.16 when I should have had to payonly £25. I phoned David and asked him to cancel the new policy andhave had to now insure with a new provider at a cost of £163.24. Although they were not as cheap as Swinton'squote of £132.17 I would prefer to pay the higher price rather than return to acompany who are happy to mislead their customers in this way.

I've recently decided to sell my car. I took out some finance by a company called Mallard based in the south of England. The cost of the car was £7,990. The total payments over 4 years comes to £13,074, or 61%. That equates to around 15.2% a year for 4 years. I have paid £7395 to date and have 21 months left to pay. I calculate that the settlement should be around the £3,200 mark as I shouldn't have to pay interest on money I've settled. That would make my finance costs over 27 months of £2,605, or around 32%. Again, around 15% per year roughly. They have quoted me a settlement of £4,916! That would mean interest of 54%, or roughly 26% a year??!! Is it legal for them to effectively increase the % of actual interest paid for early settlement? Does anyone know if I have some recourse on this? Many thanks

Hi All, I have an issue with STW that I would like help with if possible. After recieving a rebate of £200.00 in Oct 2009, STW changed my water meter in Nov 2009 stating that it was faulty. As I was paying by DD I never really took any notice of the charges being made until I was forced into changing the way payments were being taken due to being unemployed in 2010. On informing STW that I could no longer make monthly DD they sent my a bill for over £500. After much arguments backwards and forwards STW agreed to change the meter in March 2012, I had stopped making payments to them in June 2011 due to this dispute. I had in the meanwhile asked The Consumer Council For Water to look into the dispute for me. Unfortunately their response was to agree with STW that if the meter states that I used x amount of water then that was the amount used. Once the new meter had been fitted in March 2012 I started taking readings and managed to work out that our daily consumption is 0.34 units. I was therefore more than a little suprised by the letters I recieved from STW last week. One letter stated that the meter was faulty but had been undercharging and the second letter was a bill asking for payment from June 2011 until May 2012 an amount due of over £1200.00. After being woken up by my partner with smelling salts I started to work out what I had paid over the years to STW. I then calculated what I should have paid based on the 0.34 units used daily. I get a figure of over £1700 overcharged from 2001 to 2011. My question to my fellow Caggers is this: Would it be fair of me to ask for this money to be refunded and to add a 8% simple interest to the final figure? Also to ask STW to stop using figures based on a faulty meter to advise me of my current years bill? Thanks in advance BP

Dear all, I owed a total of £1,923.06 to Camden council: £ 969.43 (council tax for period 29/09/08 to 31/03/09) £ 953.63 (council tax for period 01/04/09 to 28/09/09) I was totally unaware of this debt until I was contacted and visited by a bailiff from Rundle&Co who had taken on my debt. The first visit occured in the first weeks of February. I was away from home and was left a message to contact him. The second visit occured in the last week of February. The bailiff visited me and started bullying me into paying the debt immediately etc. I agreed to pay to the debt by direct bank order. Anyway, I ended up paying a total of £2,440.06: £ 1,168.13 (council tax for period 29/09/08 to 31/03/09) on 17 February 2011 £ 1,271.93 (council tax for period 01/04/09 to 28/09/09) on 28 February 2011 meaning that I paid £517 extra in unspecified bailiff fees. Recently, I requested a breakdown of the fees paid and they replied: Council tax debt for period 29/09/08 to 31/03/09: Debt : £1,054.43 Visit fee 1 : £24.50 Visit fee 2 : £18.00 Levy fee : £55.00 Attendance/Van : £120.00 Total : £1271.93 Council tax debt for period 01/04/09 to 28/09/09: Debt : £953.63 Visit fee 1 : £24.50 Visit fee 2 : £18.00 Levy fee : £52.00 Attendance/Van : £120.00 Total: £1168.13 I understand that the levy fee relates to making a list of my property. This never occured. In addition, I am not sure what the van fee relates to but I am sure it is a fraud charge. Also, why is the debt in the first case increased by £85.00?? Is this a standard bailiff practice to also increase the amount of debt? In addition, is it OK for them to charge twice for the same visit? (The bailiff's visit was related to two separate debt collection cases). My question is this. What is the best route to take in challenging these charges/fees and getting my money back? since seeing this breakdown of fees and reading several other threads on this forum I understand that this over/fraud charging is a standard practice by bailiffs and I have no intention of allowing this! thank you very much for your help! Much appreciated