Hi, I have a little issue, and would like some help. I have a 24 month contract with vodafone (£44/month), unfortunately I am going to have to leave my job and the country in the next 3 month. I won't be able to pay the £500 they are asking for in one go and would like to set up a payment plan with them to re-pay what I owe. I have called them today and they told me, my only options was to pay all in one go or pay £300 and then £10 a month for a plan. I will no longer be in the country and have no interest to get another contract with them. Is there anything I can do ? Do they legally have the right to say no to my payment plan ? Thanks for your answers !

The engine in my girlfriend's van recently blew up. The mechanic who she called to come out and recover the vehicle, took a look at the damage and informed her that she would need a new engine. He also informed her that he wouldn't be able to do the work, so had given it to the 'garage A around the corner'. Quite a bit of time passed by as my girlfriend deliberated upon what course of action she was going to take. When she finally decided to get a new engine, she started to attempt to make enquiries, with garage A, to which her van had been given. Not knowing much about anything, she required a bit of information from garage A, and contacted them several times, but she was poorly received, ignored, and requests for information were not responded to. Hearing all this, I told her to get her van repaired somewhere else. Thus she made new arrangements with a more customer friendly garage. All had been arranged, or so she thought, but when the new garage B (who she had arranged to do the work after the poor customer service from the original garage A) arrived to collect her van, garage A refused to hand over the keys to the van. Although garage A hadn't done any work on the vehicle, garage A has turned around and said that they wanted £25 per day as storage fee. Whilst I know that in the absence of any written or verbal contract, whereby girlfriend consented to paying a daily storage fee, garage A doesn't have a leg to stand on, I am wondering how much of a pain in the arse dealing with this issue might be. Is this a matter for the police, whereby they simply turn up whilst my girlfriend lawfully retreives her vehicle, or is might this be a real dragged out civil matter.....civil coursts, Sheriff's Officers, etc?

BT has more than tripled charges for former broadband customers who hold on to their email address. Its Premium Mail is free for people who pay for BT broadband, but costs £1.60 a month for those with other providers — until this month From 6th April, the monthly fee rose to £5, or £60 a year. Many pay for the service to keep their BT email address, access to their inbox and contacts after moving away from the firm. Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-3525098/BT-triples-charges-former-broadband-customers-hold-email-address.html#ixzz46pcFcheB

Ford Finance tell me that they have no record of PPI payments because the account was paid off more than 6 years ago. However a CMC tell me that for an upfront fee of £70 per claim they can get access to this information without any paperwork or account numbers. They call this fee a deposit which will be refunded on completion and suggest payment by credit card. They then charge 25% of any subsequent compensation. Any advice would be appreciated

Hi Caggers! Brief History. I was a legacy customer (old Telewest customer) since 2005. The last contract renewal was in 2007 when I moved house the previous time, so contract was well out of band. Notified them in December that I was moving and would like to take my services with me, they said sure, no problem and could probably provide the services I wanted. Great. I moved house 9th January. I contacted them on the 19th January to find out what was happening with my service installation at the new place. Was told the service was activated on the 17th. That would have been a miracle as the house has no cable through the wall. Upon asking them to check, they had reactivated the service at my OLD address. Having established that this was their fault, and establishing that they did not in fact operate in my new area they agreed that the account was closed, I owed them nothing further and in fact was due a refund of £21. Result! Phoned Sky and got a great deal. 3 weeks later they send me a bill for a months worth of charges. After swearing at the statement I calmed down and called them. Explained everything to them in great detail (had to repeat myself a couple of times because, overseas call centre), they apologised profusely and said I dd in fact have nothing to pay (no mention of the refund though) and to disregard the bill. 2 weeks ago I get a reminder that I still owe the amount on the recently provided bill. Off I go to tweet my displeasure to Virgin Media in a lovely public forum. They were on it like a rocket, very helpful and said it was now all sorted. Monday I get a threatening letter saying pay up or they'll pass it no to a collection agency, and today I get another bill! I want to charge them an admin fee for dealing with this cr*p and having to put with the stress! Advice please, how do I deal with these muppets?

Hi, Need some advice. I sent Vanquis a DSAR request over 4 months ago. I enclosed a £10 cheque which was duly cashed however they failed to provide me with any of the reqested documents (CCA, Terms & Conditions, Default Notices, Deed of assignment etc) I received a 3 page letter consisting of a demand for a further £1 for CCA and a 2 page document consisting of an abreviated table of transactions (I believe this is supposed to constitute a statement) Can someone confirm to me whether the £10 paid for the sar superceeds the requirement for an additional £1 for the cca. My understanding was the £10 sar fee covers ALL docs & data. Thanks

Hi everyone..... I have recently got into a dispute with a landlord regarding the return of fees paid for referencing checks. I am about to file a small claims submission, but first I'd appreciate any advice/comments. Basically what happened was put in an offer for a flat that he owns, and we believe he had accepted the offer (see email chain below). However when the tenancy agreement came through it was a higher amount than we agreed. I contacted him and he said he never accepted our offer, and the price is fixed. We therefore decided not to move ahead with going for the flat because what he was asking was too high for the standard of the flat, and we didn't think it was safe to work with someone who acts in this manner. I have tried talking to him about it but he refuses to accept that he should return the fee. I sent him a letter giving him 14 days notice before taking him to court, and he has again written back saying he will not return the fee. He says he never accepted our offer, and the price was on rightmove.co.uk. Here are the emails between my wife and this landlord (I've blanked out names) where we put an offer to him, his response. I can't see however any way in which this can't be seen as acceptance of our offer. We responded to this by negotiating an early release from our current landlord, so we could move in to meet the new landlords timescales. There were no subsequent discussions about the rental amount until I queried the amount showing on the tenancy agreement. EMAIL TRAIL STARTS HERE.... Hi Charles, Thank-you for arranging the viewing today, Graham was lovely and very helpful. We liked the flat and are interested in renting the property from you, the only issue we have is it's slightly over what we had originally planned to spend. Would you be willing to consider £1200 per month please? Thank you, Emily ============================================================================== Hi Emily, Really pleased that you liked the flat and had a good viewing with Graham. Graham said you are a really nice family and would be well suited in the flat and good tenants so I am keen to offer the flat to you. What will help me make my final decision will be when you could take the flat on, do you have an ideal date to move in? I would also ask if you can help give me some more info by filling in the attached document and send back to me. This will also assist with referencing if we go forward. Thanks again and speak soon. Charles

Hi all! Hope this is the right place for this question, i am hoping someone can help. I am a LIP (Defendant) as a LIP can i sign a Tomlin/consent order? Secondly who is responsible for paying the fee for this order? I understand the fee is £50. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Today the Judiciary released their long awaited Consultation on McKenzie Friends. Most importantly, the consultation proposes a ban on fee-charging McKenzie friends in order to protect ‘vulnerable litigants’ from unregulated, uninsured and unqualified individuals. The article from the Law Gazette website outlines the Consultation in detail (and the online comments make interesting reading !!!). http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/judiciary-proposes-ban-on-fee-charging-mckenzie-friends/5053851.article

Hi Ok i am trying to Re claim my accounts fees as they were missed sold to me. I have all my statements after i finally got my SAR request through. I am claiming back to 2006 when i was signed up to additions account without my knowledge. I have drafted this letter. Dear Sir or Madam, Account name: First Additions Account number: I have had the above account since 1st February 2006 but believe it was mis-sold to me for the following reasons. - I didn’t know I was paying and don’t remember ever agreeing to having this account. - I was upgraded without my knowledge. - I wasn’t told there was an alternative, free account. I am writing to request a full refund of the fees I have paid plus any interest owed to me. I have enclosed a copy of the schedule of account fee charges. I look forward to your response within eight weeks, otherwise I won’t hesitate taking my complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Yours faithfully, Now i may need to change the last paragraph as going to the fos is a waist of time. So i believe the court route is required. Can someone tell me what the timings are before court action is this similar to bank charges. Thx Rob

Hi Over the Christmas period I was charged by Santander £25 for DD failure, 2x £25 for two standing order failures and £20 for an unarranged overdraft request (which I didnt request or receive). I have spoken to the bank who refuse to withdraw the charges so I have withdrawn my money and arranged for my pay to go into another bank prior to the charges being applied. Now they have applied charges to the empty account and written to me saying I can write to the Ombudsman etc and that the Supreme Court ruled charges fair. Any positive advice? Thanks

If a person receives notification of a County Court judgment that they had not known about, (normally because the summons etc had been either sent to a previous address or had been incorrectly addressed etc) then they can approach the court to request that the judgment be 'set aside'. The procedure is outlined in the following 'Sticky'. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?454644-What-Form-What-For-Where-does-it-go An application to 'set aside' the judgment or to 'stay' the proceedings is made on a court form called an N244 (known as a General Application). At present there is a court fee for filing an N244 of £155. If the person submitting an N244 is in receipt of qualifying benefits, they may be exempt from paying this fee. They would be required to complete an EX160 form. Last year the government issued a Consultation paper to seek views on increasings the fees for N244 applications (and many other court fees as well). There was an overwhelming response opposing the fee increases. Despite this, the cost of filing an N244 Application is to rise from £155 to £255. There are many other fees increases, one being the court fee for issuing a claim in the County Court. If a claim is made for a value of between £1,000 to £5,000, the issue fee will be £205. The link below is to an article from the Law Gazette. The online comments are worthy of reading! http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/senior-judges-lambast-government-over-court-fees/1/5053272.article?PageNo=1&SortOrder=dateadded&PageSize=10#comments

Hi, I am going to cancel my car insurance as I have found it cheaper else where, I’m currently paying £3120 a year (£260 on the 16th of the month) I have found it for £1160 a year. I phoned up my current insurer and asked them what I would be charged to cancel, they told me it would be £467.19p to cancel surely this can’t be right, the bloke on the phone assured me that it was the correct fee and was nothing he or I could do about it and said if I needed to I could pay it off monthly over 2 years with no interest. Just wondering if this seems correct and if not what I should do about it. Thanks, Steven.

Hi Guys, A claim with an employment tribunal has been going through, and on Friday 15th 2016, and agreement was arranged as an out of court settlement to pay a fixed sum of £9,000 by Friday 22nd 2016. I have now been informed that the company is unable to make the payment as it does not have the available funds in the bank. the company is still active, does anybody know what I should be doing to get the funds paid? The agreement was set through ACAS. Thanks Guys

I sold an item of my sons on Ebay before christmas. I was led to believe by my son that the item was fully working (I know I should have checked) On the day it was delivered the buyer messaged me to ask for a refund as it did not work. I agreed to this straight away and asked the buyer to return the item The buyer escalated the item to Ebay at the same time. The buyer sent the item back to me 8 days after they received it when I got it I tried to process the refund. For some reason Ebay/Paypal would not let me do this so I had to ask Ebay to do it (I suspect because the buyer escalated the case). Th buyer received his full monies. Ebay will now not refund me the final value fee as they say the buyer was unhappy. I am getting no where with their customer service, anyone got the CEO's email address. What a joke of an organisation they are.

Nine High Street banks and building societies in the UK are to launch basic bank accounts which will not charge a fee for missed payments. The new accounts will be available from 1 January to people who fail to qualify for a full current account. But current basic bank account holders may not be automatically switched to a fee-free account – so you should contact your provider to check Users of the new accounts will also qualify for a debit card, which they can use to shop online, or at cash points. But they will not be able to run up an overdraft. Nine banking groups have agreed to offer fee-free basic bank accounts: Barclays – Barclays Basic Current Account The Co-operative Bank – Cashminder HSBC – Basic Bank Account Lloyds Banking Group (Bank of Scotland, Halifax and Lloyds) – Basic Account National Australia Bank Group (including Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank) – Readycash Account Nationwide – FlexBasic RBS Group (NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland and Ulster Bank) – Foundation Account and Basic Account (England and Wales) Santander – Basic Current Account TSB – Cash Account http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35168705

I deposited some money to an online trading account who have an operations in the UK. This was about 7 days ago and i have come to have some reservations about the company. I am trying to withdraw my funds but according to their system they charge a £25 fee for withdrawals. Do i still have a penalty free option for 14 days using such a service or am i liable for the fee.? Not sure if this is in the right part of the forum but any advice would be useful.

Today I have had the misfortune to be made aware of yet another person who took internet advice after receiving a Notice of Enforcement and was led to believe that if he made payment direct to the Magistrate Court that he would be able to avoid bailiff fees. This person took the advice and paid the court direct and;.....as it always the case.....he received a letter from the court to advise him that his payment had been forwarded direct to Marston Group. He too has now found himself in a position where an enforcement agent has made a personal visit...and the debt increased by way of an enforcement fee of £235. He now owes £310 (to also include the Compliance Fee of £75). This inaccurate advice is costly debtors many thousands of pounds and given that the debt is for an unpaid court fine....the enforcement agent is permitted to force entry. For the avoidance of doubt, all debt streams (council tax arrears, unpaid local authority penalty charge notices and unpaid magistrate court fines) may only be enforced by way of the procedure outlined under Schedule 12 of the Tribunal, Courts and Enforcement Act and the fees that can be charged are those under the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014. Worryingly, the debtor has been advised today (by the person responsible for this highly inaccurate advice) that the Magistrate Court have supposedly given him the wrong advice. He claims that the warrant 'ceased' when the payment was made to the court and that the debtor can rely upon section 52.8 of the Criminal Procedure Rules 2014. Not true: Section 52.8 was substituted under The Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2015 !!!!

To briefly explain the story, last week my wife had a car accident where a man reversed his van into my wifes car after he had stopped in the road and reversed back without looking to talk to his dad who was on the other side of the road, driving the other way. He was very apologetic and they exchanged details. This morning we had a letter from a no win no fee solicitor, claiming that my wife had driven into him, failing to drive without due care and attention. This is obviously very upsetting, and I guess it means at the very least we are going to have to pay our excess for repairs to our car since he has his own version of events. Any advice please? Thank you in advance.

Halifax is imposing a fee of £1 a day from arranged overdrafts of £0.01 to £1,999 as from 1st Dec 2015. No interest rate is charged. So if one has an arranged overdraft of £100 and goes overdrawn by £0.10, a fee of £1 will be charged and by 100 days, this £0.10 becomes a unarranged overdraft for which a fee of £5.00 is faced. Is this imposing excessive charges or treating customers unfairly??

When I moved into a new property recently, I was charged a £75 one off admin fee. This seemed a bit steep for sending me a tenancy agreement and doing a bit of filing, but I was in a bit of a bind, so I accepted. Is it legal for landlords to charge such a fee? Thanks Jeff

A month ago, a regular contributor to this forum (Dodgeball) started a thread on here about the ‘sale stage fee’ of £100 and when it should be charged by bailiffs. The regulations were completely overhauled in April 2014 and there is (and will continue to be) a great deal of differing of opinion about the wording and application of the regulations and will no doubt not be properly resolved until a court makes a judgment. Unfortunately, Dodgeball’s thread was once again the focus of unwarranted attention elsewhere and with this in mind, the thread ended up running to seven pages. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?453200-Removal-for-sale-fee-when-can-it-be-charged I am reliably informed that because of the importance of this subject, Dodgeball approached the countries expert on bailiff law; John Kruse for his professional opinion. John considered that the question was important enough to be quoted is his regular Bulletin (that is available to the advice sector for free or available by subscription to the public). Given the popularity of this forum, it is frequently viewed by members of the the enforcement industry. Those individuals are unlikely to read a copy of John Kruse's Bulletin. Hopefully by providing a copy of his opinion on the charging of this fee it may prove useful to them. A copy of Dodgeball's question is below: I am currently engaged in an interesting debate about sale fees and when they are applicable- in particular if a bailiff can charge the sale stage fee whilst on an enforcement visit. Many, particularly HCEOs, are under the impression they can. My position is that they cannot. My arguments are these: Sch.12 para.13 TCE Act 2007- this section outlines the ways that goods can be taken under control; it says that one of the methods listed must be used. Since only controlled goods can be sold then presumably only one of these can be used and must be used prior to removal for sale. It must be noticed that none of the options relate to the sale of goods, in fact they all indicate that another attendance must be made, to removed the previously secured goods or to inquire about the failure of a controlled goods agreement. The mention of removing goods in para.13 is, as you say in Bulletin 27, for purpose of storage rather than sale, so a subsequent attendance must be made there also. The Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations state that “the sale or disposal stage ... comprises all activities relating to enforcement from the first attendance at the property for the purpose of transporting goods to the place of sale etc.” The attendance at enforcement cannot in my opinion be for the purpose of transporting goods to the place of sale, because no goods have been seized at this point. There is also the matter of arrangement for sale as you mentioned in Bulletin 29. I do not believe that merely ringing for a van can fill these criteria as I believe the MoJ has suggested. Thirdly I think that the procedure was intended to be in three stages, so allowing the EA to circumvent the last stage by switching from enforcement to sale whilst in the enforcement stage is not what was intended. I would appreciate your thoughts.

A cap on the fees that banks charge businesses to process credit card payments could save UK retailers up to £700m a year. From December 9, the fees banks can charge will be capped at 0.3% for credit card transactions and at an average of 0.2% for domestic debit card transactions. It's hoped that retailers will pass on the savings to consumers. But a number of major credit card providers, have already scaled down cashback and loyalty point schemes, citing the forthcoming caps as the reason why. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/credit-card-fee-caps-could-save-700m-31594631.html

Dear all, Great website and excellent information. Below is an explanation of my current situation. It's a bit long but I have given as much info as possible in order to be as accurate as possible. Here goes... I was forwarded on a letter from my Mum today (I've recently moved back from abroad and have been using my parents' address) from Harlands regarding my recently cancelled Fit4Less membership. I cancelled my membership earlier this month as when I checked their website I saw that they stated: Monthly membership – paid via Direct Debit Membership agreements are for a period of 12 months, however we do not enforce contracts, long term commitment or pursue missed payments, as we understand that customers require flexibility and freedom to chose when and where they exercise. To cancel your membership at any time simply contact your bank and cancel your direct debit instruction. Please be advised that your membership will be terminated WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT and your access to the gym will be prohibited from the day you cancel your direct debit. To get the most out of your last month at the gym, it is advisable to cancel your direct debit about 7 working days before the date when your next subscription is due to be collected. Please do not leave it any later than this, or your bank will not have time to prevent the collection of your next month’s subscription." .fitness4less.co.uk/terms_and_conditions.html Taking this at face value I cancelled my Direct Debit via my online banking earlier this month. However I then receive the letter that states (in full): "Harlands administer the collection if all payments due under your membership agreement with Fit4Less abd you bank has recently advised us that your Direct Debit Instruction has been cancelled. The membership agreement you signed states that all payments must be made by Direct Debit. Therefore you must call HARLANDS HELPLINE... immediate in order for us to reinstate your Direct Debit over the phone. If you do not contact us by 18 october 15 you will be charged an administration fee. The telephone lines are open..." Now, the vague wording of the letter and the fact that they give me no concrete reason why I need to pay an admin fee of £25 leads me to believe they are trying to pull a fast one. Also I am not going to pay their ridiculously expensinve hotline. I have returned to my DD agreement and seen it states: "Amount to be debited from your account You will be debited £19.99 on 18/04/2015 and thereafter on the same day each month until further notice. The debit will be collected on or immediately after the date specified Start date for regular billing 18/04/2015 The company name which will appear on your bank statement is Eazipay Ltd. Your Membership details Chosen Membership: Online DD No Contract To start on: 18/03/2015" Then, on checking the T&C sent to me in April (the month I joined) I noticed the following (which is why I think they are trying to sting me here) "If your bank fails to make a due direct debit payment from your account, we will write to advise you of this. We may apply to your bank for payment by direct debit twice within one calendar month and we reserve the right to refer any missed due payments to a debt collection agency. We may charge a fee for failed direct debit payments and/or letters sent to you in respect of unpaid amounts. 5.7 Should any membership fees not be paid within 30 days of the due date, the full membership fee for the remainder of the commitment period will automatically become due and payable in full. 5.8 Any unpaid and overdue membership fees referred to a debt collection agency will be subject to a surcharge to cover the collection costs incurred. This surcharge together with all other charges and legal fees incurred in the collection of the overdue membership fees will be the responsibility of the member and will be legally recoverable from the member" At this stage I am looking for advice as how to reply. I think the website is misleading but I am willing to pay a final £19.99 for the final month membership to close the matter. The admin charge appears unlawful so I want to dispute this. Any help would be greatly appreciated and I will post back here to let you know how the matter is progressing so other people caught out can hopefully learn from my experience. Thanks Des

I applied for 18+ Oyster Photocard after being told by a member of staff that I am eligible since I am on a part-time course lasting over 14 weeks. After making the application, and it being rejected, I have found that I have to be in receipt of an NHS grant or receiving financial help from my education establishment. I have attached the webpage that I went through to make my application. I have also included the part of the terms and conditions that is relevant to me. My argument is that the webpage does not state any requirements for NHS funding, it only requires for the course to be eligible. Another argument is that the terms and conditions are confusing, namely the bullet points after either. Correct me if I'm wrong but after an either statement, and cannot be used. Such as: either A and (B or C), in this case A should not have come after either and should have been with the original set of bullet points either (A and B) or C, then in which was A and B do not need to be separate statements but could have been in the same bullet point. I understand this can be confusing and I might not have a valid argument, but any help is much appreciated. I don't see why someone in receipt of grants and financial help gets to reap the benefits of this scheme but not someone like me who is working hard to put myself through education, barely earning £8,000, most of which goes towards tuitions.