Visit http://www.tembe.co.za to see wild animals in their natural surroundings. Best time to view is early morning and evening after about 5pm. At the moment there is an elephant and buck at the water hole. Enjoy.

The 9 Best Kept Secrets your Insurer would not like you to Know. (Try to avoid) 1. The Courtesy Car. Many insurers offer a courtesy car if you use their “Approved Repair Centre” this would reasonably appear to be something they pay for. NOT TRUE. The cost is borne by the repairer with no additional revenue or supplement, so even before the repairer lays a hammer on your bent motor he has to recoup the cost of that car somehow. 2. The Insurer Approved Repairer. This is a garage who has agreed with an insurer in exchange for a supply of their policy holders damaged vehicles, to a stringent service level agreement which includes a range of free services and at a discounted rate, typically 30% below normal high street rates. So every time you visit one, they will be paying back to your insurer a hefty chunk of your repair bill in discounts and rebates. Ask yourself who benefits from that? Also remember that you are not obliged to use them, as a policy holder its your choice who repairs your own vehicle, there are however a few exceptions to this rule, where its written in the small print. Approved Repairers will always try to the best they can but their hands are tied and they have split loyalties when it comes making decisions about how your car is repaired. 3. Repair Methods. Each time you visit an “Approved Repairer” the method of repair to your damaged vehicle will be strictly controlled by that insurer and every decision taken in that process will only be driven by one criteria and I’m sure you know by now what that will be. Exactly.. COST. Example:- Someone has bumped into the back of your brand new car and now its at your insurer “Approved Repairer”. The bumper has a nasty crack in it and as we know all bumpers are designed to take a 5mph impact without sustaining damage so to protect you and your passengers it should be changed. But your “Approved Repairer” will be made to repair it so it looks good as new but obviously won’t be. Silly, as chances are, your insurer will get all the money back form the other insurer as it wasn’t your fault. But you’ll never know this. 4. New Parts. A large number of insurers will instruct their “Approved Repairers” to fit NON-GENUINE parts to your vehicle and some of them do it without telling you. If you look closely in the small print you may see they reserve the right to fit “Equivalent Parts” or parts of an equivalent quality. Reason being, obviously COST. When your car sustains damage you would want it put back to pre-accident condition and if FAKE parts are used that’s never going to happen. No one will guarantee that those parts will perform or deform in a subsequent accident exactly as the original equipment would. But you’ll never know this. 5. Insurer Paint Deal. A large number of insurers have agreements with vehicle paint manufactures and insist that their “Approved Repairer” takes on that paint type and uses it to paint their policy holders vehicles in and yes you’ve guessed, every time one gets painted the insurer gets paid a rebate by the paint company. So in effect every time you crash they get paid. How does that benefit you? 6. Total Losses. You may find yourself in the situation where your vehicle, after an accident becomes beyond economical repair and deemed Total Loss. Hopefully your insurers will agree a reasonable settlement with you and you can buy a new car, but what happens to your old one. One would hope that your insurers dispose of it ethically but do they? Typically it will be sold to a major salvage company who will then sell in an online auction to the highest bidder and vehicles categorised C or D can be bought and repaired by anyone to any standard including cutting two cars in half and welding them together which is perfectly legal and put back on the road with no real checking or testing apart from a ‘Vehicle Identity Check’ done by VOSA which only confirms the chassis number matches the V5. Vehicles bought by eastern European countries can be taken away and repaired to be re imported with a new identity. Some insurers will even dispose of their CAT D total losses into various outlets and decide not to actually categorise them first. So when they are repaired and sold they appear “Clean”. So if you buy a second hand car be sure to get it checked thoroughly first. 7. Insurers & Accident Management Company’s. Insurers are now increasingly referring their own policy holders, for a referral fee, to accident management companies on discovering they have been involved in a non fault accident. This then results in the accident management company hiring the policy holder a like for like vehicle and arranging repairs and advising them of their rights to claim compensation for any personal injuries sustained in the accident. The cost of all this then goes to the “at fault” insurer resulting in a much higher bill for them and a commission coming to the clients own insurer who in turn will charge their own policy holder extra on their premium next year because they have been involved in an accident. 8. Claims & Underwriting Exchange. This is a list, unavailable to members of the public, is compiled and kept updated by all UK insurers with details of every motor claim including policy holders name and vehicle registration and date of incident and if there is any personal injury involved. So when you come to renew your motor policy and forget to mention that last incident you were involved in even though it wasn’t your fault, your new insurer will still put you on cover and take your money but should you make a claim they may throw it out when they check the CUE. 9. Insurer’s Penalty Excess. Some insurers will charge you an additional insurance excess if you exercise your right to use your own repair centre to repair your vehicle. They should however point this out to you at the inception of the policy as it is NOT a normal caveat and as such should be brought to your attention when you buy the policy, If it is not that could be MIS-SELLING. So be extra careful when buying on-line and check that you are able to use your own repairer, otherwise you could be faced with an extra unwanted bill. Insurers that do this include Aviva Direct, Esure, Sheila’s Wheels and Swift Cover.

Hi all, What do yous think of this? In june 2011 I took my 08 Mk4 Tit to gargage with stiff steering, they told me that the steering pump needed changed and the reservoir also. £700 later at the dealer the problem seemed fixed. In Jan 12 the problem started to rare its head, took the car back to them and sure enough the pump had failed. This happened in April and was fixed again. Now just last week the exact same problem popped up. Only differance now is, they're saying the steering rack needs replaced at a costly some of £1100. It seems like Ford are pulling my pants down here and are clutching at straws as they don't know what the problem was and now wanting me to pay another large some of money to fix their crap/faulty parts which seem to be all over the Mk4. Has anyone had a similar experience? or can anyine advise me on what to do? Many Thanks, Will

I have been researching debt issues on this forum for a while now and feel that a request for help would be less time consuming, so here is a little background and then our problem. My Wife and I are Directors of a limited company and have been trading in the kitchen business for many years. All of our business is retail and we have managed to keep trading profitably through the recession because we do a good job, offer value for money and are honest people that treat others as we would expect to be treated. We design and install kitchens including project managing the complete process from start to finish, most of our projects are in the mid to high end of the market ranging from £15K to the most recent project of £75K although we have also completed this year a couple of £5k kitchens bgecause as they say..every little helps. Back in 2004 we took on a £120K complete house renovation for an english client that lived in the US but purchased a home in the UK to "do up" so when she moved back to the UK she would have the perfect home. The work commenced with a timetable and agreed staged payments throughout the 9 month renovation. Towards the end of the project her sister (who lived locally to the home) and her decided to spare no expense so accepted that the project could run up to £180k as the house was a bargain to buy and they would get their money back. They were sent prices by email and full photographic email updates during the project and were very happy with the service and quality of work. The last statement supplied showed that there was the agreed £25K invoice due immediately and another Invoice due early in 2005 for the additional £25K of extras due to be paid in the spring of 2005. A cheque was received for £25K in December '04 by courier and email receipt sent. The work was completed as promised and money chased a couple of times verbally and on good friendly terms. Mid 2005 the house was burgled whilst unoccupied so we were called out to put things right, they were politely reminded that there was still a large sum outstanding but in view of the emergency we would carry out the work for £975 which they agreed. Later that year they had some curtains made and fitted so now the total debt is around £31K. They have acknowledged the debt is still outstanding by email so we do not believe this debt to be statute barred although they claim it is. We started to agressively chase the debt once we found out that they had sold their US business and could now affort to pay all the debt off. They are now claiming that they did send us a cheque in 2005 for £25K but we have not received anything from them and have supplied a bank statement showing this amount leaving their account but of course this could have been made to anyone and does not prove that it was paid to us. I contacted their bank who said that as the cheque was over six years old they could not provide a copy but if there was any form of fraud that they could supply a copy of the cheque. This information was passed on our client but they emailed back that they wanted to go through their solicitors. We could instruct solicitors and run up thousands of pounds of costs or possibly use a debt collector, there must be someone here that has been in a similar situation that could advise us? We look forward to any help you can offer. Thanks in advance. Steve

Looking for a bit of advice here. Am going for a mortgage in October and am i the process of trying to clean my credit file. There are a couple of defaults that i have no idea i had so i have challenged them without saying i owe the debt using a CCA letter. Now 2 others were disputed back in 2009 by myself. One with Virgin media the other with Monument. I have now again sent CCA Letters to them but i am now kinda thinking that i have also accepted the debt as i have refered back to 2009 in the letter. Have i shot myself in the foot with this? Would it be better to let leave alone or fight? Also i have 2 defaults registered with 2 different comapnies t mobile and lowell for 1 debt can this be correct? Any advice on the best way to clean things up will be appriciated.

hi just wondering the best way forward to claim ppi refund the loan was with welcome finance, i lost my job and welcome finance ended up selling the debt on to a debt collection agency who now own the debt, the debt may have a ccj attached to it, can i still make a claim for a ppi refund on this? if so who do i go to welcome finance or the DCA? any help appreciated Lee