I am looking for advice I resigned from my job a few weeks ago and have been placed on Garden Leave, I have another 4 weeks to work before starting my new job The problem is I am being put under great stress by my employer, and have been under pressure due to a family death recently to the point I'm not sleeping, not eating and generally affecting both my and my families life. It is that bad I am beginning to question if resigning was the right thing to do despite hating my job, that's how bad it has got. I must be on call during normal work hours should my boss call, and when he does he is very rude, angry and obnoxious, and also threatening to ruin my new career, I think the words he used were he would make me unemployable. You can see why I am stressed, it really is affecting my health. I am going to see the doctor tomorrow, and was contemplating asking for a sick note. I have no intention in starting work for my new employer until I am legally allowed to do by my notice period, and I know currently I would not be up to it. I am looking for any help on this matter, I feel my current employer will take any sickness I take as a ruse but I do not see at way out of this situation, I am at my wits end with the whole thing Thank you

I recently left my employer as the job really wasnt what I had been sold. As part of my package I received international relocation expenses to move to the uk, with my contract stating 75% should be repaid if leaving within 18 months. Upon leaving I owed around £5000, £2500 of which I repaid. I am now being chased for the remaining, I haven't paid this because I dispute around £1000 of these costs. the shipping company the firm used we more than double the highest quote of any other supplier I can find. All of this I explained to the firm and tried to resolve before leaving to no avail. To date I have received two letters from the company and now a letter from a debt collector 'Spratt Endicott' demanding payment within 7 days of they will proceed with legal action. Do I need to pay or are these just scare tactics and I should try to negotiate. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Guys I recently took up a job with a local firm whilst out of work. My contract was terminated as the company received a fine from the council for some road signs i had neglected to collect. My argument to this is i wasn't given a A3 map of the roads in question which clearly shows all signs needed to be collected. Any way after the termination of my contract my wages for the week previous and 3 days i worked when i first started as well as 2 days prior to termination hasn't been paid. I wrote to them threatening legal action unless the monies owed were paid but have not received payment. They stated on the letter that they are withholding funds due to the amount of the fine and are trying to negotiate the fine down to a lower value and if they can do that i will be payed a percentage of what i'm owed dependent on the final amount of the fine imposed. I was payed by a separate company owned by the same company and think i was self employed as i had to apply to hmrc for a UTR number. I have since wrote back to them asking for a copy of the fine from the local council and a copy of my signed employment/self employment contract but have not yet received a response. Its around £800 i'm owed and will cost £60 on MCOL. Can anyone advise if it is worth submitting a claim online and what my chances of winning are ? Many Thanks.

First of all, thanks all for contributing to this forum, your time and efforts are highly appreciated! I have received a Final Decision (rejection) from my employer's Group Income Protection insurance (UNUM) I have asked my employer to appeal UNUM's decision through the FOS (as I am not the policyholder) but they have declined to do so and refused to send me a copy of their T&C with UNUM. I am still off sick with bipolar and anxiety disorder and my claim is roughly around 16k£ Any suggestions? I feel like my only recourse at this point is against my employer

Hello CAG community, Today I received a Count Court Claim from my ex employer for just over £9,000 (including £410 court fee). I have 12 days to decide if I am going to respond with acknowledgement, to apply for 28 days to build my case, or respond with a defence. The space they give you to write a defence is very insufficient. I imagine I could write more online. I can not afford a lawyer and will most likely have to represent myself. The court has an NN postcode and is not close to where I live in the West Midlands. The story: I accepted a job from an e-commerce employer as a digital marketer with an SEO focus. The directors had an obvious problem with anger. Ultimately I left after one month as the work environment was very hostile (though I cannot prove that). When I quit I could tell they were surprised and further angered. They acted like they were firing me and that was just fine. During my brief employment I made them aware that their web host had them on an insufficient plan and was hosted using a reseller account in the Netherlands. This infuriated them and they had me gather evidence in preparation for a law suit. They also told me on a daily basis to call them with the intention of harassing them in to migrating us to another web host for free. Eventually I told them I would not do this anymore. After I left the directors had to deal with the web hosting company themselves and I learned from one of the sales girls calling for help, that the web hosts had told the directors their website would be cut off shortly. It appeared they panicked and tried to migrate the website themselves. They have no web development experience what so ever. I would not even call them IT literate. Consequently they disappeared from the Google search results and acted like all was forgotten while they asked for my help. I obliged and didn't feel the need to let them hang themselves. Rather than migrate the website, they just pointed their web address to a test version of the site. Because it was a test version special code was put in there to hide it from Google (it is bad to have two identical copies of a website visible). I left a document advising the next digital marketer they hire what the situation is, "Be wary of duplicate content. Ensure NoIndex tags are maintained on every page during development. Check testbcr.co.uk is not being indexed. If it is then assess impact and take" 'NoIndex' refers to those special tags I mentioned. Any qualified developer who is aware there are NoIndex tags present on a test site, would know to remove them if they ever planned to make the website live. The problem is the Directors who are sales/business people, tried moving the website themselves because they couldn't get a contractor to work with them. They clearly didn't read the document I left or didn't understand the NoIndex reference. If you have made it this far then thank you, sincerely, for investing in my situation. I am exhausted just writing it. So the allegations they are making are that I didn't inform the company or the web host that I had left NoIndex tags on the test website. My defence, it has nothing to do with the web host and I have evidence that I informed them of the NoIndex tags. They also allege that I delayed fixing the problem (after I left their employment) by two days. Honestly I don't know how long it took me. I wasn't employed by them and so didn't feel obligated in any case. I could never afford the claim and court's costs should I lose in court. My credit rating would be destroyed and me and the wife would have to give up on the idea of having our own house one day. If there is a worse scenario I am not aware of it. Prison? I feel like this shouldn't even go to court considering how far in the wrong they are. But I am honestly scared we live in a country with a justice system that favours the rich and wealthy.

Hello, I am writing here on behalf of my mum. My mum works for one of the major food retailers. One day, in the store canteen there was an independent advisor who had set a desk for the day to talk to staff about tax relief/rebates etc. The main points were about how you can claim back allowance for washing your own work uniform and stuff like that. The company that were allowed by the retailers was called UK Tax Refund Limited. As you can imagine, many staff members at the store, and at 3 other stores around the area were interested in this advice. Unfortunately this has since turned into a bit of spoof, in that people were asked to sign forms in which they were assuming they were giving permission for the person to act their behalf to claim back rebates/ allowances ect. However it now appears that the extra small print on the forms gave up far more than that. I dont have the exact details as this is third hand information, but it appears people have signed away certain rights etc. What I want to ask is, surely the retailer has liability here for any loses suffered from this. The retailer allowed the company in and set up on their premises. From a staff point of view, they did not seek out the advise, it was brought to them. the staff all made the assumptions that this was something sponsored by the employer, and was therefore safe. at this moment the retailer is washing their hands of it, stating that any member signing a form accepts responsibility for their actions. Surely that cannot be true. What would be the best course of action for the staff here to get the retailer to acknowledge their liability in this by allowing a company on their property without checking credentials, or, even telling the staff that this was an independant company and in no way affiliated with the retailer? Is there a class action here? we are talking about lots of people across multiple stores that were miss-sold advice.

Apologies in advance if this is a dumb question. I worked for a company from approximately May/June 1990 to around March 1992, during which time I had contributions into their pension scheme deducted from my pay. I've just reached 65 and am now receiving my state pension and idly wondered what happened to those contributions, whether it would be possible to get those back, or if I could now legitimately claim a pension (however tiny) from that company? Or is it the case that I've effectively kissed that money goodbye? Any assistance or pointers in the right direction would be gratefully received.

I'm not sure if this is on the right board, but just before Xmas the recruitment agency advised me that because the firm I was working for had 'invoicing problems' (the firm weren't paying the agency for me being there, although I got paid) and as a result my temporary assignment was ended with immediate effect. However, I checked my social media and emails and one of the bosses who I used to do work for has emailed me today asking me to contact them. If the firm wanted me back surely they must have to go through the agency first etc. I was there for 6 months and in the process of completing a new claim online. Any advice about what to do would be appreciated. Thanks

My employer has changed their payroll system and as a result they have declared all my income correctly up to the end of December and then re-submitteded it all again to HMRC in January so now it appears to HMRC that I earned £2x,xxx inthe first nine months of the financial year and then was paid the the whole total sum again in one payment in January and that no PAYE was collected on this bumper payment the supposedly made to me. It is obvious that the employer has made an error and entered the year to date figures rather than the pay period figures but the implication of this is that HMRC are now looking to recover the PAYE on this generous lump sum my employer has declared I have earned in January. My employer will not acknowledge he has made a mistake and HMRC say they can do nothing as the employer has declared that the figures are correct and he paid me £2x,xxx in January. So we have a deadlock. Has anyone any suggestions? (I have suggested that the employer pay me the money he declared he had paid me in January and I would sort out the PAYE but needless to say that wont happen!) Many Thanks

I wanted to ask for some advice for my husband. My husband works in a factory. The building is massive. As of late his employer has started turning off the heating during cold weather. His boss is saying that the heating will only go on between the hours of 6AM until 9AM. Nobody apart from the supervisors are allowed to touch the heating without his permission. Today, where he is it was 13 degrees. The boss is also saying that if anyone goes off sick for 10 consecutive days, he will refuse to pay for bank holidays. Is this also legal!? There is also talk of the employer putting up cameras on the shop floor to watch staff. Surely that comes under privacy laws!? We are concerned that by turning off the heating in cold weather, this will affect the health of the workers on the shop floor. Also, the boss is not approachable. His attitude is "If you don't like it there's the door". He also won't recognise unions and threatens to sack anyone who joins one.

Hi All, I have just received a call from the Police regarding an accusation of the theft some photographs by a previous employer. I worked for this lady for 10yrs and in this time there has been a high turn over of staff due to her behaviour. I finally had enough and left in November of last year and since then she has had several staffing changes (one of which she accused of stealing her money). Last week she sent me an email almost accusing me of the theft of her photographs, which I ignored with no longer working for her and it being quite snotty. Today the police called to advise that she had been in touch with them and named only myself as having possibly taken them. She told them I had only given my notice in last week (I have been working for my new employers for over a fortnight, having taken Christmas off. I gave my notice in November, took my holiday entitlement and also sick leave as she made me ill) and the police were lovely, advising me that as far as they are concerned the items may not actually be missing, but that they had to follow up on the call. I know that she is doing this out of spite as that is the kind of woman she is, but where do I actually stand if she persists? The police are welcome to check my home, but this is beginning to make me ill again and I do not want it to effect my new employment? Thank you

I have an ongoing tribunal this month with my previous employer, but a question i have is this. I asked if i could come to the office to collect some paperwork that was important to me, they replied that i could get access for this. Now i work away and usually have limited acces to emails, my previous employer then went through my laptop bag and scanned (as directors they would not have done this) my personal medical paperwork (and made comments about this that were derogatory and in depth so they have obviously read them) and my personal financial paperwork stating that i had numerous debt letters. Now they also copied in my wife (she did not work for them or had ever met them and had not given them her email and neither had i) and my union rep and their legal team, they suggest that i was hiding this information from my fie (which i most definitely was not, this was to cause problems as they never included her in any emials prior or post). Surely this must be a data protection breach as i have given them no permission to do this and my wife. Please can someone advise.

Bit of a long one but I wonder if you guys can help me out a little please. I'm writing on behalf of my wife. NB: My wife is Spanish and works in a call center for a major airline here in the UK with people from other countries. In Nov 2015 an incident happened at work in which she was racially abused and intimidated by an Italian male co worker. A meeting took place with my wife and HR and she trusted them to resolve. She asked that they be moved away from each other. The company supervisors immediately sat the man right behind my wife which made her feel under pressure and then further intimidation and bullying began from this man. The intimidation was not always directed to her face but it would include shouting negative comments right behind here about her home country and talking about sex. Maybe 6 months later and after my wife spoke to her supervisors several times and emailed explaining her issues and asking for the situation to be resolved she became ill. Next, Her Dr, Company occupational health and now counselor have written reports to the company stating that my wives illness is a direct result of the issues at work. Company HR and Supervisors have promised on several occasions to move the man to another area and then done nothing. This has had an additional negative effect on my wives stress. She is on medication. My wife is working with the union official and union solicitor to resolve this and the solicitor has advised (rightly I think) that a process must be followed before further action against the company. We have documented everything in case we needed to take further action. We have copies of emails, incidents etc. In my wives last meeting with company HR it was agreed that the man would be moved permanently to another area of the business and as they have promised and changed their minds several times my wife asked for this in writing. The company agreed. Within 24 hours the company took back this offer and told my wife the man would probably be back in her group. This has added to her stress levels and she panics. This has all taken a little over 12 months now and we feel the company should be pressured into resolving the matter. My wife is now off work sick on SSP and worried about going back into the same situation. Should we continue with the union or maybe seek outside legal help which could be expensive. Any view would be good please Thanks

I am making this query on behalf of my daughter in law. She is currently employed however she received a letter from the tax office stating that she had paid incorrect tax for the year 2012-2013. She informed the tax office that she was employed and therefore had no input into the amount of tax she was paying as this was done by her employers. They requested that she send in her P60 and 2 payslips which she did and they informed her that it should be sorted out. Later she was sent a letter stating that she needed to complete a Self-Assessment form which she has never completed before and due to this she returned it late and they have sent her a penalty notice. I am a bit confused as she is as it would be her employers fault that they were not paying enough tax on her behalf not her so how is she being penalised for this and is there anything she can do. Currently she has been sent a letter which states 'Appeal against the penalties for sending in your 2012 to 2013 Self Assessment tax return late'. This is dated 30th September 2016. She has until 30th October 2016 to respond to this. Any help would be appreciated.

I recently had 2 days off work sick (unpaid) I had a doctor’s appointment on one of the mornings …after the doctor’s appointment I went to cut the grass on the front yard however whilst cutting the grass my line manager drove past my home I presume to check up on me ……can they do this ? Can I do anything? as I believe it is classed as stalking / harassment ……..may I add I have previous good attendance at work

Hi. My friend was employed last year for about six months and suspected that his employer wasn't paying tax on my friend's wages. He never gave my friend a pay slip and paid him via bank transfer. My friend has just received a letter from HMRC showing how he is to receive a refund of money and shows his income for the last tax year (2015-16) and it shows the employment before his employer and after but not the employer he suspected of not paying his tax. My friend wants to know if there is a specified route to notify HMRC or does he just send a letter with the proof?

I am enquiring on behalf of a friend who recently changed employer - he is still doing the same job but through a sub contractor. When he finished, under the instruction of a supervisor, he left electronic items he had been provided with by the employer in the company office. He has since been informed that these items have gone missing and so he owes them over £1000 and his last weeks wages were withheld to go towards this amount. Are the company allowed to do that and is there anything he can do to appeal this? Thank you for any advice.

Dear forum memebers thank you for stopping by to check out this thread . I left a company that i was working for sometime in June. I worked there as an engineer and had a van for works use. On my last day i handed my van back in same condition as received. We inspected the van and manager was even surprised that i washed it inside out and it was all good. We had a informal meeting with the company owners , they wished me all the best and that was that. 3 months later i received my final pay payslip and discovered that they made a deduction of £350 from my final pay . I emailed the company director and he said it was for van a damage. I replied via email that i was not aware of any damages to the van and it was illegal for them to deduct that money, to which he replied that van was damaged and its a fact , stating that apparently i claimed more hours vs the tracker and also that i left to there competitor even though my contract prevents me from doing so. This was the case! they tried to legally stop me , but could not which at the time they where really bitter about. 2 completely irrelevant arguments to my query imho. But he did point out that contract does allow for deductions in case of damages to works vehicle. However as mentioned the van was not damaged as they claim! At the time of accepting the van i did not sign any paperwork which stated the condition of the van as it was second hand and when i handed the van back they didn't inform me in any formal way of there intention of deducting £350 from my wages, nor did i sign anything stating in which condition i handed the van back to them. I phoned Acas for advice and they said to take them to small claims court as tribunal claim window is 2 months. So question is what do you think Gentlemen and Ladies should i pursue this further ? Thank for any input in advance

Hi all, I wont give you my life story but I work in sales and recently decided to move jobs. I gave my notice 10 days ago and it seemed to be on good terms. It's a small business so I've been close to the boss for 3 years and was till today. Anyway, today is pay day, at 720am I receive an email stating that I wont be paid commission now that I have given my notice. I reacted in the expected way and challenged that, his response was, no no, just that cash flow is bad, we'll pay you next month, after youve left. He has a history of not paying people as theyre leaving, so I'm expecting to not see this money. He has sent me a breakdown of what I'm owed, from which customers, and promising to pay that money next month (which he did to the last guy, and didnt pay). I wouldnt react this way if it wasnt 40% of my earnings. On top of that, I'm also owed 11.9 days holiday which I'm worried he'll try to get out of as the record is paper based and he signs it (however I have a copy of this up to date and signed). The impulsive side of me says - Hold all of his equipment ransom i.e. laptop, phone, van, power tools until he pays what he owes me and I'll exit the day he pays. It works out as around £16-1,700 for holiday and commission The sensible side says - Wait, and he wont pay me... By which time I'll have no leverage as I'll have given the equipment back on the 16/9 (last day) and next pay day is end of the month, can I take him to court then? I've been helped out here before and really hoping someone can give me an idea of which direction to take it. At the moment Mr Impulsive is winning as I have a mortgage to pay... What do you think? Please help me with this sheister, Thanks in advance too

I'm writing on behalf of my son who was recently dismissed for Gross Misconduct from his employer because he tackled a thief that was trying to run out of the shop with some goods (which, apparently, contravenes one of their policies). We're currently going through the appeals process. My son has given a statement to the police and may be asked to appear in court as a prosecution witness. I've spoken with acas, who have been very helpful and, because my son has less than 2 years employment, cannot claim unfair dismissal, only wrongful dismissal. My son has never been trained or given access to the employer's group policies and procedures. I could go into more detail, but find it absolutely bizarre that he has been sacked for what he thought was doing the right thing (protecting the employer's assets). Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated.

My daughter has received notification from HMRC that she has been overpaid tax credits, stating that her employer supplied a figure for her earnings of £2000 more than her P60 states. She has told them she disagrees and supplied the P60 and her P45 as evidence but they say they accept the employer's statement and have sent a debt collector. How can this happen? I thought the P60 was evidence, not the word of an employer who has an issue with an ex employee!

Hi I have recently been offered a new job and have consented to background checks, i said i was unemployed for five months and they want evidence of this, but i didn't claim and benefits (was living on savings with some help from my partner). The issue i have is they want a bank statement spanning that length of time which makes me feel uncomfortable as i find it very invasive. Also my partner didn't have a bank account at that time so let him use my bank details for his employer to pay his wages into my account, this will obviously show up on my statement. Not only that, when looking through my account history i found a couple of jobs i had forgot about that i had for such a short time but didn't declare (because i didn't remember having them) one was less than 1 week, the other was 1 month. I am upset because i genuinely forgot to incorporate them and even if i had remembered them, wouldn't have declared them as they were crap jobs that i walked out of fairly swiftly and didn't want it to look bad on me. What do i do, do i tell them and hope they will understand or am i doomed?

Hi New member here, i am hoping i get some advice here. My Wife had started a job at a medical spa which does botox , skin facials. She worked there in May 2016, my wife started work but they were paying her such a low wage , she was reluctant to take the position, but she took it. The woman in charge had no idea how to run a medical spa at all and started to use the 12plus years knowledge my wife has . Before my wife had started work the woman had said to my wife that if my wife leaves within two years she would have to pay back any training costs. My wife started work but never signed any contract stating that she would have pay anything back , even the offer letter had no reference to this. My wife went on two half days of training for laser training but never got a certificate of any sort. This woman boss would contradict any ideas my wife brought up, my wife after a month wanted to discuss her wage as it was just not satisfactory of the work and experience she has. So my wife called a meeting with the woman boss and presented this to her, the woman boss did not even entertain the prospect of raising her salary at all. So my wife decided to leave before all her ideas were going to be used, the woman boss has now sent a letter asking my wife to pay back training costs for the two days, but nothing was signed and not even a job description was given to my wife. I think personally this woman is bitter that my wife had the guts to leave and she is now asking for money to feed her own ego. Any advice would be helpful, thanks

Hi, My friend recently found that his employer from 2009/2010 hadn't registered him with HMRC PAYE but they have deducted the paye and NI from his salary and gave him payslips. Also the company was dissolved somewhere in 2012/2013 and noway he could contact them. He only found out when he inquired hmrc about his employment history for the past 6 years which he needed for his visa application. How can he update hmrc records with this employment when the employer can not be found? What is the best resolution for him? Thanks.

Hi everyone, I'm hoping all you knowledgable folk on here can offer your assistance . I started a part time job last year. During the interview, I explained that I was looking for part time hours to enable me to pursue a hobby, which I also get paid for, not much but I do it because I love it. I don't claim any credits or anything like that, money isn't everything to me. They were receptive to this and liked hearing about it. They also explained to me that sometimes they may ask that I do some overtime during heavy workload periods, not often, just an hour or so here and there, which I was fine with. I was also told that it is optional, so if I am busy with my hobby then it's not a problem as long as it doesn't interfere with my normal working hours, which it doesn't. But the overtime is constant, not occasional. If they ask me if I can come in an hour early or stay for an extra hour, I will if I don't have plans. Even then, if my own workload takes me over my finish time, I will stay until I've finished to make sure it's done so it doesn't delay other departments. For example, last week they asked if I could come in an hour early, which I did, and I also stayed an hour later without being asked due to my own work, as mentioned above. I should also say that all overtime is paid. However, it seems that the optional aspect may not be entirely true. For example, I was told that I have to stay for an hour longer due to the workload. It was inconvenient and I missed out on earning a few pennies from my hobby that evening due to it, but it didn't matter to them. I have also overheard little comments and tuts from other team members when I'm leaving for the day and they're staying behind, but they haven't been asked to, they're doing it off of their own backs. I don't see how them staying behind is my problem if my workload has been finished and theirs has not. So really, I'm not happy that this overtime doesn't appear to be optional in most circumstances, despite what I was told in the interview and what it says in my contract, and I'm not happy with the other team member's attitude towards me. I realise that I probably can't do much about the latter, it's the most two-faced place I've worked to be honest. Where do I stand? As the overtime is optional then I have every right to turn it down if I'm unable to do it, right? It's really getting me down, I can't make plans anymore and the attitude stinks. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.