Hi hope someone can help. I had a CPP for the above in which I have been successful in reclaiming. The only thing is I have today received a statement and Barclaycard have deducted protection amount owed from balance, Tax amount and also the simple interest amount ? The card was suspended a couple of years ago (due to another barclaycard account that I had problems with) and I always make the regular minimum monthly payments that are due on this account. I have had no contact from them regarding what they have done or any further contact from Card Protection Plan Limited. Is this correct what they have done as I thought that any interest less tax should have been returned to me and not applied to the account ? Its not a large amount but its the principle of the matter that concerns me. Apologies if I have posted under wrong section.

Hello All, My father's family visitor visa was refused on 01-Nov. Basically my father was in UK in May-27 and therefore his second visa starting from 01-Nov was refused because it is less than six months since his last departure from UK. I did not know about this rule. The visa officer further feels that he is trying to make UK a habitual abode. He is eligible to come to UK after 29-Nov as he will have completed six months out of UK. Now my concern is that the visa officer may refuse again thinking that my father is desperate to go to UK and therefore applied as soon as he became eligible and thus refuse again saying that he is trying to make UK is habitual abode. In this regard, I intend to mention the following as reason why he will return to India and not stay in UK. He is coming here to meet with my family ( myself, my wife and my one year old son ). Last time, he returned back within four months even though he had six months visa. Also even though I have lived in UK for a good six and half years now, he has applied only for second visit. Besides this, my father has wife ( my mother & married for over last forty years), a son, a daughter and two grand-children as a family in India. He has substantial fixed deposits in India, besides the monthly regular pension. My questions are: (1)Does the above form a strong reason to return back to India. (2)If the visa is refused again, will I be able to raise complaint and seek ombudsman help if needed. Thanks for your responses.

The Co-op Bank (Smile) has reduced my credit limit below the current balance outstanding. Which makes me immediately over the limit and liable to charges!! Can they do this?

Hi, Firstly I will explain my situation. I am a British national and am in a relationship with a Brazilian national. After much thinking about a way to be together in the UK, we have decided that the only way is to marry, and then for him to get a Family Visitor Visa, and from there apply for a Family of a Settled Person Visa. This will allow him to live and work in the UK as a normal citizen. We know that it is strictly illegal to work with a Family Visitor Visa. Here's where the confusion starts - when applying for the Family of a Settled Person Visa, he will have to provide evidence of a job in the UK and earnings of £18,000 or so each year. But all I keep thinking is, "How can he provide this if it's illegal for him to work here BEFORE he gets this Visa???" He is not allowed to work but yet he has to give evidence of work and earnings in order to get the Visa that will let him work. I am so confused right now. Completely illogical. Please can someone help? Thanks, Lauren

Hi all. We moved into our new house last Friday and we had zero furniture as we were buying new. I saw a great suite deal on www.galaxystores.co.uk (£747 for a matching 3 seater sofa, 2 seater sofa and foot rest) ordered it Monday evening. It was meant to be 1-2 day free delivery but heard nothing tried to log into my account on their site to try and track my order but couldnt, clicked for a password reminder - it never came emailed Galaxy who said it would arrive Friday before 5pm. Friday 5pm came and went and tried to contact Galaxy Stores only to find they have NO telephone number had to email them, they seemed to want to stall me for time by asking me if Id received a text from the courier - I hadnt, I asked twice for some kind of tracking number which they wouldnt/couldnt give me and was just told they would sort it out and arrange another delivery day. I looked up on Galaxy Stores (yes, I should have done this first but their site looked really good) and have only seen bad reviews for them, how they dont send orders and then dont refund. I am in desperate need for a sofa and cant really wait as we are all sat on the floor and have been for a week. My question is, under these circumstances, can I get a chargeback now rather than waiting a certain amount of time so I can buy a sofa from somewhere else and tell the people at Galaxy Stores to kindly cancel the order that may never come anyway? Ive checked my bank account and the money was taken out on the 24th. Im with Barclays and used a VISA Debit card on Galaxy Stores site using Sagepay. ETA: Correction, the money has been taken out of my account.

Hi Does anyone know the stance legally on whether someone visiting on a visitor visa is required to pay council tax. The situation is my partner is visiting me on a six month visitor visa and because of this my discount for single occupancy has been withdrawn. I was under the impression that because she is not resident in the UK or even the EU that I would still be able to claim single occupancy. Thanks in advance.

a female friend is on a six month visitors visa from Ghana.she has been here in uk for the passed 2 years by re-newing visitors visas to put her british passport holding 2 year old child in pre school etc. The husband of ten years is a British passport holder and was born in U.K.but lives and works abroad. Now she is in the U.K on another 6 months visitors visa.can she switch to another visa allowing her more permanent stay?maybe by a family of a settled persons visa in this case would her 2 year old british passport holding child who she is here in U.K with qualify as the settled person??. The british husband may not qualify to get anything other than a visitors visa for her due to his £13k per annum wage restriction. any advise or input will be greatly appreciated.

Our account was debited twice for all VISA transactions on the 24th July. First transaction was on 24th and another took place on the 25th July. This caused us to go overdrawn. On contacting the bank they knew exactly which transactions I was disputing and told us that it was a glitch by VISA and was being resolved by the bank. Although we should have money in the bank, technically we haven't and it may have been embarrassing doing shopping only to find your card is rejected! Be aware!

Basically it is very complicated. My current account with NatWest is now closed and defaulted. It all started like this: I managed my account very well, never been overdrawn or had any unarranged overdraft charges etc. In February 2012 I made a FP transfer to my Halifax account for bills. My available balance was in credit. According to my bank statement (several days later), the same day I made this transfer, transactions (VISA Debit) from the previous month were also applied. As a result, my account was overdrawn for the amount I transferred to my Halifax account. This per se sounds strange. How can the bank (NatWest) debit my account after 3 days? When you pay by your debit card shouldn’t the bank take the money off your account there and then? Anyway, because of simple lack of funds I wasn’t able to put the money back. This resulted in around £700.00 in charges! My account was then closed and “defaulted”. - I was very upset because I managed my account so well. I complained to NatWest but they said it is my fault because “I made that FP transfer to my Halifax when the balance reflected that Visa Debit transactions will be taken/are due to be taken” – which is simply nonsense! There is no such indication “due/will “ on the Internet banking or on my bank statement. - OK, I was very upset at this point. So I dug out my terms and conditions with NatWest, specifically about the VISA debit card transactions, authorisations etc. And guess what I found? 15.3 Using your card “15.3.5 Transaction carried out using your card will normally be applied to your account on the day the transaction is carried out or on the next business day.” My VISA transactions were not debited on the day the transactions were made nor the next business day! Haven’t they breached their T&C here? Oh and of course, I have proof of this. Also… “15.3.6 On each business day, any available funds on your account will be used to pay any transactions notified to us since the previous business day before being used to pay any other debit from your account.” So, if NatWest would have used funds to pay previous transactions before any other debits from my account, I wouldn’t have defaulted on my account! NatWest still insist it is my fault and I strongly believe that it is not. I will be taking them to court this month because this is not just a question about my credit file. If they have breached their own terms and conditions, how reliable are they? Please do comment and PM me if you believe that I am wrong. All advice will be considered. Thank you! p.s. I did not have an overdraft on this current account. If I had one, theoretically I would have been in credit agreement of some sort with NatWest. This is not a question about unarranged overdraft charges. The bank has all the right to charge for such reasons but they have no right not to abide by their own T&C. I believe it is their fault because they have not debited my account at the right time which led me to think that I have more funds than I actually had.

good evening, I am having problems with nationwide verified by visa . I have been trying to pay my gas bill online over the last few days but the payment has been declined/not authorised by nationwide. I have tried numerous times checking and double checking that I had entered all information correctly, but to no avail, my payments have been accepted in supermarkets and today at my vets with no problems. I thought it maybe a problem with british gas website but today I tried to purchase goods online and the payment was declined again! there wasn't even the security page from verified by visa to enter password etc just a message saying we are unable to process the order as yourself cannot be verified by your bank. Seems rather odd as I have made other payments and my direct debits using the visa card are going through ok, any thoughts to why this is happening please?

Hi all, My partner is a Filipino and I wondered if any one new, like 100%, if she needs a visa to go to Egypt? I am British and when I land in Egypt I can purchase a visa at the border, is that the same for Filipinos?

Logged a visa dispute with my bank for a holiday which was not as described. ended up flying home after 2 days. The charge back was logged and extra information provided and then i was sent a letter saying claim will be investigated and money refunded in meantime. Money never arrived so phoned to chase up to be told claim has been declined as services have been received. Have made a complaint regarding this and the outcome is that the bank say services have been received and I cannot make a claim under services not as described as there strict guidelines on what reasons a dispute can be made. Can anyone advice how i can get this dispute actioned

Hi Hope somebody can help me here..... Santander are charging me for 6 separate VISA Debit Card transactions that were paid out when my wife went over the overdraft on our joint account. Each one of these is £25! S o they are taking £150 for this. I made a complaint but because they already have let me off once a couple of years ago they say there is nothing they can do about it! How can it possibly cost them £25 each time this happens, it's ridiculous. I can't understand why they can't come up with a system to simply stop these payments from going through in the first place. If there is no money in the account then don't let the transaction go through! The guy from Santander told me it was to do with Visa blah blah blah but i think it is because they don't want to change it because they can continue to abuse us with these huge charges. Is there anything that can be done about this? I claimed a load of charges back a few years ago but i thought they had now stopped people from being able to it. Please can someone confirm. Thanks in advance

Can someone please help me? I purchased some large items online with a merchant based in Yorkshire, I paid using my Visa card to the sum of £206.75. The items were of poor quality and it was agreed with the merchant to return them for a refund, in the meantime I contacted Visa to let them know. As they did not offer a return service, this cost me an additional £55 to find a courier that could deliver these items, by this time Barclaycard had suspended the payment (this was in late April 2013). After a load of backwards and forwards with Barclaycard, they have now said that they cannot uphold my claim as the items according to the merchant were delivered in a used and unsalable state. This is not the case and although I have argued this point until I am blue in the face, Barclaycard keep saying that my description of the facts contradicts the merchants - Is this not protecting the merchant in this case? Barclays eventually asked me to try and resolve this myself directly with the merchant so on Friday 23rd August I did just that, their customer care team informed me that the items were signed for as damaged and may have been in a good condition when dispatched but were not on delivery!? No one has thought of mentioning this until last week, I now find that I cannot even claim from the courier service as they have a 3 day cut off for any losses or damage claims Surely, as the information I have been given by Barclaycard for the last few months was incorrect or misinterpreted they should now stand the cost of the refund and I should not find myself out of pocket? The cream on the cake was that the merchant also refuses to even return my goods but I am more than welcome to come and collect them - Again they know this is impossible without a specialist courier service at even more cost. I stand to lose my initial payment of £206.75, a return delivery cost of £55.00 and I have nothing to show for the money I have forked out........Is this fair?

As usual it is that time of year when the government tax, sorry fee, increase on visa applications, a wonderful tax (oops, fee,!!) that screws those of us who do everything the legal way. Fees are generally going up 2%. This may not look bad but then we have increases like the one on Tier 1 (General) Extension which currently costs a remarkably low £1000, increasing slightly to £1500!!!

Hi there, Let me start by saying I hope I have posted this in the correct area, I narrowed my options down to two and ran with this one! Firstly, I have a UK debt with two high street banks and one high street shop chain. I would think total debts are around the £10,000 mark. I am working through my options as to what I can do about clearing this. Secondly, I am flying to the ROI via Heathrow this year from my home country of Australia and was concerned as to whether I might encounter any visa issuing problems as I pass through UK Customs? I have read quite a bit on this matter and have found a variety of answers which has led to my concern and confusion on the matter. Any information on the UK Entry query would be much appreciated. I would also like to say a general thanks to the contributors on this forum as there is some great information and very thorough answers being left! Thanks again.

I have over $30,000 in credit debt-and have been paying $1000 a month of which only $200 goes to principle. The finance charge is low on credit portion, but they are charging me another interest payment for the cash advance portion of debt so a total of over $800 in interest. I am no longer a resident and hve been denied my recent renewal as I have no property and work overseas. I am a dual EU and SA citizen and am married to a US citizen who owns a home in US, though I only am out of the US much of the year due to work. I have no savings and this is half my current total debt and have been advised to stop paying this account until I can take care of my US debt and offshore debt in EU and set up an emergency fund as my job is very unstable. I do plan to visit Australia again, and do not wish to hurt my families US credit. I need to know if this would hurt me more than help me in the long run?

Ok so getting ready to sort the payday loan misery once and for all. Traied ringing the bank to cancel all CPAs and was put through via bank to the visa dispute team. they have said I dont have any re-occuring payments to any payday lender?????? Are they talking crap or is there a chance that I dont have any CPAs? Not much of an issue as my wages and other money will go to new building society account this month. But wanted to use one of my old accounts for making payments to some companies. should I just report cards as stolen and have it blocked completely, then get new cards?

asking for a friend. she opened a chargeback for goods not received on the 8th january, rbs are giving her the run around (in my opinion) theyve sent out 2 or 3 sets of forms for her to fill in and she was told today her case wont be reviewed til the 18th feb. she still doesn't have her money. now i thought (and this is whats happened when ive previously had to do a chargeback) you get your money back then they investigate? feel sorry for her cause its over a £100 she's loosing out on

Good Morning Everyone After reviewing the Consumer Forum, I discovered that I might have a very strong case for claiming PPI charges back from Debenhams/G E Money. I opened a Visa Card account back in 2002 and on looking through the statements (luckily I kept them all) it has an item each month described as 'Account Cover @ 150 Pence per £100 Bal' I do not really know what this is. An analysis I did on Excel shows that I paid £773.84 for this. My questions are: - Is this something I can reclaim? If so, how do I go about claiming? What interest, if any, might I be due? Thanks in advance.

Personal Enquiry offices (PEOs) Link to UKBA Webpage; http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/contact/applyinginperson/

Hi...first time on the forums. I have an issue which I'd appreciate some help with..... issue occurred in hotel in Berlin. I am UK citizen but Visa Card concerned was my Spanish one. Beginning of August we booked a family self-catering apartment (within an actual hotel) for 11 days and left credit card details as requested. On arrival we found that the room was dirty and substandard and next-door to a not very salubrious pub/bar with drunks spilling out on to the street at all hours – our room was on the ground floor. As a family with a young daughter we were slightly perturbed by this but worse was to come….we were unable to sleep at all that first night due to the loud music and constant traffic of visitors to the room above us. We later found out on our return home that this room above was in fact a brothel. Obviously in the morning we realized that we could not continue in this way for the full 11 days so we paid for that first evening and left. The problems arose when the hotel debited our credit card 600 Euros (80% of the 11 days) on the basis that their cancellation policy was 0% within 3 days and 80% thereafter. Visa seem to claim this is within their rights as it is a stated (but extortionate) cancellation rate but my argument is that this was NOT a cancellation – we stayed one night and would have stayed all had it been appropriate. In fact we had to find alternate accommodation for the remaining 10 days and thus effectively paid for our holiday twice…. We would not have cancelled and gone somewhere more expensive had the accommodation been as described and suitable for a family. What are our options in this situation?

:-)Hi, I'll try to keep this as short as possible. Basicly, i purchaced a car Vauxhall Astra 03 plate 1.8cdti, on 23.7.12 £1.5k, paid on my Visa debit card, from local car dealer, got no logbook with car, got told to go to post office to apply for one, just the m.o.t and a bit of service history, on my receipt it says 'Trade Sale'. We drove the car home (2 minutes away), Engine management light on and car wouldnt lock with keys. We drove car straight back and its been in the dealers posession ever since. (3weeks today) !!. In this time the car has been in 4 different garages (Including vauxhall) for diagnostic's & repair and still isnt fixed. When we checked on Friday with the 4th garage the car is in for repair at, mechanic said no parts have been ordered and thay are chocca with work so trying to fit my car in as/when they can. So,,, I decided to reject the car under the s.o.g.a on friday, as dealer promiced it would be fixed by that day, and if it wasnt he would refund me the money. When we went in on Friday for my refund, he refused as in his words 'he is still trying to fix it'. and if i want a refund i can take him to court. We have been lied to constantly about repairs over the past 3 weeks, 'its had this part fitted and that part fitted, parts are on order, bla bla, etc' . And basicly all communication has now broken down with dealer, as i relly lost the plot on friday, and gave him a right mouthful. So, ive returned the m.o.t & papers, etc, to dealer (kept my receipt tho) and given them a letter by hand, stating im rejecting car under s.o.g.a as my solicitor told me to do this, giving them 7 daysin writing to refund me the money. I paid for car on my Visa debit, i rang my bank, they are refusing a chargeback, saying they dont get involved with car disputes, yet i only had the car in my possession for about 15 minutes, as it was returned straight to the garage and theyve had it ever since. So car dealer has my car and my money and im in no man's land. Please any advice would be welcome, i was offered a hire car by dealer while my new car was in for repairs, but didnt need one as i still have my old car. I just want my money back, help ! Thanks for reading jackie x

A few years ago i defaulted on a card, on which since i have received a PPI refund. There is still debt there, but i am paying off gradually. As there is PPI missold, does this mean that the default should be wiped, if so how would i ask them to wipe it? many thanks

Hi all I have been trying to help a friend with his PPI claim from BarclayCard. We got to the stage where he sent them the FSA form back, but they have come back with a rejection of the claim! He doesn't remember ever having been told or sold a PPI when he took out the credit card. He used to pay them by DD on a monthly basis. But, this was rejected by his bank last year and he decided to pay them by telephone going forward. It was during one of his calls to the customer service dept of BarclayCard that he was told he has been paying £60 per month for a PPI since the card was issued (2001)!! Unfortunately he doesn't have any proof of this, only the fact that he's been paying the PPI every month. Apparently the lady he spoke with at BarclayCard told him to continue paying his PPI until he's managed to claim ALL the money back! Any advice would be much appreciated. Rgds.