The Issue One of the neighbouring offices at my place of work has recently added an EE signal booster box to their office, which effectively acts as a 3G mast which then routes all calls though their internet connection. You can't opt in or opt out to this like on Vodafone or other networks, if someone has one on EE, your EE phone will simply use that connection when in range. I used to get a moderate 4G signal in my office without any call quality issues, but now my phone has a full 3G signal instead. Their internet connection is terrible and my mobile internet often cuts off and calls drop off frequently. Ofcom I've done a bit of research regarding these boosters, and have found that 3G booster boxes are only legal for consumers if provided by a service provider such as EE, as long as they don't cause interference to other people / customers. My complaint with EE I called up a few times, and was told that there is nothing I can do about it, apart from turn on WiFi calling. I can't use WiFi at work. Eventually after speaking to the cancellations department, I got through to someone who seemed to be genuinely interested in helping me. He said I can't cancel without paying the rest of my contract. I quoted the Ofcom document I found, he literally read half of it while I was on the phone to him. We ended the call with him saying he would find out more information. The next day, he calls and says he's spoken to lots of people internally but as it's a brand new issue they've never faced, they went away to look into it more. Eventually coming back with that there is nothing I can do, and nothing they can do about it. They did suggest I speak to the people that have the signal booster, but there is literally around 20 offices that it could be. I suggested about proving me with a signal box but they said they wouldn't because that would cause interference (My phone cut out around 5 times while on the calls with EE due to this bloody signal box and WiFi calling) Possible resolution As my job requires me to be contactable at work, I got permission to use WiFi at work, and so I could use WiFi calling at work, the next time EE called, I told the guy this, and he agreed to end the complaint, and credited me with 1 month free. WiFi calling simply doesn't work I've made several calls at work, and with WiFi calling on, the line is dead on my side, but the other side's phone rings, and is also dead when picking up. I miss a lot of calls now where my phone just doesn't ring. Why I'm posting this I cannot use my mobile phone in the one place I use it the most which is in the office. I need to be contactable as often as possible. I feel like they are breaking the law by having providing a signal box which is causing interference to other devices. I feel that EE should have an opt out feature to allow my phone to avoid using other peoples signal boxes on bad internet connections, otherwise there is nothing stopping anyone from connecting a signal booster to a internet connection designed to drop out every few seconds. Am I overreacting or are EE breaking the law?

Hi There I will need a new clutch please see the case below I purchased performance enhancing software for my car, this has now caused me to experience clutch slip when driving the dealer explained that the vehicle was experiencing to much power through the clutch, I went to this particular dealer for this software because they are the head office for the distributor network within the UK. I have spoken to other dealers within the network who agree that before they offer the software that I have on my car, they advise the customer that he will need a new clutch as part of the performance upgrade because of the power. I have never had any such advice from the guys at the head office informing me that I will need a new clutch consequently I am now suffering clutch slip which could have been easily avoided if they had given me the right advice to start with Please can somebody advise where I stand legally with regards to the above concern. the dealer has agreed to pay a full refund for the installation of the software but the software has now sadly caused damage to the clutch many many thanks

A new relief road has been built at the end of my back garden due to a town centre improvement scheme and this has caused more issues than I expected. Is there anything I can do? The distance between my fence and the road is just a pavement it is that close, no boarders or anything. I do have a fairly longish garden but its still too close for comfort to me, if a car or van crashed into my fence its a worry. I thought they were going to plant trees at least along the end of the gardens but it has not happened and the road carries big lorries, a bus route, vans, cars in fact all vehicles. I had hoped that trees would block out some of the noise and pollution but the noise actually travels through the ground so nothing is going to stop that. The heavy vehicles travel overnight too plus its not nice having lorry and van drivers going by with full view of my garden and through my windows. The bus passengers also can see so my privacy has been completely taken away. They put up a 2 metre fence but it should have been much taller. Before the work started I got lots of solicitors letters asking to work on my behalf for compensation but I wanted to see how things panned out after the work was done plus I was a bit wary of if it was the right way to go about things so I left it. Before the road was built it was tranquil, it was first allotments then part was changed to a car park which was very rarely used because no one wanted to pay. Its completely changed the house and I've been here 28 years. What can I do and how do I go about doing it? I hope this has been posted in the right place

I want to bring to your notice a scandalous situation regarding furniture flammability. The UK has the toughest furniture flammability laws in the world, the price of which is that UK sofas/mattresses etc contain a huge amount of flame retardant chemicals. Evidence has been mounting on the harm that these chemicals do to human health and the environment. Two years ago in the US they changed their laws so that their furniture will no longer need to contain flame retardants. This followed a long campaign by consumers, green scientists, fire fighters (who noticed they were getting more cancers than normal) and the Chicago Tribune (who won the Pulitzer Prize for their work). It took so long because the ultra-powerful chemical industry used its influence to block changes, buy officials, and so on. In August 2014, the UK government in the form of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published a proposed new flammability test that would reduce flame retardants by up to 50% (and probably to nothing with new technologies that would be available). The test methodology was confirmed as water-tight by the country's leading test experts, also by British Standards. Trading Standards and the fire services were very supportive. However, the chemical industry orchestrated resistance, via tame MPs for example, and put pressure on risk averse civil servants in BIS. The result was that the changes did not appear in April 2015 as planned. Instead, BIS officials said more work had to be done. No more work has ever been done on the new test. BIS is now ignoring queries from anti-chemical consumer groups and basically doing everything it can to prevent the changes going through, in order to protect their own backs. What's especially bad is that the government's own published research proved that the current test doesn't actually work for the most part. Which means people are dying in preventable house fires and we are all suffering the harmful effects of flame retardants that mostly aren't actually doing very much anyway.

Vodafone have put a default on my credit report and are causing me undue stress and anxiety due to a phone I had stolen in Barcelona. The thieves stole my phone and within a few hours racked up a bill over £2,000 by ringing premium numbers and putting them on hold to ring the same numbers - over 900 calls were made. It is clear that my phone was used as some sort of organised crime activity and there have been many cases in the press of Vodafone lumping other people with bills like this, only to waive the bill when brought to the attention of the press. I am now at the point of contacting press as this seems the only way Vodafone comes to a fair decision. I have not long graduated and instead of enjoying being young I am beginning to get depressed - I have debt collectors after me, a ruined credit report and no idea of how to get out of this situation. anyone got any other tips on how to deal with this situation or anyone had a similar experience? Forgot to mention that the incident occurred in September 2014, a default was registered on my report May 2015 and the account was apparently sold on to a DCA in the last few weeks

Hi, last year my neighbours constructed a monstrosity of a lean to down the side of their house with a centimetre between it and my house wall. At the time, my mother was in and spoke to them (she lives with me) and they assured her it was all fine and they'd checked permissions, etc. As we have a good relationship with them, we didn't see any reason to raise objections at that time. The lean to very narrowly (like I said, barely a centimetre) doesn't touch our property. However, if we wanted to get the wall repointed, there is zero access to it. Recently, the bad weather and excessive rain has caused significant damp down that side of the wall where we've never had it before. And when examining during a rain storm, the lean to is directing a flow of water towards that wall. I got a builder in to examine and he climbed over to have a look - his assessment was that the lean to was causing excessive water to hit that wall and cause the damp. Can you advise me of the best way to go about dealing with this? Having spoken to the neighbours, it's clear they are not interested in helping - they have just stood firm that they have a right to put it there and that's that. I called the council and they weren't very helpful, so I think the next port of call is my insurance company, but I would be interested if anyone has any knowledge of the legalities of lean tos and how the boundaries work. Thanks, Claire

Hello All, Last weekend, our boiler broke down, late on the Sunday night. I called the maintenence man who deals with these issues for the letting agency first thing on Monday morning. He came over on Monday night and found that the transformer on the circuit board had burned out and killed the boiler. He said it would be a full boiler replacement and he will sort it with the letting agency as soon as possible. In the maintenence man's defence, he is really good, it is the agency who are slow at everything. So, we've spent all week without heating or hot water. My wife sent a text to the letting agency to negotiate a rent reduction, as we haven't had use of these utilities. Here is the text conversation: LA = Letting Agency Wife: Under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, I would like to negotiate a reduction in the rent for this month due to not having heating or hot water. LA: Sorry, we can't accept that. We will hold you responsible for damaging the boiler and we will remove the cost of the boiler from your deposit. Any deductions made by yourselves are down to you taking too long to inform us of the problem, which has caused a delay in getting a new boiler. Wife: Excuse me, we did not damage the boiler, the transformer on the circuit board burned out. We have done your job for you by contacting the maintenence man first thing the following morning. We are in a house with no hot water or heating in mid-October. I'm sorry, but it should not take this long to sort out. Please send me our landlord's details. LA: Why? Wife: Because I do not feel that you are doing your job and we would like to contact the landlord. Please send me his details. LA: We have been doing our job. To say that you are deducting rent because the process is taking too long is very wrong. Wife: Please send us our landlord's details. LA (seconds later): I have made him aware of your complaint. Goodbye. Now, for one thing I do not believe for a second that he made the landlord aware of our complaint. Another is I cannot believe he actually put in a text that he will say that we broke the boiler. The third is they seem to think that a boiler breaking late on a Sunday night and then informing the maintenence man at 8am the following morning is "taking too long." We do know somebody who knows the landlord and we have asking him to give us the details, as the letting agency is refusing, we are justing waiting for him to message us with his details. My question is, what can my wife and I do? We are concerned that the LA will now make up a pack of lies to tell the landlord. However, we do have evidence against them where they admit that they will say things if we withhold the rent. I do believe we are within our rights to negotiate a small reduction in the rent under these circumstances. Thoughts?

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum, please feel free to move it if not! I had an out-of-warranty iPhone that needed a battery replacement. I paid for the work online with my debit card using Apple's support site. A hold was placed on the money in my account. While I waited for them to send out the pre-paid box to return the phone, the hold on the money was removed, presumably because the work had not been completed and could not yet be charged. I left the money where it was because I knew it would be taken later. I returned the phone and was contacted via email by Apple who said they'd found something else wrong with it which would also need to be repaired. They attached a photo of my phone that supposedly gave details of what the new issue was. It didn't give any clue as to what the problem was. I called Apple, who were equally puzzled and couldn't get any information from the engineers. At this point they told me that they would cover the full cost of the repair - not just the mystery defect, but the original battery The phone was returned within a week, fully repaired, and I was a satisfied customer. Six days later, they took the money from my account despite being told they wouldn't. This put me in a position of having an unauthorised overdraft, with a direct debit for car tax due out the following day. I rang Apple immediately who were most apologetic and promised to refund the money. However, it would take up to 10 days for the refund to appear in my account. I told them that I had direct debits to pay and it was going to cost me money in charges if they bounced. They told me to call back when the charges had been paid, to look at claiming the value of the charges back from Apple. I then called my bank. There was nothing they could do. They put me through to the Visa team, who said the same - as a refund had already been started, they couldn't do anything. I called DVLA (the car tax direct debit was due the next day), who were, surprisingly, the most helpful out of everyone. The unauthorised overdraft happened over the end of one monthly charging period and into the start of the next so it was two months before I could pay the charges and look at reclaiming them. I called Apple today regarding this and they simply weren't interested, claiming they weren't responsible. They said that they'd already refunded the money and they weren't going to pay for any charges that they'd caused. The charges are only £30 but that isn't the point. I believe that they were caused as a direct result of Apple's error. If it hadn't caused so many problems with direct debits etc, I probably wouldn't have bothered about them. But it did cause problems and after having to spend an hour an a half on the phone to them today, I'd like to pursue this. Do I have a case? And if so, how would you recommend I go about it? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Hi all. I recently had my car insurance made void by the underwriters due to them interpreting my occupation as different to what my business ACTUALLY is. Asda/Southern Rock are claiming I should have put "Door Supervisor" as my occupation in their dropdown box. I selected "Other - Professional" from the first dropdown box, and "Security Services" from the second dropdown box. I argue that even though I was performing Door Supervisor duties at the time my car was maliciously damaged, my business includes Surveillance, Security Guarding, Manned Guarding, and other security duties within the security industry. In fact, the Nature of Business as described on Companies House is "80100 - Private security activities". I also argue that if I were to put Door Supervisor as my occupation, and were to perform one of the other duties that my company provides, then Door Supervisor would be misleading to the insurers. Hence, why "Other - Professional" and "Security Services" was the most accurate description from the dropdown boxes. I have complained to the Financial Ombudsman about this. I have a new job starting with Sunwin/Co-Op over the next couple of weeks, where I will be employed, rather than self-employed. The job is a Cash and Valuables in Transit Officer, which mainly involves driving. My question is: Now that the underwriters have made my insurance void, I am struggling to get personal motor insurance. Will my personal insurance being made void affect me getting insured on my new employer's business motor insurance?

Hi all. My wife has a Very account and as the only breadwinner I have to make the payments. I get paid monthly yet they have a 28 day cycle. This is obviously designed to move the payment date 2 or 3 days closer to the start of the month each month. Unfortunately monthly paid customers, probably most of us, do not get to change our pay days, therefore the date payment is due eventually falls before the monthly pay day. This is to ensure that a large number of people have to pay a £12 fee for 'late payment' when they deliberately cause this to happen. It also affect the credit rating as this shows as a missed payment when they have changed the date to some time before pay day. My question is, if enough people get together can we change this practice? I have tried contacting the Financial Ombudsman Service and they say they have no authority. Thanks.

Stolen mobiles are still causing victims "shock bills", in spite of government promises to cap call charges, Citizens Advice has said. The watchdog said consumers have faced charges of up to £23,000 each, after thieves used their phones. A year ago the culture secretary, then Maria Miller, promised that such charges would be capped at £50 by the Spring of 2014. The government said it was waiting for the industry to agree the details. Citizens Advice claimed as many as 160,000 people a year are hit by high call charges, following the theft of a mobile phone or a SIM card. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30429347

Hi, I'm just hoping for a bit of advice. I live on a small unadopted lane, which has houses at both sides and a rectangle of common land in the middle with room for a few parked cars and to turn your car around (it isn't a through road). Recently one of our neighbours decided to 'extend' their drive onto the common land (not sure why), which wasn't really a problem even though I don't think they have the right to do this, but they've now taken to placing rocks across the entrance to this drive, making even harder for us to turn our cars around. I'm fuming, but I'm loathe to say something, but I'm sure this must be illegal? If someone damaged their car whilst trying to turn it round, would our neighbours be liable as they're the ones who have placed the obstruction there? I know there is a lot to be said for looking where you are going, fortunately I know they're there, but the lane is very dark at night as there's only a couple of street lights. Being an unadopted road means I can't really involve the council. Any advice much appreciated Thanks

Details of our complaint with HSBC are explained below; HSBS COLLECTIONS DEPT ARE CALLING UP TO 7 TIMES A DAY FOR PAYMENT. SHE IS 8 MONTHS PREGNANT, IN A WHEELCHAIR AND CRUTCHES. CONSTANTLY IN PAIN. WHEN RESTING IS CONSTANTLY BEING DISTURB BY HSBC BABARDMENT OF CALLS. MY SON ILL WITH WORRY EFFECTED HIS CREDIT RATING I AM DESPERATE I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT TO HELP IT’S A LIVING NIGHTMARE. PLEASE IF THERE IS A SOLICITOR OUT THEIR CAN YOU HELP US. My daughter in law, has had a current account with HSBC for 20yrs. She took out a loan from HSBC 5yrs ago and was repaying the loan at a rate of £260.31 per month; the loan is due to finish September 2016. She has not missed one payment whilst paying back the loan over the last 5yrs. MARCH 2013 I suggested she try and reduce her loan repayments, and at the same time perhaps she could release some more money by re-structuring the original loan and she would be able to perhaps gain a better interest rate. APRIL 2013 She was made redundant from her job. She immediately rang up HSBC in April and asked them for advice through their Finance Department as she knew she would have difficulty paying her loan repayment of £260 31 in May without going over her agreed overdraft limit. She informed them she would be able to continue with the repayments the following month in June as per usual as she had already found new employment (she is a Paramedic) however, there would be two weeks during which she would be without employment and therefore earnings. The result of this was that she would be missing ONE Month DD payment in May with agreement. She specifically asked if this would affect her credit rating and was assured that up to 7 payments could be missed or deferred before any action would be taken. At no point during the conversation was she advised that this would be registered as a default on her credit rating file. In the meantime, to reduce payments she stated to the financial team that she would stop using her credit card but she also stated that she did not wish to cancel the card. HSBC informed her “that was absolutely fine” and the May payment could be paid back at the end of the loan time or earlier if she were able to. HSBC did in fact take the May payment from her account but immediately refunded the payment into her current account. She was then expecting the loan payment to be taken from her account in June as normal, as agreed in the telephone conversation to HSBC in April. Loan payments continued to be paid as normal and as agreed. AUGUST 2013 She an her partner made an evening appointment with the local HSBC customer service manager in Solihull during the week commencing 12th August, now knowing that they were expecting a baby and sensibly planning ahead for the additional financial pressure this would put them under. They asked the customer service representative, if they could re-structure the loan, hoping to be able to get a better interest rate and another loan. He took some details, and started the process of entering information, saying that he was hopeful she could consolidate the loan with her credit card, borrow some more money to help with the baby and still reduce her monthly payments. The application was refused, much to everyone’s surprise, so he investigated why that should be. It transpired that HSBC had without consent or any contact with her cancelled the direct debits paying back her HSBC gold credit card. As a result of this there was a note on the file cancelling the credit card and registering a default. At no time was she informed that the DD payments had NOT been taken from her account. She at no time received any correspondence from HSBC informing her that she was behind with the repayments of the Credit Card. The Customer service manager telephoned Head Office to find out why the Direct Debits had not been taken from her account. He also tried to contact the assessing agency to see if they would change their mind, pointing out that she had been a loyal customer since December 1993, and had never, in all that time, defaulted on any payment. As it was now around 5.30 pm in the evening, head office informed him that it would be looked into immediately the next morning and they would telephone first thing the following day, but for now they could progress no further. She was totally unaware that the JUNE, JULY and now AUGUST Direct Debit had NOT been taken from her current account until this appointment with the local HSBC Branch. The HSBC customer service manager informed her that “had it not been for the Direct Debit mistake there would not have been a problem for her obtaining further credit.” The following morning HSBC head office listened to the tape of the telephone conversation which she had made in April. As agreed, the customer services manager telephoned her to advise her as to the results of the investigation. The Customer Services Manager stated the following: The telephone conversation confirmed that she was not advised about the default. The telephone conversation confirmed that she was not advised that the direct debits would be stopped on her credit card. The policy of the bank was to automatically cancel all direct debits associated with borrowing through the bank (loans, credit cards) but again she had not been advised of this. The member of staff she spoke to had been “spoken to” and would undergo retraining. Payment of £142.00, the amount accrued by the bank cancelling the DD would be taken from her current account on 2nd September. HSBC person apologised for the error but stated that they could not “undo” the effect their error had had on her credit status. Later that week she returned home to find a letter from HSBC dated after her meeting with Customer services manager Solihull branch informing her that her credit card was in arrears and would be cancelled if she didn’t make a payment. This was a direct contradiction of the information that the Solihull Branch had found on her file, which showed that the account had already been closed. This is a further example of the mis-management of Paula’s account. 2nd September 2013 The direct debit was NOT reinstated, and the credit card payment was not taken despite having been promised as resolved by the customer services manager. She had to make a manual payment to rectify this. 5th September 2013 She noticed that the loan repayment had not been taken from her account either, for the first time. She had not asked for this to be cancelled, delayed, deferred or anything else. At this point she was under immense stress, upset, and had a complete lack of faith in HSBC and its staff. 21st September 2013 She and her partner made another appointment with Solihull HSBC branch Manager, to discuss the effect this had had on them, and requesting her help. The stress of the catalogue of errors was by this point causing her to suffer blood pressure problems which are especially dangerous in pregnancy. She explained that the DD had still not been taken from her account for the HSBC Credit Card and in addition HSBC had cancelled the Direct Debit for the LOAN without informing my daughter in law Ms Bond agreed immediately to refund any late payment charges she had incurred as she agreed that the defaults were not her fault. However, the default would still remain on her credit file. Ms Bond informed them that Branch Managers do not have any authority to remove defaults from credit files, and despite previous requests with two employers at HSBC head office to have the default removed not one individual within HSBC company says that they have the authority to do so. Ms Bond stated she wanted to further investigate and although she would be going on holiday she would make sure that daughter in law would be contacted personally by herself on the Wednesday and after that her colleague would deal with it. Ms Bond contacted her on the Thursday and stated that she could confirm everything she had told her – however, a loan default would permanently stay on her file with regard to the agreed deferment because in actual fact their policy is that you cannot defer payments and settle the loan a month later than agreed. Again, a direct contradiction of what Paula was told originally. While they were with her, Ms Bond initiated a new standing order mandate for the personal loan and credit card which would go out around 5nd October 2013. Since she initiated this, payments have been taken correctly. However, daughter in law is still not able to get any credit due to the default placed on her credit file by HSBC, and is unable to restructure her loan to gain a better interest rate. She is now 7months pregnant and has had to start her maternity leave earlier than anticipated because she has developed a serious medical condition associated with the pregnancy which has means she must now be on a wheelchair. It is more necessary than ever that she consolidate her loan and card, and despite the fact that Ms Bond confirmed her credit rating within the bank was “very good”, they will not assist Paula further. Ms Bond assured her that she would receive a letter detailing the results of investigation and offering a full unreserved apology in writing regarding their error. This letter has still not been written, now nearly 3 months after meeting with Ms Bond. My daughter in law and my son are extremely distressed and she is suffering severe anxiety attacks as a result of the financial stress. Both her midwife and obstetric registrar have cautioned against further stress as it has the potential to be detrimental to her unborn child. IT IS AN ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE FOR US ALL. I am so sorry this explanation is long and drawn out. I wanted you to have the facts that I/we am aware off. I/we would be so grateful if you can help us to get the default removed from her credit file. It would make such a difference to their situation as they are feeling quite desperate with life at the moment. We are all incredulous at the ineptitude of HSBC and the lack of logic and common sense in refusing to consider her for a consolidation loan which would reduce her repayments – a refusal directly caused by HSBC own error!

Hello guys please read. I need help on a matter with Orange that’s being going on for the last 2 years. I have tried CISAS but it’s been over 9 months so they cannot help I have tried civil legal advice, debt council , citizens advice etc and no one can help I get passed around with no actual information on what to do. I had a contract with Orange for 18 months and before it ended I cancelled the contract with Orange and thought that was the end of it, 3 months later I return home from university to find bills and debt letters requesting money for line rental when the contract had been cancelled. I tried to get this across to Orange who have no care for the matter and would not even deal with me, I have been battling debt collectors and Orange for over 2 years trying to explain the situation and have got nowhere with them and they have defaulted my credit file for 6 years saying I owe the money and that’s it. I have requested call recordings to prove my case which they will not provide and the phone had no usage over the 3 months as I had taken a new contract with a new provider. I need to get the matter resolved as I need to obtain a loan for my Masters at university and this is having a critical affect on my future and is also causing me a lot of stress and I certainly cannot afford to take them to court as I am student. Any advice on this would be of great help as I am at a loss with this situation right now