Builder estimate for renovation work on our house was £7,500. Work included removing window & replacing with patio doors, removing two internal walls, fitting insulated plaster board in bedroom, laying hardwood floor, converting a bedroom into a bathroom, including external pipework. We paid an initial £5000. He took over seven months to do the work, with very long, unexplained absences throughout (the longest was 9 weeks). During the work, we also asked him to fit respatex in the shower, board out the new bathroom with plasterboard (uninsulated), he added coving in the kitchen and supplied underlay for the wooden floor. He has now billed us for the remaining £2,500 of the original estimate and a massive £4260 for the extra work. This seems far too high for the additional work. I have asked for an itemised bill, but think I am being taken for a ride. Any advice much appreciated.

The Financial Conduct Authority today announced plans to ban opt-out selling in financial services markets. Opt-out selling is the practice of defaulting consumers into buying a product which they then have to opt out of, for example by using pre-ticked boxes to sell the consumer add-on insurance. http://www.fca.org.uk/news/fca-proposes-an-end-to-opt-out-selling-of-insurance-add-ons FCA to ban pre-ticked 'add-on' insurance sales http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/mar/25/fca-to-ban-pre-ticked-add-on-insurance-sales

Swinton failed to inform customers that the policies were optional and separate from the core cover Insurer Swinton has been fined £7.4m and has set aside more than £11m to compensate customers after the City regulator found it had mis-sold add-on insurance policies over a two-year period. It is the biggest fine of its kind for an insurer and comes days after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announced an investigation into the market in add-ons. The FCA said that between April 2010 and April 2012 Swinton had sold personal accident, home emergency and motor breakdown policies to customers without providing enough information about the terms and conditions or cancellation process. The policies, which made the firm £93m, were sold alongside home and motor insurance, but the FCA said Swinton had not made it clear that they were optional extras and separate from the core cover being bought. The insurer failed to properly monitor sales calls and its aggressive sales strategy meant it failed to treat customers fairly, the FCA said. The problems emerged when a new chief executive, Christophe Bardet, was appointed at Swinton and conducted a review of the business, and the insurer reported itself to the regulator. The firm set aside £11.2m to compensate customers who were victims of mis-selling, and in summer 2012 it contacted more than 650,000 policyholders who it believes may have been affected. So far it has returned £1.9m. http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2013/jul/16/swinton-fined-mis-sold-insurance-add-ons So you mis-sell insurance, make £93m, get caught and fined £7.4m, pay out £1.9m and set aside another £11.2m. That still leaves a cool £72.5m that you otherwise would not have earned if there had been no mis-selling at all. I bet they couldn't pay that fine quick enough.