Hi friends. I need help with 2 points please. Point 1: I have a friend who wants to write a letter to someone such as Chief Justices office or maybe some kind of complaints body detailing how he has been dealt with by the court systems. He has issue with his divorce, kids and property arrangement. He wants some professional to detail for him chronologically. I am sure only a solicitor can. What is this called and who does this? Point 2: my friend won his case in the high court against the council. The matter is closed however he was not awarded the cost reward from the high court as his legal team did not request it and he was not present as the solicitor said there is no need for his presence. Either way no cost reward has been given to him. It has cost him in total close to £18000 to prove that he dose not owe the council tax for 4 years amounting to £4000. Also he has been informed that you can NOT sue the council for costs because then everyone would do it. This was his first legal team. Please advise how you can. Ali

Afternoon . Looking to see if anyone has had any success with the HBOS in regards to the ultimate reward packaged bank account . I opened one in 2009 and have noticed that i was paying for a card protection policy that would pay out up to £75000 if there was any fraudulent acitivy on my card after it was reported missing . My question is . as this card proection insurance was of no value (the banks having to already cover such fraud ) would including it in a package of benefits/insurances mean that the entire package was missold . Since the onus is on the banks to check that the products they where selling was suiitable . any replies much appreciated regards

Morning All . Have started looking into the packaged account /fee paying account i had a few years ago . It was from Bank of Scotland . Looking through the info pack they sent to me i see that part of the monthly fee was for Card protection insurance .there are a few other insurances such as basic travel ,emergency home repair etc ,rac / aa road side assist . my question is as it was a single fee for a number of different products and one of these bundled products have being ruled to be fraudulent (card protection ) would that be sufficient grounds to reclaim the premiums paid as ultimately one of the insurances (never used any of them) was miss-sold so would mean they all are miss sold . any and all opinions appreciated regards

Hi everyone I am here on behalf of my mum and I would really appreciate some help. My mum is 67 years old and lives off a basic state pension and some pension credit. She is a home owner but has no savings. Prior to 2007 she had a basic, non-fee paying current account with the Halifax. In 2007 she was advised by Halifax staff to open an Ultimate Reward current account. Like many pensioners she struggles to manage on her pension and she was told that she could have a "free" £300 overdraft which would help her if she opened the Reward account. As you know, the Ultimate Reward account offers "perks" such as emergency home repair cover, AA breakdown cover, mobile phone insurance and travel insurance. I must point out that my mum doesn't drive and therefore doesn't own a car, she has never owned a mobile phone and she is unfit to travel due to health reasons. The only thing she could possibly benefit from is the home emergency repair cover. She was never asked whether she drives, owns a mobile phone or travels. As time went on she went further into the £300 overdraft but never went beyond it. She had cause to contact the bank in March this year and the staff member told her that they could extend her overdraft to £350 to help her manage. In April the same thing happened; she contacted the bank to check her balance and was told that she was almost at £350 into her overdraft but fear not, they could extend it to £400. My mum just pays her way and has never had any debt, nor has she ever had a loan or mortgage. In June this year she was diagnosed with cancer and is now recovering from a major operation and has thankfully had the all clear. Nevertheless she has had a pretty tough time of late. I have never interfered with her finances and I only get involved if she asks me. When she went into hospital in June she gave me her bank card and asked me to pay a few bills etc for her. I was horrified to see that she had an Ultimate Reward account. When I asked her if she realised just how much she was being charged for this she didn't have a clue. I know it sounds ridiculous, but she didn't even know about the "perks" and she didn't realise that she was paying for her bank account - I think it used to be £10 per month but it's now £15. On top of that is the amount that she is paying for having an overdraft of £400. The first £300 is free and beyond that she pays £1 per day, for every day that she is over £300. I know she has been silly and very naïve but that's my mum I'm afraid. She likes the staff as they are always nice and friendly on the phone...grrrr.... Now that I have explained to her that she has a debt to the bank that she can't get out of due to massive charges each month and that she is receiving "perks" that mean absolutely nothing to her, she is beside herself with worry. I am trying to find the agreement that she signed when she opened the account but as yet I haven't been able to locate it. I have established the exact date when she opened the account. I also have the dates when the overdraft was extended. I made an appointment at the Halifax and attended with my mum on Monday. I asked the staff member to close the account but she said it couldn't be closed until the overdraft was paid. I asked if the debt could be treated as a loan which my mum could pay back at a fixed amount each month, but the lady said this wasn't possible. So until the overdraft is paid my mum is stuck with the account (and the monthly fee for the unnecessary perks). I took my mum to another bank yesterday and she has opened up a new current account for her pension to be paid into. All we can do for now is try to pay money into her old Halifax account each month to clear the overdraft, but obviously she will still have to put enough in each month to cover the cost of the account itself. If I had the £400 myself I'd gladly give it to her, but unfortunately I don't. I'm sorry this is so long but I really would like to know how to proceed from here. I feel this account was mis sold to my mum from the start and I feel she should be reimbursed the fees. Do I complain to the Halifax first, or do I go to the Ombudsman? What do I say and how do I word it?? Do I need all her statements since she opened the account, or do I just ask for the fees back and trust they will calculate it? I am so angry that they have taken advantage of my mum who is so trusting and yep quite naïve, but who has never been in debt in her life and who has been throwing her meagre pension at the Halifax bank who don't give a flying fig how much she is struggling. I will be so grateful for any help that anyone can offer me. Many thanks in advance.

On April 8 2011, whilst doing some banking as POA on behalf of my mother inside her Halifax on-line bank account, I was tempted by a banner advertisement which purported to be a promotion for a new limited offer account called the Web Saver Reward with an interest rate of 2.8%, paid annually. At that time my mother had a savings account with Halifax delivering 2.3% interest, *holding about £40,000, so it seemed sensible to take advantage of an extra .5% Clicking the ad. led straight to an on-line application form, entitled Variable rate Web Saver Application. Within that form there was a question: Would you like a cash card? With Yes and No button options. I clicked Yes ( even though we didn't really require one – and in the event, never used it...). By doing so, I inadvertently reduced the interest rate to .25%. I did not realise that I had done this for almost a year. The account that opened on April 8th*was visible in my mother's internet banking and titled Reward Saver. For most of the next year it had a balance of around £50,000. When I discovered in March 2012, that the interest rate was much lower than I thought it should be, and there was no discernible reward, I contacted Halifax Customer Services, who told me that it was because I had clicked the card option. That had apparently converted the account from being a Web Saver Reward into a Variable rate Web saver. I wanted proof that I had made an error, and so they sent me screen captures of the application that they said I would have filled out. Twice they sent me the wrong ones, because they sent me versions that would only have been visible either to new customers, or to someone not logged in. Finally they sent me screens that would have applied to someone who was already logged in. On the screens there was among the small print at the top of the form: Important: Please note that if you are applying for a Web Saver reward you must select the no card option. These screens may have been the application we filled in – but it is impossible to verify as they are not dated. They were the only screens Halifax ever sent us which showed the application process for someone already logged in. We had already requested and been sent the wrong screens twice. (The wrong screens were also later sent to the financial ombudsman...) I note that they amended the application form for new customers and those not logged in 9 times between the date that we applied for the product in April, increasing the emphasis each time until August 7th, when they finally made clear that selecting the card option reduced the rate. Excerpt from August 6th application: IMPORTANT: Please ensure that you select the no card option within the application form.* Choosing a cash card will open a*Variable Rate Web Saver*with a rate of 0.25% AER variable. This last re-vamp was perhaps as a result of Halifax's admission that their application could be clearer and their promise to review the application form, made after Jo Thornhill published her article on thisismoney: *Beware catch on Halifax online savings account - one wrong click and your rate drops 0.25% on 3rd July 2011 At the time that we applied, we were not aware of the importance of selecting the no card option. There was no clue given as to why it was important, and I missed the small print Important disclaimer at the top of the form. It was difficult to discern the name of the product being applied for: Web Saver reward, or Variable rate Web saver. I expected the application form to be product specific – and there was no clear presentation of the fact that customers would be applying for a different product if the wrong option was clicked. The warning is in a very small type size, given far less prominence than the 2.8% rate promised on the banner which it contradicts. When I did click the card option, no tooltip arose to warn us of consequences. The product we received was titled Reward Saver, not Variable Rate Web Saver, and so appeared to be what we had applied for. There was no obvious clue that we had switched products and would be receiving a lower rate. Throughout the gruelling complaints process, we requested that Halifax send us a copy of the original banner ad. They first ignored our request and finally refused, saying they couldn't. We requested that the Financial Ombudsman request it, but if they requested it, it was never sent to them either. From Halifax advertising stored on the on-line archive ,it is possible to see the 9 increases in emphasis that took place in the application form for new customers between April and August 2011. It is available to view them, but as I'm new here - I can't post links - all the archived versions of the application that I could find are for new or unregistered customers only. The archive reveals that the bank were aware that the product was misleading. As the unnamed Halifax representative said in the Jo Thornhill article: '‘We accept we could make the process clearer.” However despite their own admission and the concerns raised on-line, their avowed policy of 'Giving a little extra help' did not include contacting customers who had taken up the product to check whether they were receiving the rate they expected. Anyone viewing our account set-up might have thought it strange that we had moved £50k out of an instant access savings account earning 2.3%, into a 'Reward' account earning only .25%... but previous ineptness at the branch had discouraged us from ever doing business there – and Halifax appeared to find it impossible to set up and maintain telephone banking on a POA account. So there were few opportunities for anyone but ourselves to view the account. It appears that had we not already been an on-line banking customer, we would have been provided with much more complete information. This would have been less misleading, especially if we had applied after August 6 2011. (This does not explore the business ethics of pretending you are giving extra help, but then using an application form designed for one account to serve as the application form for another, instead of creating a separate form. But it is clear from the textual additions made that Halifax had the capacity to adjust the code, and thus could have made the application clearer, much sooner, by highlighting the rate drop, adding a tooltip, etc. They just chose not to – at least until after August 6, and the appearance of the article on thisismoney.co.uk.) I would suggest that Halifax advertising is thoroughly misleading and dishonest. Not only did it inform us that applying for the Reward Saver will deliver a Reward of 2.8% interest - and kept silent about the catastrophic drop in interest if one clicked the card option, but their messages are underpinned by the corporate messages: 'A little extra help'. 'Always giving you extra', and the Bank of Scotland's 'With you all the way'. In our view, Halifax and particularly Halifax customer relations have been the diametrical opposite of these sentiments. We have pursued our complaint as far as we can; Halifax Customers relations now refuse to speak to us beyond saying that the complaints procedure has been exhausted, that they they are bound by the decision of the financial ombudsman (although the ombudsman says they are not...) and refusing to allow us to view the offending ad. They say they 'can't' do this. Halifax withdrew the Web Saver Reward on 10 Sept 2011.As a result of their misleading promotion we lost somewhere in the region of £1000. Do you think that may be found to have breached BCOB standards and we might succeed in a court case? We look forward to hearing your view, thank you,

I have worked for my employer for 12 years and as they were the only trading Ltd company of a PLC listed on AIM I started to receive several share option packs over the years as part of an Enterprise Management Initiative, however due to the price listed on AIM these were never exercised. About 2 years ago the company swapped all my old share options of 19.6p to equivalent number of 10p options. I thought this was generous and signed the relevant agreement but to this date neither myself of colleagues ever received countersigned copies back. Last year we were subject to a reverse takeover (unsure if reverse bit is relevant) by a company who now trade on AIM using 'our old account' but with a new name- essentially they needed funds from the markets to start a new overseas project and reversing into a PLC was easiest method. A retired Director I am friendly with told me the takeover was completed at 6.75p per share. I have had no correspondence regarding my share options since the takeover and when I ask my MD he states he doesn't know and he cannot get answers from the PLC Company Secretary or so he tells me - could he be lying? The Ltd Company has now been put up for sale by the new PLC as we are not part of their core business. Should the new PLC have offered me something for my options or swap for an equivalent share scheme or benefit in kind?, do they now even exist as the listing on AIM is under a different name to my previous employer? Any help would be appreciated as I am worried if we are sold quickly by the new PLC that my chance may be lost