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National Consumer Service

@nationalconsumer.bsky.social

The National Consumer Service – Consumer Action Group - is a completely free UK-based consumer advice/law service started in January 2006. Post your story. We will help you. www.nationalconsumerservice.co.uk

396 Followers  |  1,840 Following  |  742 Posts  |  Joined: 08.02.2024  |  1.8473

Latest posts by nationalconsumer.bsky.social on Bluesky


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Wickes kitchen fitting was a recipe for disaster I’ve been without a hob in my new kitchen for three months after an emergency engineer was forced to disconnect it When Wickes installed my new kitchen, I noticed an odd, worsening smell that I put down to the ongoing works. It was nearly two months later that I realised it was gas. My supplier dispatched an emergency engineer, who discovered a leak in the newly fitted hob and categorised it as an immediate danger. The gas supply to the hob was disconnected and Wickes sent a replacement, but no one came to install it. Continue reading...
23.02.2026 07:02 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Openreach said yes to full fibre broadband, then branded it ‘uneconomical’ Its ‘fibre checker’ tool confirmed I could have a connection, but a month later it changed its mind My internet provider informed me by email that full fibre broadband had become available for my property, confirmed by Openreach’s “fibre checker” tool. After a month, Openreach declared the connection uneconomical due to blockages in the conduits below the road. Continue reading...
17.02.2026 07:00 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Why did I get a £100 parking fine when charging my electric car? The charger firm claimed the site operated 24 hours a day, but the parking operator had different ideas I charged my electric car at the 24-hour Mer EV charging station in my local B&Q car park. I then received a £100 parking charge notice (PCN) from the car park operator, Ocean Parking. It said no parking is allowed on the site between 9pm and 6am. Continue reading...
16.02.2026 07:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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EasyJet refuses to honour a promised £472 refund We had to buy a new ticket after an air traffic control outage but the airline is giving endless excuses for not repaying us The day before my easyJet flight to Budapest last July, a UK air traffic control outage caused significant disruption at Gatwick. On my arrival at the airport check-in, easyJet staff refused to issue me with a boarding pass because a smaller aircraft, with fewer seats, had had to be substituted. This left 35 passengers unable to board. Continue reading...
10.02.2026 07:01 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Southern Water admits 18-year meter mix-up – but insists we owe it more It kept on billing us for a neighbouring house’s supply although I live alone at my grandmother’s home I’m currently renting my grandmother’s house while she is in a care home with dementia. Soon after I moved in, I was hit with a £614 quarterly water bill from Southern Water. I was already paying £62 a month in direct debits but was apparently falling short. Continue reading...
09.02.2026 07:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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HMRC thinks I am someone else – and it’s costing me £450 a month Tax authority has associated a stranger’s national insurance number to my own, and is charging me as if I have two jobs In November, HM Revenue and Customs randomly associated someone else’s job to my national insurance (NI) number. I can see where they work, when they started, their payroll number and how much they are earning. HMRC is now taxing me as if I have two jobs, earning twice as much as I do, and adding on a tax adjustment for the tax it thinks I didn’t pay last year. It’s costing me about £450 a month in extra tax and NI contributions. Continue reading...
03.02.2026 07:04 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Insurer won’t pay out after medical emergency forced us to cancel wedding We have now lost £22,000 and now can’t afford to book a new date for the ceremony Two days before my wedding last May, my 23-year-old brother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and underwent emergency surgery. I had bought cancellation cover 18 months previously from The Insurance Emporium (TIE) and immediately submitted a claim as we cancelled the wedding. Continue reading...
02.02.2026 07:04 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Eurostar sent a £120 voucher instead of the £1,744 it owes me I was stranded in Brussels after a power failure, but the promised refund for hotels, food and transport failed to arrive Eurostar is refusing to honour expenses claims after a power failure in the tunnel stranded thousands of passengers last month. Our party of four was stuck at Brussels station when all trains to and from London were cancelled for 24 hours. Eurostar staff told us to find a hotel and handed out leaflets promising that accommodation, food and transport costs would be refunded. Continue reading...
27.01.2026 07:05 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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DVLA revoked my licence, so I couldn’t drive to my dying daughter She had entered end-of-life care and I relied on my car to get to her, but it hadn’t returned the licence Our daughter, who has cancer, entered end-of-life care on Christmas Eve. I am a carer for her and her two young children. We both live in rural villages with no public transport options, so I need a car to get to her at short notice, but last summer, out of the blue, the DVLA told me I could not drive until December and revoked my licence. Continue reading...
26.01.2026 07:02 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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I got a fine after Cineworld cut its parking time limit The cinema chain didn’t warn me clearly when I went to see Avatar: Fire and Ash that I needed to register my number plate I parked at Cineworld in Chichester to watch the new film Avatar: Fire and Ash. It is more than three hours long and, when I returned to my car, I’d received a penalty charge notice (PCN) for overstaying. I’d watched the previous two Avatar films there without a problem. Continue reading...
20.01.2026 07:01 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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E.ON cancelled £13,000 bill it sent to my late mother, but still owes £3,360 A bereaved young customer was baffled by the wildly fluctuating balances the energy supplier claimed on a family’s account When my mother died of cancer, my aunt adopted me. She, too, died of cancer in 2024. At 26, I am now alone and struggling to deal with enormous, nonsensical energy bills from E.ON Next. In 2022, I discovered my aunt had been paying massively inflated bills for the flat I shared with her, so I had the account closed and a new one set up in my name. An E.ON agent took meter readings, a smart meter was installed, and a final bill sent showing the account was more than £6,000 in credit. E.ON wouldn’t let me have it in cash, so the credit was transferred to the new account and used to pay the bills for the next two years. Continue reading...
19.01.2026 07:02 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Dutch court upholds Fortnite fine  While the "Digital Fairness Act" may or may not become a thing in the near future, it is interesting to see how regulators have started to perhaps gain more confidence in the enforcement of existing rules in the digital context. A most recent example comes from a Dutch decision published today in Epic Game's case against the Dutch Authority for Consumer and Market's decision to fine the
14.01.2026 15:40 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Co-op refuses its will-writing service because I was born in Russia This was even though I had revoked my citizenship and now have dual British and German nationality I want to flag a discriminatory experience I’ve had with the Co-op’s will-writing service. I asked it to update a will it had drawn up for me in 2020, with my partner and our daughter as the beneficiaries. I received no follow-up for two months. Continue reading...
13.01.2026 07:03 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Amazon insists I return a phone it says ‘may be lost’ I have paid two monthly £108 instalments but am now phone-less and out of pocket I ordered a £544 phone from Amazon. A tracking update later informed me that it “may be lost” and I could request a refund. I pressed the refund option and was directed to customer service, which insisted I wait a week to claim. A week later I was told I needed to file an incident report from the email address associated with my account. When I complied, the report was rejected as coming from an address that “didn’t meet certain security standards”. Continue reading...
12.01.2026 07:01 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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I can’t access my father’s legacy after solicitors closed down The firm that is holding the files has gone out of business, and complaining may take months My dad died in July in harrowing circumstances. Our probate application was close to being finalised by our solicitor. Then this month we received an email from the solicitor, Samuel Phillips Law, to say it had ceased trading. No explanation was given. Continue reading...
06.01.2026 07:02 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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HMRC insists I am dead. How do I convince it I’m not? It allocated my NI number to a stranger who has died, and will not process my pension top-up request as a result HM Revenue and Customs allocated my national insurance (NI) number to a stranger who has since died. It therefore now insists that I am dead and so will not process my pension top-up request. I’ve had this number since 1991 when I moved to the UK for six years to work. Continue reading...
05.01.2026 07:02 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Anna Tims’ dishonours list: the not-so good, the bad and the ugly customer service awards 2025 It is time to roll out the red carpet in recognition of those that worked hard to keep customers at arm’s length When the year began, I was a listening ear to Your Problems, my column for the Observer. Now I’m a Guardian consumer champion. Reinvention is always bracing. My old life was spent wrestling airlines, insurance firms and energy providers intent on plundering readers’ piggy banks. My new life? Wrestling airlines, insurance firms and energy providers intent on plundering readers’ piggy banks. It is a comfort in this era of seismic shifts to know some things remain constant. You can bank on energy firms to chill your marrow with billing psychodramas and phantom accounts. Meanwhile, certainty is still the business model of insurers: many would say you can be certain that if you damage your car, or yourself, your provider will look for a reason to stall over your claim. Continue reading...
27.12.2025 09:05 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Civil service pension scheme owes me £21,300, five months after retiring Scheme has not replied to complaints and Pensions Ombudsman says it needs evidence of that I retired from the civil service five months ago and I’ve still not received my pension. I’ve complained to the Civil Service Pension Scheme (MyCSP) repeatedly, but it doesn’t reply. The Pensions Ombudsman says they need evidence that MyCSP has not responded to my complaint. How can I provide evidence of a failure to reply? Continue reading...
23.12.2025 07:04 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Passengers left with no compensation after Stansted and Heathrow flight delays Airports say they were not responsible for incidents that led to passengers being out of pocket or ending trip In September we arrived at Stansted airport to find that a fire within a departure lounge had closed the terminal. We had to wait outside in the chilly small hours for nearly two hours. It was another hour before security opened in the terminal, by which time our flight had departed empty to maintain the airline’s schedules. We were rebooked for the following day. Continue reading...
22.12.2025 07:04 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Customs duties and contracts: AG Ćapeta clarifies Article 5 CRD (C-488/24) Photo by Imre Tomosvari on UnsplashLast Thursday, AG Ćapeta delivered her opinion in Kigas (C-488/24), which primarily addresses the scope of information obligations under Article 5 of the Consumer Rights Directive. In this case, a consumer arranged for the transport of goods, such as motorcycles and washing machines, from Norway to Lithuania using a small transport company. They agreed
16.12.2025 14:59 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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We’re sunk when it comes to getting a Swim! refund Notifications of cancellations at Rebecca Adlington and Steve Parry’s swimming school don’t mention form-filling process to get money back Swim!, the nationwide swimming school set up by the Olympians Rebecca Adlington and Steve Parry, has cancelled a number of my child’s lessons recently, but makes it unnecessarily hard to get refunds. Parents, who pay by direct debit, must specifically request a refund by filling out a form within 30 days. None of the text or email notifications of cancellations mention this. Consequently, I have ended up inadvertently paying for five cancelled lessons. Continue reading...
16.12.2025 07:03 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Labeling strikes again: non-alcoholic drinks cannot use the name "gin" (CJEU C-563/24 | PB Vi Goods) Last month, the CJEU issued a judgment which has left many non-lawyers (and also some lawyers) quite puzzled. In PB VI Goods, the Court has sided with a German association in maintaining that PB VI Goods could not sell a beverage under the name "Virgin Alkoholfrei Gin". The decision is based on Regulation EU 2019/787, which concerns the "definition, description, presentation" and labelling
15.12.2025 15:16 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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TalkTalk keeps cutting off my elderly parents’ phone The service was cut off and then there were threats of losing the number of 60 years My 84-year-old parents, who have significant disabilities, had their TalkTalk landline cut off without notice in August. We eventually had to sign a new contract to get the service restored and were assured that they would keep their phone number of 60 years. Continue reading...
15.12.2025 07:01 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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HMRC owes me £2,200 but says it could be 33 weeks before it pays me back A reader says they overpaid their national insurance, but seem to be lending the government money with no interest I have two roles within the NHS, which has resulted in overpayments of national insurance each year. Since Covid, the refund system has slowly ground to a halt. I was told in October that I am owed £2,200 and that it could take 33 weeks to receive the payment. Continue reading...
09.12.2025 07:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Your Party let me down with membership chaos A reader found there seemed no way to cancel a subscription for Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s new party I subscribed to Your Party at its shambolic start and am now finding it impossible to cancel my membership. No one replies to emails. My local party branch told me it can’t help. The portal requires me to open a new account and commit to another payment in order to cancel anything. Continue reading...
08.12.2025 07:03 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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UK energy bills: a tragedy (and farce) in three acts | Anna Tims Weird tales of meter mix-ups, incomprehensible bills, and to foment the drama, a teenager threatened with a trashed credit rating On a dark winter’s night, what could be more engrossing than my latest tragifarce about energy firms, guaranteed toset spines tingling? Continue reading...
01.12.2025 07:01 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Small print on signs at a tram park and ride hid the fact I could get clamped I followed the obvious signs but an enforcement officer had to point out a notice on the back of the entrance sign and it cost me £140 Our car was clamped while parked at the NET Forest Tram Park and Ride in Nottingham, and we had to pay £140 to have it freed. The prominent signs displayed at the entrance state that those parking without using the tram will be clamped. We did use the tram to and from the city centre after walking in the adjacent park. Continue reading...
25.11.2025 07:01 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
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Ryanair expects me to take the financial hit for helping others As a doctor I stepped in to tend to an elderly passenger … but it won’t waive £100 transfer fee to rebook I was due to fly from London Stansted to Pescara, Italy. I was nearing the departure gate when an elderly woman fell down an escalator. I am a doctor and stopped to help. She had sustained a broken wrist, deep cuts and a worrying head injury and I had to stem the bleeding until staff and paramedics arrived. I asked for gate crew to be made aware that I was delayed by a medical emergency, but when I reached the gate 15 minutes before my flight departed, it had closed. Continue reading...
24.11.2025 07:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
2030 Consumer Agenda is here – What's next for EU consumer law On 19 November 2025, the European Commission adopted the long-awaited 2030 Consumer Agenda, its strategic plan for EU consumer policy for the next five years. This is the most recent rendition of the Commission’s periodic consumer policy blueprints, preceded by the New Consumer Agenda 2020-2025. The 2030 Agenda is entitled ‘A new impulse for consumer protection, competitiveness and sustainable
20.11.2025 11:48 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
The right of withdrawal, linked agreements and vehicle purchase contracts- the CJEU in C-143/23 On the 30th of October 2025, the CJEU delivered a judgment in the joined cases of consumers KI and FA against Mercedes-Benz Bank AG and Volkswagen Bank GmbH in C-143/23 , advancing the interpretation of Articles 10 and 14 of Directive 2008/48/EC on Consumer Credit. The consumers entered into a credit agreement with their respective banks to purchase a motor vehicle for private
19.11.2025 13:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

@nationalconsumer is following 19 prominent accounts