The Lemon Fool

In the last months I've had the following issues to deal with and I am still dealing with some

1. Mum's funeral plan - had to take on the Funeral Directors a national PLC.
2. Parents in law refund from a national retailer - now in County Court
3. Dispute with national retailer for damage to our new carpet - heading towards County Court
4. Slow refund of monies paid out for furniture which was of a terrible quality
5. Dealing with a potential challenge to my late Mum's will
6. HMRC - an 8 year battle and it continues

I suspect many other Fools are having to "fight their corner" in areas where in the past it wasn't needed.

We have a Legal Board. Is it possible to consider if we rename the board Legal & Consumer Issues please? Or something like that.

Thank you for listening

Take care

AiY(D)

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Thank you for listening

Brace yourself for a possible rejection. It is not up to me but I am aware that the horses have occasionally been frightened here by threats of legal action. Such a board might indeed be missing but it also might encourage discussions about litigious matters.

All the best,
Chris

PS Sorry to read of all these issues. It must be very worrying for you.

Best of luck...
I wish I could help but none of those areas fall into my knowledge specialisms

csearle wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Thank you for listening

Brace yourself for a possible rejection. It is not up to me but I am aware that the horses have occasionally been frightened here by threats of legal action. Such a board might indeed be missing but it also might encourage discussions about litigious matters.

All the best,
Chris

PS Sorry to read of all these issues. It must be very worrying for you.

There's been a lot of good (and recurring) advice through the years.

I got some very valuable out of hours recommendations myself on TMF many years back and as a result was well prepared when we met a personal injuries lawyer a couple of days later when the better half was out of hospital

There might be benefit in a couple of generic and non-incriminating sticky "read this if..." posts at the the top of that forum
These could provide links to resources and importantly explain the nuances of discussion around the types of topic that might be expected to crop up

-sd

csearle wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Thank you for listening

Brace yourself for a possible rejection. It is not up to me but I am aware that the horses have occasionally been frightened here by threats of legal action. Such a board might indeed be missing but it also might encourage discussions about litigious matters.

All the best,
Chris

PS Sorry to read of all these issues. It must be very worrying for you.

If the organisation was not named (explicitly or implicitly), then perhaps it could work?

Clariman wrote:

csearle wrote:

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:Thank you for listening

Brace yourself for a possible rejection. It is not up to me but I am aware that the horses have occasionally been frightened here by threats of legal action. Such a board might indeed be missing but it also might encourage discussions about litigious matters.

All the best,
Chris

PS Sorry to read of all these issues. It must be very worrying for you.

If the organisation was not named (explicitly or implicitly), then perhaps it could work?

Hi Clariman (aka Mr. C ,

Thank you for responding. I wasn't aware of the negative issues associated with my suggestion, sorry. I think the issue may be that is becomes something that adds to the moderators tasks and I can't really see that would be of any benefit really. It's a suggestion/thought and in a world racked full of priorities I don't think it's uppermost.

Thank you

Take care & hopefully you and Mrs. C are enjoying some great weather and a glass of lemonade sat in the garden

AiY(D)

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:In the last months I've had the following issues to deal with and I am still dealing with some

1. Mum's funeral plan - had to take on the Funeral Directors a national PLC.
2. Parents in law refund from a national retailer - now in County Court
3. Dispute with national retailer for damage to our new carpet - heading towards County Court
4. Slow refund of monies paid out for furniture which was of a terrible quality
5. Dealing with a potential challenge to my late Mum's will
6. HMRC - an 8 year battle and it continues

I suspect many other Fools are having to "fight their corner" in areas where in the past it wasn't needed.

We have a Legal Board. Is it possible to consider if we rename the board Legal & Consumer Issues please? Or something like that.

Thank you for listening

Take care

AiY(D)

Clearly the unavoidable things have to be dealt with, but for one's mental health it's good to keep things simple. Sometimes dropping the little (or big) battles is worth it for the reduction of stress. Also, I play a Chinese/Japanese board game called weichi/igo and one of the key things you learn is that you don't have to win all your games: a wise and modest person will accept her opponent as being equally able and expect her to win around half the time. Extra wins are gained only through self-improvement and self-understanding.


As for the board name I don't see the problem. People already post their consumer issues there. But hey if a new name makes people feel better, then why not?

GS

AsleepInYorkshire wrote:In the last months I've had the following issues to deal with and I am still dealing with some

1. Mum's funeral plan - had to take on the Funeral Directors a national PLC.
2. Parents in law refund from a national retailer - now in County Court
3. Dispute with national retailer for damage to our new carpet - heading towards County Court
4. Slow refund of monies paid out for furniture which was of a terrible quality
5. Dealing with a potential challenge to my late Mum's will
6. HMRC - an 8 year battle and it continues

I suspect many other Fools are having to "fight their corner" in areas where in the past it wasn't needed.

We have a Legal Board. Is it possible to consider if we rename the board Legal & Consumer Issues please? Or something like that.

Thank you for listening

Take care

AiY(D)

I have also found myself recently having to deal with a huge number of conflicts with traders and service providers. The disappearance of Trading Standards has, I think, affected things adversely. And the regulatory arrangements are unsatisfactory in so many areas. So many services have deteriorated, I don't even know if I could see my MP these days; I'd have to get past her gate-keepers.

I would welcome a Consumer Complaints Board, as distinct from the very useful Legal board. The Fools in charge could insist on anonymity for the companies being complained about. Seems unreasonable that we can recommend companies and services, but not describe the difficulties we have experienced with some, as well as sharing how we solved issues e.g. which department was responsive to our request for a refund.

bruncher wrote:I would welcome a Consumer Complaints Board, as distinct from the very useful Legal board. The Fools in charge could insist on anonymity for the companies being complained about. Seems unreasonable that we can recommend companies and services, but not describe the difficulties we have experienced with some, as well as sharing how we solved issues e.g. which department was responsive to our request for a refund.

I don't see anonymity is a problem as long as people post factually and without lobbing in slurs. You can't be done for libel if what you say is true and, indeed, I don't see how sharing how issues are solved can usefully be done without naming the company. E.g. the method for best results from my telco may be different to that for yours, so talking in generalities is likely to be less than useful.

However, if the site owners are worried about legal threats just 'cos someone has something negative to report about a company, then best it just be left to Money Saving Expert. They have a free "Resolver" service with which you "can raise pretty much any kind of complaint with over 30,000 firms and public bodies, including shops, restaurants, energy and telecoms firms, banks and insurance providers"

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/site/resolver/

And if people want to vent and rant about a company they can do so on the MSE forums (I guess MSE have a bigger legal budget than TLF ), e.g. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6306982/talktalk-broadband-can-it-get-any-worse