borogirl

My partner has been offered a sales job paying £30 a day, for an 8 hour shift. I calculate that to be £3.75 per hour. This is a 40 hours a week post. He has been told that if he earns enough commission, that will make his pay up to the legal minimum of £5.73 an hour, but commission rates have not been specified for the job.

I have worked out that if he doesn't earn any commission, that is considerably less than minimum wage, so only the commission will make up the shortfall. I thought minimum wage was guaranteed, regardless of commission, and that commision can't be used to make up the difference. Can anyone guide me as to the legal position on this issue, please?

Thank you in advance for your answers.

Hello, I'm trying to find an ISP which can offer the actual speed it claims. All the ones I know of offer speeds of "up to" 8mb, for example, when in reality they deliver 2mb. That's what's happening with me at the moment, on Talk Talk. I'm not in a cabled area, and I'm only looking for broadband and phone, not a TV package such as Sky, Virgin Media, etc. I simply want to have what I'm paying for. Any suggestions, anyone?

My partner and I live near Blackburn, Lancashire and we need to get to John Lennon Airport. We'd prefer to go by bus as he has a disabled bus pass, which allows him free bus travel anywhere in England. We've seen the direct bus from Chorlton street, Manchester to the airport, but it seems that's going to cost each of us £7 single, £10 return, with no discount for the bus pass holder. Can anyone give me details as to options available? We'll be leaving on 22nd Dec and returning on 5th Jan, so we need a period return, to cover both those dates. Thanks in advance for your help.

I signed out from my Yahoo email last night and tried to sign into my sister's account (with her permission) to do some stuff for her. I didn't click on the "Keep me signed in for 2 weeks" box, as it was just a one-off job that I was doing for my sister. It wouldn't let me into her account. When I went to sign back into mine again, it wouldn't let me back in to mine, either. It's also signed me out of Yahoo Answers. I'm writing this message on my mobile, as I'm still logged in on here. Can anyone suggest how I might be able to sort out this problem?

My partner and I live in a flat in Lancashire. Our recycling is collected fortnightly on Mondays: we have to sort it into cardboard, paper, etc and bag/box it, leaving it on the street for collection.

The last two fortnights the bin crews have collected everything except the boxes, preferring these to be allowed to blow along the street instead.

I rang and emailed the council repeatedly, and was told someone would collect it yesterday, then today, and if it wasn't collected by 4.30 today (Tuesday) I should ring the recycling department.

Sure enough, 4.30 came and went, with no sign of the bin guys, so I rang the council again.

I was told that the department I needed closed at 4:30, which I found strange as I was told to ring after that time.

I've now been given two options: leave the cardboard out all night and hope they collect it in the morning, or put it out at 7.30 am, and again, hope they collect it.

We have contacted our local press in the hope that some negative publicity may stir the council into action.

We are following the rules and guidelines for sorting and leaving stuff out at the right time and in the right place. How do we get the council to do their part?

Can anyone help us get our recycling collected properly?

I've had a Facebook account for some time and everything has been fine with it until today. My contacts were sent a video, apparently by me, but I didn't send it. It was done without my knowledge or consent. As my account was compromised, I immediately deactivated my account and re-started it using a different email address and password. Within an hour of me setting up the new account someone added me as a group member for a video group, again without my knowledge or consent. Can someone tell me what could be the problem here and what I should do about it?

I successfully cancelled contracts for myself and my partner over a month ago, due to the unfair variation of terms letter (non-direct debit fee increase, charge for paper billing, rounding up on the first minute of a call). That's fine as far as that's concerned, but I now have a new problem.

I have another contract on which the charges have been increased for all the reasons named above, but I haven't received my notification that the charges on this account would be going up. Three have told me that I can't cancel, as I haven't received my letter, where my argument is that they can't increase the charges, as they haven't sent me the letter notifying me of the charge increase. It's a vicious circle.

I rang Customer Retentions/Customer Services at Three to cancel this account and they told me to expect a call from a customer services manager within 48 hours. I left it 4 days to give them every opportunity to respond, and rang them today to chase it up. Customer Services then told me again to wait a further 48 hours, making a total of 6 days. That, of course, assumes that they will ring me within the 48 hour deadline, and not stall me/forget about me again. I also rang the Chief Executive's office in Glasgow. They gave me the same 48 hour deadline to ring me, and they also failed to do so.

All I want to do is cancel my contract, due to the unfair terms and conditions, but I'm getting nowhere fast. Do customers not count any more, or are we just cash cows, to be milked and milked again?

Does anyone have any help and/or advice for me, to help me solve this problem and cancel my contract?

My partner and I have had a joint bank account with the Halifax, which we have now left, due to the bank charges they were adding left, right and centre. We are in the middle of suing the bank, but our case against them is on hold, until this big test case in London is resolved. That's fair enough, everyone has to wait, we shouldn't be any different to anyone else in that respect.

However, we each have received a letter from a company called Blair, Oliver and Scott Limited, who are the Halifax's legal arm, so they sue clients for outstanding debts. I phoned today and spoke to them. I explained that we are suing the bank and are awaiting the outcome of the London case, as well as the fact that we are on benefits, so have little income. They still want us to pay them a monthly sum as they are not prepared to wait a year or more for their money. I left the call saying I would have to speak to my partner first, as all decisions are made together. They tried to pressure me into making a payment arrangement there and then on the phone with them, without discussing it with my partner. Surely, until the London case is decided, nothing can move either way, as this money is in limbo until the case is sorted out.

The money they are suing us for (£521.80) is entirely made up of bank charges put on by them. How can they be allowed to do this and what should we do next?

I've been using Yahoo Answers for a few years now, with my fair share of best answers (not that I'm bragging)! Lately though, I've come across a problem. I'm not getting my best answers notification emails, when I receive a best answer. The only way I know I have a best answer is when I login and it says "You have 10 points for a best answer". Does anyone know what's happened to the email notifications?

My partner and I did this yesterday, saving around £1,000 in doing so. To cut a long story short, we found out that 3 UK are going to increase the amount they are charging for non-direct debit customers to pay their bills, from £3 to £4 a month, plus they are going to charge £1 a month for paper bills. The only way to avoid the paper bill charge is to switch to an on-line e-billing system, and the only way to go onto an e-billing system is to go on direct debit.

We argued that this left us at a disadvantage from when we originally signed our contracts, so we wanted to exercise our right to leave the company, and cancel our contracts, without financial penalty. We were told we couldn't do this, and were stuck with this, but we took it further.

We contacted the press office by email on Monday evening and the next morning my partner received a call from them yesterday (Tuesday) morning, telling him to expect a call from the CEO's office, the Chief Executive. He rang, and after much discussion, he agreed that the situation had been mishandled by the call centre staff and we were perfectly within our rights to leave, which we have done.

We have given 3 a month's notice (30 days), and after that, we are gone, with only the outstanding balance to pay. The rest of the contracts (around 10 month's worth) have been cancelled without us having to pay a penny in termination fees.

Needless to say we are thrilled to bits. I hope this knowledge helps someone who may wish to leave 3.

My partner has a 3 sim card, which he has had for around 3 years, having upgraded his phone a few times, and switched the sim between handsets. The sim card is starting to show signs of fair wear and tear, so we rang 3 to ask for a replacement. They told us that the regular cost to replace a sim card is £15 VAT, which is £17.62 altogether. They offered it to us for £5. We argued that, having spent so much money, and given the amount of money spent on the card (it's on contract), along with the fact that 3 years of use would cause fair wear and tear on a sim card, we would have expected no charge for the sim to be replaced. I agree that £5 is not a lot of money, but it's the principle of the thing. We think 3 get enough money out of customers as things are, without chasing money like this. Does anyone have any opinions on the subject?

My partner tried to pay his 3 bill this morning via "My 3" on his phone. He couldn't do it for technical reasons, so a 3 rep rang him later to take payment, which was done. The rep then told my partner that the non-direct debit charge is going up from £3.50 to £4 a month. Why should non-direct debit payers be penalised like this? Even if we pay our bills on time, every month, we still get hit for this charge. We can't do it by direct debit, as we're paid fortnightly, so we don't have a fixed pay day.

I'm looking for a no-frills set, not plasma, LCD, or anything like that. A simple crt screen would be fine. Everywhere I look I see high-spec, high-priced TV's, but I'm not Working and money is very tight. I've asked on my local Freecycle site, but have received no replies. All I want is a TV that works. My absolute max budget is £100. I live in the Blackburn/Accrington area of Lancashire, if that helps.

Is anyone having trouble getting a wheely bin & recycling box from their local council? We've been given an indefinite date for boxes and 8 months for a bin. The local council say there's been a fire at the depot in Europe where they get the bins from and there's no other supplier. They won't take the rubbish cos it's not binned, & won't take the recycling cos it not boxed. They'll take the bagged recycling, but that only covers certain items. They want us to take it 3 miles to a re-cycling depot. Help!

Talk Talk, my ISP, tell me they are looking into it, but I'm unhappy with their methods & timescales. I reported the internet as being out of action on Sunday, & was told it would take 24-48 hours. I ran through the usual checks, changing the filter, using 2 filters, different modem, you name it. They've just realised that there may be a fault with the phone, & asked me to ring and report that. They've also told me that there may be a problem at the Blackburn exchange. Does anyone have the same problem?

Someone is sending emails in my name to my contacts, to sell electrical goods. How do I stop this from happening and get my account back in my control? I'm happy to close my account if necessary to stop this from happening.

Hi, I hope someone can help me. I'm having problems with the BBC IPlayer that I've never come across before. I've downloaded the Player and the Download Manager, but I can't download any programmes. When I try to download something, it tells me that I need an upgrade for my Windows Media Player, and offers to download it for me. I click on "yes" to accept the upgrade, then it immediately tells me that there's been an error. It just stops there and doesn't tell me what the error is. I've tried uninstalling and re-installing the IPlayer software, and I've even done a full Windows reset to try and get around this problem, but nothing seems to fix it. I've had this problem for over a week. I thought I was pretty tech savvy, but this has got me banjaxed. I hope someone out there can help me resolve this issue and get my IPlayer back up and running again. Thank you in advance for your kind assistance.

My partner has had a a strange text message on his mobile phone. It says the following, and is worded exactly like this, so the poor grammar, etc is not mine.

"FreeMsg: User you must respond only to '81456' with the text 'Live' failure to do so, your service will be suspended.'

My partner rang 3 and was told to ignore it and not worry about it. Has anyone else received this message, or can anyone shed any light on where it's from? We know it's a scam.

Hi, I have the LG Viewty mobile phone, and I'm looking for a web browser that works and is stable. I'm currently using Operamini 4, but I can only use a generic version, as there isn't one dedicated to the Viewty. I can't get Yahoo Go either, as it's not compatible with the Viewty. Please help me sort this out.

I've been to various parts of the UK for a variety of reasons, and have been trying to buy a Nintendo DS or DS Lite. Every shop I went to (where it's available) sold the DS Lite for £100 and the DS for £65, the latter regardless of condition. Is there some sort of cartel/price fix going on with this? What's happened to competition in this country? It's an amazing coincidence that all shops have it at the same price, including different companies, large stores, small stores, etc. Anyone know where I might get the best deal on either console? I'm looking for 2, 1 each for my partner and I.