Craig Williamson, 42, the wedding planner at Guthrie Castle, Angus, has appeared in court charged with fraud.
Reportedly he double or triple booked weddings and had deposits of more than £140,000 paid into his own bank account. Continue reading
Southgreen Park is a modern non-residential events centre set in the village of Mattishall, in the heart of rural Norfolk and close to East Dereham.
Offered are a room for 120, divisible into three, a room for 60, and four rooms for 14/22/22/25. In addition there are two training rooms for 20 and 16 and a computer training room with 10 workstations. Continue reading
Well-heeled guests using the twelve premier suites at the London Marriott County Hall hotel are offered a Silver Lining package for £300.
This is designed to help them make the most of their stay in the capital and its changeable weather and provides the services of an in-house meteorologist to provide rainy and sunny day itineraries, The service also supplies a hair stylist for when it is windy, coats and wellies for when it rains and skincare for sunny days.
27-28 September 2017
Festival and Outdoor Event Show. Sandown Park
Web: festivalandoutdoorshow.co.uk
11 October 2017
Academic Venue Showcase Emirates Stadium
Web: venuemasters.co.uk
Is love stronger than death? This is a question explored in Destiny, the 1921 silent expressionist and allegorical film from director Fritz Lang, his first notable success released five years before his futuristic science fiction classic Metropolis and ten years before his crime film noir M.. Destiny – Der mude Tod (“The weary Death”) – has been overlooked in favour of the better-known yet it was cited by English and American director Alfred Hitchcock and Spanish director Luis Bunuel as being influential to their own films. Continue reading
CRACKDOWN BITES IN COURT A crackdown by the travel industry against fake food poisoning claims for compensation from British holidaymakers has started to find its …
EUROPCAR RIP OFF ACCUSATIONS International car hire firm Europcar has been accused of ripping off its customers over the last 10 years with grossly inflated…
ARE YOU A STEREOTYPE? A serious report on gender stereotyping from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been met with derision in some quarters …
NO MORE CARD TRICKS The adding of inflated surcharges for payment by credit card, which costs companies 0.6%, is to be banned from January. The ban will …
NO ICE THANKS An investigation by the BBC’s Watchdog programme has found levels, some “significant”, of faecal bacteria in ice served to customers at some of…
SALMON LEAP Those now including salmon in their diet, as an oily fish and good source of omega-3, might want to note its significantly increased price in the last …
ON SOCIAL MEDIA SO IT MUST BE TRUE Reportedly the efforts of one Jeremy Corbyn to market himself as the young person’s best friend are suffering a few minor …
A crackdown by the travel industry against fake food poisoning claims for compensation from British holidaymakers has started to find its way through to our courts.
A family of three appeared at Liverpool magistrates court last week charged with six counts of fraud after alleging they were ill with food poisoning on holidays to Majorca and demanding £52,000 in compensation from Thomas Cook. Deborah Briton, 53, her partner Paul Briton, 43 and a daughter Charlene Briton, all pleaded not guilty and face up to six years imprisonment if the case against them is proved. Their claim was handled by David Norman Solicitors of Nelson, Lancashire. Continue reading
International car hire firm Europcar has been accused of ripping off its customers over the last 10 years with grossly inflated repair bills when cars suffer damage.
The overcharging of as much as 300% is being investigated by Trading Standards officers in Leicester where Europcar is based and may breach the Fraud Act and the Consumer Rights Act. There have been claims that the garages carrying out the repairs were secretly told to inflate the costs by Europcar, to include a large share for itself and the company have admitted that the mess could cost it £30 million to clean up, a figure that could be optimistic given that around £38 million was wiped off the company’s value when the allegations emerged.
Suspecting that the rip of could be an industry wide practice not just confined to Europcar the Daily Mail has advised car hire customers billed for damage to insist on seeing a copy of the bill for the work the car hire company say had to be carried out, and to pass the details to the newspaper for investigation of possible fraud.
A serious report on gender stereotyping from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has been met with derision in some quarters.
The ASA’s main concerns are ads that relate to body image, objectification, sexualisation, gender characteristics and roles and mocking those who do not conform to gender stereotypes. Ads that inappropriately sexualise women and girls, and those that suggest it is acceptable for young women to be unhealthily thin are given as examples, as are those that suggest that a woman’s role is cleaning up after other family members, or staying in the kitchen to cook that suggest that an activity is unsuitable for a girl because it is stereotypically associated with boys (or vice versa) or that mock men for being unable to carry out simple parental or household tasks. Continue reading
The adding of inflated surcharges for payment by credit card, which costs companies 0.6%, is to be banned from January.
The ban will affect airlines such as Flybe, which charges 3% with a minimum charge of £5, Ryanair, FlightCentre and Thomson Airways which charge 2% and British Airways which charges 1%. Insurer Swinton Insurance charges 2.5% as do North District Council, with other councils such as Wealdon, East Herts, Lichfield and Tameside all charging 2%.
Budget hotel group Travelodge currently impose a £2 fee for payments by credit card or PayPal.