The Janplex Post

Wonga Advert Wonga, the leading payday loan lender in the UK, has been recently asked by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to pay £2.6 as compensation for sending fake solicitor letters to debtors.  The letters which were sent from non-existent law firms threatened defaulting customers with legal action unless they repay their loans immediately.  It is estimated that about 45,000 of Wonga customers were affected by this scam and would benefit from this compensation.  Opinion however is divided over whether the FCA has done the right thing for consumers by imposing this heavy fine on Wonga. Some people have wholeheartedly welcomed the position taken by the FCA against Wonga.  For them, threatening debtors with fake legal action as Wonga has done can have unintended consequences on the debtors.  The threat of legal action against debtors, for example, can lead many of them to be over worried about their debt and have sleepless nights.  It can al...

A private prescription charge in the UK is funded by the patient rather than the National Health Service (NHS).    There is no fixed price a GP can charge for this prescription.   It is up to a GP to determine how much he or she considers reasonable for prescribing medication privately.   While many GP’s are reasonable when making such a private prescription some GP’s are not reasonable.   These GP’s can charge their patients for private prescription more than what the drug may cost the patients.   I realised this when I attempted to get a private prescription for Malarone from my GP.   Malarone is a drug for preventing malaria associated with mosquito bites in areas such as Africa.   The GP surgery asked me to pay £20 to get the prescription for this drug.   I refused to make this payment because I considered it too high. I went to a supermarket to purchase the drug instead.   At the supermarket I paid £15 for 15 Malarone tabl...

Her Majesty Revenue & Customs (HMRC) which is the body responsible for Inland Revenue in the UK holds vast amount of people's data including people’s name, date of birth, address, and bank details.   The HMRC gathers these data from official birth records of people born in the UK.   The government agency also collects personal details from people who have come to live, study or work in the UK or all of the above. This information database helps the HMRC to deal with issues such as benefit payments, tax credits and taxation.   In addition to using the data it holds for the purposes above the HMRC is now proposing to sell private data it collects from people to third parties.   It is hope that this sale can bring the much needed revenue to the government agency for tackling some of its pressing problems.   HMRC promises to put adequate measures in place to ensure that only reputable third parties can purchase people’s sensitive data.   ...

 Mr Richard Scudamore One of the topical issues in the British media is the sexist emails sent by the English Premier League Chief Executive Mr Richard Scudamore to his friends. Among other contents of these messages include women are “gash”, “banged skinny big-titted broads”, and the irrationality of women is questionable. The public could have not known about these messages if they had not been leaked to the media by Mr Scudamore former personal assistant, Ms Rani Abrahams. Ms Abrahams uncovered the sexist messages by Scudamore whilst accessing the Chief Executive private messages. It should be stressed however that she got this information through unauthorised access to the chief executive email correspondence with friends. This has raised a controversy whether the PA has done the right thing by leaking the messages. For strong supporters of feminism the answer is yes. Ms Abrahams had done the right thing by uncovering the sexist attitude of the top man in the Premi...

There has been a lot of publicity regarding the abuse of the sick and elderly people in care by their carers. The most recent abuse case involves the CCTV footage of carers beating their clients. This practice is not acceptable not only to the victims’ relatives but also to everyone that cares about the vulnerable ones in society. The government adviser on Health, Dr Shereen Hussein, has now come up with a radical proposal to stop this abuse of the sick and elderly people in care. Her proposal is that “recruitment agencies should ensure care workers can speak English before placing them in vulnerable people's homes”. In other words, people who are not highly proficient in English language should not look after the less abled. There is no denying the fact that communication is very important between clients and their carers within the care industry. Clients communicate their needs such as what to eat or wear to careers in English Language. The carers must understand t...

Interpol stands for International Criminal Police Organisation and was formed in 1923. We often hear about this organisation when there is an international manhunt for a person or persons suspected of committing serious crimes such as murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, or drug trafficking. Last year, for example, an Interpol arrest warrant was issued for Samantha Lewthwale, in connection with the Kenya Mall bombing. Any Interpol member country is obliged to arrest this suspect if found within their territory. We tend to hear a lot about Interpol in cases like this but who exactly are the Interpol. Many of us may have the assumption that Interpol is a force similar to the police or military. It has large stations similar to police stations or military barracks scattered across the world for dealing with criminal cases. Unfortunately none of these assumptions is true. Although the organisation has its headquarters in Lyon, France, Interpol has no separ...

The advent of internet shopping has helped overcome the difficulties associated with offline shopping.   Offline shopping involves walking or driving down to a physical store to do shopping.   This is time consuming and difficult for people working long hours a day.    It is also difficult for the elderly and less abled persons to shop offline. In contrast, internet shopping can be done anywhere and anytime.   It can be done at work during break time.   It can also be done at home late at night.   None of these involves travelling.     Thus, the time spent travelling to the physical store is saved for something else. These benefits however tend to cloud our mind from the dangers associated with internet shopping.   Some online retailers may use pictures to distort the true state of their products.   We can easily be misled to buy these items on the basis of these pictures.   We only tend to discover this distortion afte...